Ultra-dense Heterogeneous Networks

Driven by the ever-increasing amount of mobile data, cellular networks evolve from small cell network to ultra-dense heterogeneous networks, to provide high system capacity and spectrum efficiency. By bringing base stations (BSs) to the approximate spatial scale and number magnitude, ultra-dense heterogeneous networks would definitely bring unprecedented paradigm changes to the network design. Firstly, along with densification of small cells, inter-cell interference becomes severe and may deteriorate performance of mobile users. Assigning network resources including bandwidth and time slots, while avoiding interference, desires serious consideration. Secondly, the coverage area of BSs becomes small and irregular, resulting in much frequent and complicated handovers when mobile users move around. How to ensure continuous communication and implement effective mobility management, and inter-cell resource allocation and cooperation, remains a challenging issue. Thirdly, such dynamic change in spatial dimension enables us to re-investigate available and ongoing communications and networking techniques, such as massive MIMO, CoMP, millimeter waves (mmWaves), carrier aggregation, full duplex radio, and D2D communications.

To address the aforementioned challenging research issues, this book will investigate the service and QoE provisioning in ultra-dense heterogeneous networks. In particular, firstly we introduce ultra-dense heterogeneous networks by careful definition regarding spatial deployment, generic characteristics, and requirements of ultra-dense heterogeneous networks in order to ensure QoE of mobile users. Secondly, we depict the resource management among small cells in close proximity, mobility management for mobile users (address the super-frequent handovers), and interference management (dealing with the interference due to frequency-reuse in the vicinity). Thirdly, we study the enabling factors, and the integration of ultra-dense heterogeneous networks with enabling technologies, such as massive-MIMO, cloud-RAN, mmWaves, D2D, IoT. Finally, we conclude the book and indicate future directions and challenges.

Wen Sun is currently a professor in Northwestern Polytechnical University. She received her Ph.D. degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from National University of Singapore in 2014, and B.E. degree from Harbin Institute of Technology in 2009. She was a research fellow in National University of Singapore from 2014 to 2015. Her research interests cover a wide range of areas including wireless mobile communications, IoT, 5G, and blockchain. She has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers in various prestigious IEEE journals and conferences, including IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Network, IEEE Wireless Communications. She was the recipient of the best paper award of GlobeCom2019. She is IEEE senior member and serves as publicity chair for WiMob2019 and CNS2020, and TPC member for ICC and GlobeCom in 2018 and 2019. She also serves as an associate editor for International Journal of Multimedia Intelligence and Security and IEEE Access.

Qubeijian Wang is currently an assistant professor with the School of Cybersecurity, Northwestern Polytechnical University, China. He received the B.E. degrees in electrical engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China, and the University of Liverpool, U.K., in 2015, the M.E. degree in telecommunications from the University of Melbourne, Australia, in 2017, and the Ph.D. degree in electronic information technology from Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau. His research interests include UAV-aided communications, physical-layer security, and large-scale network performance analysis. He serves as TPC member for conferences, including GlobeCom 2021 and 2022, and VTC2021-Fall and reviewer for various prestigious IEEE journals and conferences.

Nan Zhao is currently a Professor at Dalian University of Technology, China. He received the B.S. degree in electronics and information engineering in 2005, the M.E. degree in signal and information processing in 2007, and the Ph.D. degree in information and communication engineering in 2011, from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China. His recent research interests include UAV Communications, Interference Alignment, and Physical Layer Security. Dr. Zhao is serving or served on the editorial boards of 9 SCI-indexed journals, including IEEE Wireless Communications Letters and IEEE Transactions on Green Communications and Networking. He received Top Reviewer Award from IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology in 2016, and was nominated as Exemplary Reviewers by IEEE Communications Letters in 2016 and by IEEE Transactions on Communications in 2018 and 2019. He won the best paper awards in IEEE VTC 2017 Spring, ICNC 2018, WCSP 2018 and WCSP 2019. He also received the IEEE Communications Society Asia Pacific Board Outstanding Young Researcher Award in 2018.

Chao Shen is a full Professor in the faculty of Electronic and Information Engineering, Xi'an Jiaotong University of China. He currently serves as the Associate Dean of School of Cyber Science and Engineering of Xi’an Jiaotong University. He received the B.S. degrees in automatic control and the Ph.D. degree in system engineering from Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, in 2007 and 2014, respectively. He was a research scholar in Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon University from 2011 to 2013. He has published more than 70 research papers in international referred journals and conferences at the intersection of computer and network security, big data analysis, machine learning and automatic control. His current research interests mainly include Data-Driven Network and System Security, AI Security, Cyber-Physical System Security. He currently serves as an Associate Editor for a number of journals, including Journal of Franklin Institute, Frontiers of Computer Science, and Engineering.

Lawrence Wong is Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS). He was Vice President of IEEE from 2014 to 2017. He is currently holding the position of Deputy Director (Strategic Development) at the Interactive and Digital Media Institute (IDMI) in NUS. He was previously Executive Director of the Institute for Infocomm Research (I2R) from Nov 2002 - Nov 2006. Since joining NUS in 1983, he served in various positions at the department, faculty, and university levels, including Head of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Jan 2008 - Oct 2009, Director of the NUS Computer Centre from Jul 2000 - Nov 2002, and Director of the Centre for Instructional Technology from Jan 1998 - Jun 2000. Prior to joining NUS in 1983, he was a Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Crawford Hill Lab, NJ, USA, from 1980 to 1983. He received the B.Sc. (1st class Honours) and Ph.D. degrees in Electronic and Electrical Engineering from Loughborough University, UK, in 1976 and 1980, respectively. His research interests include wireless networks and systems, multimedia networks, and source matched transmission techniques with over 200 publications and 4 patents in these areas. He is co-author of the book on “Source-Matched Mobile Communications”. He received the IEEE Marconi Premium Award in 1989, NUS Teaching Award (1989), IEEE Millennium Award in 2000, the e-nnovator Awards 2000, Open Category, and Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME) 2006.