The noticeably increased deployment of wireless networks for battery-limited industrial applications in recent years highlights the need for tractable performance analysis methodologies as well as efficient QoS-aware transmit power management schemes. In this work, we seek to combine several important aspects of such networks, i.e., multi-hop connectivity, channel heterogeneity and the queuing effect, in order to address these needs. We design delay-bound-based algorithms for transmit power minimization and network lifetime maximization of multi-hop heterogeneous wireless networks using our previously developed stochastic network calculus approach for performance analysis of a cascade of buffered wireless fading channels. Our analysis shows an overall transmit power saving of up to 95% compared to a fixed power allocation scheme in case when the service is modeled via a Shannon capacity. For a more realistic set-up, we evaluate the performance of the suggested algorithm in a WirelessHART network, which is a widely used communication standard for industrial process automation applications. We find that link heterogeneity can significantly reduce network lifetime when no efficient power management is applied. Using extensive simulation study we further show that the proposed bound-based power allocation performs reasonably well compared to the real optimum, especially in the case of WirelessHART networks.

We use stochastic network calculus to investigate the delay performance of a multiuser MISO system with zero-forcing beamforming. First, we consider ideal assumptions with long codewords and perfect CSI at the transmitter, where we observe a strong channel hardening effect that results in very high reliability with respect to the maximum delay of the application. We then study the system under more realistic assumptions with imperfect CSI and finite blocklength channel coding. These effects lead to interference and to transmission errors, and we derive closed-form approximations for the resulting error probability. Compared to the ideal case, imperfect CSI and finite length coding cause massive degradations in the average transmission rate. Surprisingly, the system nevertheless maintains the same qualitative behavior as in the ideal case: as long as the average transmission rate is higher than the arrival rate, the system can still achieve very high reliability with respect to the maximum delay.

Many emerging mobile applications, including augmented reality (AR) and wearable cognitive assistance (WCA), aim to provide seamless user interaction. However, the complexity of benchmarking these human-in-the-loop applications limits reproducibility and makes performance evaluation difficult. In this paper, we present EdgeDroid, a benchmarking suite designed to reproducibly evaluate these applications.Our core idea rests on recording traces of user interaction, which are then replayed at benchmarking time in a controlled fashion based on an underlying model of human behavior. This allows for an automated system that greatly simplifies benchmarking large scale scenarios and stress testing the application.Our results show the benefits of EdgeDroid as a tool for both system designers and application developers.

We consider a mobile edge computing network supporting low-latency and ultra reliable services. Task off-loading from the user to the edge server is operated under a truncated retransmission process, i.e., the allowed retransmission times are finite. For such network, we first characterize the end-to-end error probability and the total energy consumption. We subsequently provide a framework design allowing to determine the optimal number of allowed retransmissions and the blocklength for a single transmission/retransmission, where the objective is to minimize the expected total energy consumption while guaranteeing the end-to-end reliability. Via simulation, we confirm our analytical model and evaluated the system performance.

Since Age of Information (AoI) has been proposed as a metric that quantifies the freshness of information updates in a communication system, there has been a constant effort in understanding and optimizing different statistics of the AoI process for classical queueing systems. In addition to classical queuing systems, more recently, systems with no queue or a unit capacity queue storing the latest packet have been gaining importance as storing and transmitting older packets do not reduce AoI at the receiver. Following this line of research, we study the distribution of AoI for the GI/GI/1/1 and GI/GI/1/2* systems, under non-preemptive scheduling. For any single-source-single-server queueing system, we derive, using sample path analysis, a fundamental result that characterizes the AoI violation probability, and use it to obtain closed-form expressions for D/GI/1/1, M/GI/1/1 as well as systems that use zero-wait policy. Further, when exact results are not tractable, we present a simple methodology for obtaining upper bounds for the violation probability for both GI/GI/1/1 and GI/GI/1/2* systems. An interesting feature of the proposed upper bounds is that, if the departure rate is given, they overestimate the violation probability by at most a value that decreases with the arrival rate. Thus, given the departure rate and for a fixed average service, the bounds are tighter at higher utilization.

This paper proposes a new approach for physical layer authentication where transmissions are authenticated based on the single-input/multiple-output channel-states observed at multiple distributed antenna-arrays. The receiver operating characteristics (ROC) are derived in terms of closed form expressions for the false alarm and missed detection probability in order to evaluate the effectiveness compared to single-array authentication. To this end, we study the worst-case missed detection probability based on the optimal attacker position. Finally, we apply our previously developed queueing analytical tools, based on stochastic network calculus, in order to assess the delay performance impacts of the physical layer authentication scheme in a mission-critical communication scenario. Our results show that the distributed approach significantly outperforms single-array authentication in terms of worst-case missed detection probability and that this can help mitigating the delay performance impacts of authentication false alarms.

We study the detection and delay performance impacts of a feature-based physical layer authentication (PLA) protocol in mission-critical machine-type communication (MTC) networks. The PLA protocol uses generalized likelihood-ratio testing based on the line-of-sight (LOS), single-input multiple- output channel-state information in order to mitigate imper- sonation attempts from an adversary node. We study the de- tection performance, develop a queueing model that captures the delay impacts of erroneous decisions in the PLA (i.e., the false alarms and missed detections), and model three different adversary strategies: data injection, disassociation, and Sybil attacks. Our main contribution is the derivation of analytical delay performance bounds that allow us to quantify the delay introduced by PLA that potentially can degrade the performance in mission-critical MTC networks. For the delay analysis, we utilize tools from stochastic network calculus. Our results show that with a sufficient number of receive antennas (approx. 4-8) and sufficiently strong LOS components from legitimate devices, PLA is a viable option for securing mission-critical MTC systems, despite the low latency requirements associated to corresponding use cases. Furthermore, we find that PLA can be very effective in detecting the considered attacks, and in particular, it can significantly reduce the delay impacts of disassociation and Sybil attacks.

The central control of MMC becomes demanding in computation power and communication bandwidth as the number of submodules increase. Distributed control methods can overcome these bottlenecks. In this paper, a simple distributed control method together with synchronization of modulation carriers in the submodules is presented. The proposal is implemented on a lab-scale MMC with asynchronous-serial communication on a star network between the central and local controllers. It is shown that the proposed control method works satisfactorily in the steady state. The method can be applied as is to MMCs with any number of submodules per arm.

The modular multilevel converter is one of the most preferred converters for high-power conversion applications. Wireless control of the submodules can contribute to its evolution by lowering the material and labor costs of cabling and by increasing the availability of the converter. However, wireless control leads to many challenges for the control and modulation of the converter as well as for proper low-latency high-reliability communication. This paper investigates the tolerable asynchronism between phase-shifted carriers used in modulation from a wireless control point of view and proposes a control method along with communication protocol for wireless control. The functionality of the proposed method is validated by computer simulations in steady state.

The abundance of spectrum in the millimeter-wave (mm-wave) bands makes it an attractive alternative for future wireless communication systems. Such systems are expected to provide data transmission rates in the order of multi-gigabits per second in order to satisfy the ever-increasing demand for high rate data communication. Unfortunately, mm-wave radio is subject to severe path loss, which limits its usability for long-range outdoor communication. In this paper, we propose a multi-hop mm-wave wireless network for outdoor communication, where multiple full-duplex buffered relays are used to extend the communication range, while providing end-to-end performance guarantees to the traffic traversing the network. We provide a cumulative service process characterization for the mm-wave propagation channel with self-interference in terms of the moment generating function of its channel capacity. Then, we then use this characterization to compute probabilistic upper bounds on the overall network performance, i.e., total backlog and end-to-end delay. Furthermore, we study the effect of self-interference on the network performance and propose an optimal power allocation scheme to mitigate its impact in order to enhance network performance. Finally, we investigate the relation between relay density and network performance under a sum power constraint. We show that increasing relay density may have adverse effects on network performance, unless the selfinterference can be kept sufficiently small.