Advanced Mobile Communication Research Articles

Iterative channel estimation and data detection algorithm for MIMO-OTFS systems

Channel estimation in high-mobility environments is a challenging problem for advanced mobile communication systems (5G and beyond). In this manuscript, we first propose an iterative algorithm for channel estimation and data detection in the delay-Doppler domain for multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal time frequency space system. Then, in order to increase the spectral efficiency of the system, we use a superimposed pilot pattern. The proposed algorithm takes advantage from the sparse nature of the channel in the delay-Doppler domain and iterates between message passing-aided data detection and data-aided channel estimation. For channel estimation, we propose two algorithms. The first one consists in estimating all channel parameters, including the number of path gains, delay taps, Doppler taps, and channel gains by using a mean-field approximation and the variational Bayesian expectation maximization algorithm. The second one, based on the fact that delay and Doppler taps remain unchanged for a rather long period of time, uses an MMSE approach combined with Cholesky decomposition to only estimate channel gains in each transmitted frame. For data detection, we adapt the message-passing algorithm proposed in the literature. We also derive a lower bound on the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio of the proposed scheme, and maximize it by optimally allocating power between pilots and data symbols. Finally, we compare the complexity and the performance in terms of normalized mean square error, bit error rate, and spectral efficiency against existing methods. Simulation results, conducted in high-mobility scenarios show that the proposed algorithm achieves a good compromise between complexity and performance.

Advanced Mobile Communication Techniques in the Fight against the COVID-19 Pandemic Era and Beyond: An Overview of 5G/B5G/6G.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has severely affected people's lives worldwide in an unexpected manner. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), several viral epidemics continue to occur and pose a significant public health problem. Until May 2023, there have been 676 million cases of COVID-19 infections and over 6.8 million deaths, globally. This paper surveys the role and effectiveness of advanced fifth-generation (5G)/beyond 5G (B5G)/sixth-generation (6G) technologies, combined with mobile applications (apps) and the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT), in detecting, managing, and mitigating the spread of COVID-19 and designing smart healthcare infrastructures for future pandemics. Analyzing and summarizing the research of relevant scholars based on the impact of 5G/B5G/6G and other technologies on COVID-19. The study tabulates the technical characteristics and effectiveness of different technologies in the context of COVID-19, summarizing the research of previous scholars. Challenges and design issues in the implementation of advanced information and telecommunication systems were demonstrated. These technologies can inspire the design of smart healthcare infrastructures to combat future virus pandemics.

Alternative threshold-based channel estimation and message-passing-based symbol detection in MIMO-OTFS systems using superimposed pilots

In this work, we investigate the challenging problem of channel estimation in high-mobility environments for advanced mobile communication systems (5G and beyond). First, we propose an iterative algorithm for channel estimation and symbol detection in the delay-Doppler domain for multiple-input multiple-output orthogonal time–frequency space (OTFS) system. The proposed algorithm is based on a superimposed pilot pattern to improve the spectral efficiency of the system. It iterates between data-aided channel estimation and message-passing-aided data detection. The channel estimation step is based on a threshold method. This step considers interference-plus-noise caused by the data symbols and the additive noise to adapt the threshold at each iteration. The data detection step is based on an adapted version of the message-passing algorithm proposed in the literature for uncoded OTFS. Then, to improve the channel estimation efficiency, we suggest an interference cancellation scheme executed at each iteration of the proposed algorithm. Finally, we compare the computational complexity and the achieved performance in terms of normalized mean square error of channel estimation, bit error rate, and spectral efficiency against five state-of the-art methods.

A Novel Multimedia Player for International Standard—JPEG Snack

The advancement in mobile communication and technologies has led to the usage of short-form digital content increasing daily. This short-form content is mainly based on images that urged the joint photographic experts' group (JPEG) to introduce a novel international standard, JPEG Snack (International Organization for Standardization (ISO)/ International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) IS, 19566-8). In JPEG Snack, the multimedia content is embedded into a main background JPEG file, and the resulting JPEG Snack file is saved and transmitted as a .jpg file. If someone does not have a JPEG Snack Player, their device decoder will treat it as a JPEG file and display a background image only. As the standard has been proposed recently, the JPEG Snack Player is needed. In this article, we present a methodology to develop JPEG Snack Player. JPEG Snack Player uses a JPEG Snack decoder and renders media objects on the background JPEG file according to the instructions in the JPEG Snack file. We also present some results and computational complexity metrics for the JPEG Snack Player.

Iterative Signal Processing for Integrated Sensing and Communication Systems

Integrated sensing and communication (ISAC), with sensing and communication sharing the same wireless resources and hardware, has the advantages of high spectrum efficiency and low hardware cost, which is regarded as one of the key technologies of the fifth generation advanced (5G-A) and sixth generation (6G) mobile communication systems. ISAC has the potential to be applied in the intelligent applications requiring both communication and high accurate sensing capabilities. The fundamental challenges of ISAC system are the ISAC signal design and ISAC signal processing. However, the existing ISAC signal has low anti-noise capability. And the existing ISAC signal processing algorithms have the disadvantages of quantization errors and high complexity, resulting in large energy consumption. In this paper, phase coding is applied in ISAC signal design to improve the anti-noise performance of ISAC signal. Then, the effect of phase coding method on improving the sensing accuracy is analyzed. In order to improve the sensing accuracy with low-complexity algorithm, the iterative ISAC signal processing methods are proposed. The proposed methods improve the sensing accuracy with low computational complexity, realizing energy efficient ISAC signal processing. Taking the scenarios of short distance and long distance sensing into account, the iterative two-dimensional (2D) fast Fourier transform (FFT) and iterative cyclic cross-correlation (CC) methods are proposed, respectively, realizing high sensing accuracy and low computational complexity. Finally, the feasibility of the proposed ISAC signal processing methods are verified by simulation results.

5G PRS-Based Sensing: A Sensing Reference Signal Approach for Joint Sensing and Communication System

The emerging joint sensing and communication (JSC) technology is expected to support new applications and services, such as autonomous driving and extended reality (XR), in the future wireless communication systems. Pilot (or reference) signals in wireless communications usually have good passive detection performance, strong anti-noise capability and good auto-correlation characteristics, hence they bear the potential for applying in radar sensing. In this paper, we investigate how to apply the positioning reference signal (PRS) of the 5th generation (5 G) mobile communications in radar sensing. This approach has the unique benefit of compatibility with the most advanced mobile communication system available so far. Thus, the PRS can be regarded as a sensing reference signal to simultaneously realize the functions of radar sensing, communication and positioning in a convenient manner. Firstly, we propose a PRS based radar sensing scheme and analyze its range and velocity estimation performance, based on which we propose a method that improves the accuracy of velocity estimation by using multiple frames. Furthermore, the Crámer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) of the range and velocity estimation for PRS based radar sensing and the CRLB of the range estimation for PRS based positioning are derived. Our analysis and simulation results demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of PRS over other pilot signals in radar sensing. Finally, some suggestions for the future 5G-Advanced and 6th generation (6 G) frame structure design containing the sensing reference signal are derived based on our study.

Design and Optimization of Planar Inverted F Antenna (PIFA) for Wireless Applications

For 5G communication networks, including Long-Term Evolution Advanced mobile communication services, PIFA antenna is proposed. The proposed antenna structure is consisting of substrate, ground plane, shorting plate and feeding post connected to the ground plane. This antenna has been design based on a FR-4has relative permittivity of 4.3 it has a volume of (120601.5) mm3. The experimental results of the Planar Inverted F Antenna (PIFA) that have been measured at the range from (3-4 ) GHz of frequency experimentally using the Site Master (Anritsu S362E), it has been demonstrated that the return loss, bandwidth, VSWR, and impedance are −41.15dB, 510 MHz, 1.04and 48.414Ω respectively at resonant frequency 3.5GHz. The theoretical and practical values are so close to each other which justifies the antenna's excellent fit

Patent landscape and key technology interaction roadmap using graph convolutional network – Case of mobile communication technologies beyond 5G

Beyond 5G (B5G) in mobile network technologies is the latest communication technology currently under development. B5G is expected to achieve superior capabilities in ultra-high network transmission speed, low latency, low energy consumption, and high coverage, comparing to current 5G network performance. Although B5G is still in the development and implementation stage, there are many patents and non-patent literature depicting B5G innovative technologies and applications. The landscapes of B5G technologies are great references for governments and industries to understand the advances in mobile communication for R&D strategies. Thus, this research focuses on developing a formal tech-mining workflow integrating semantic-based patent and non-patent literature analysis for ontology building, patent technological topic clustering, and graph convolutional network (GCN) modeling for depicting key technology interactions among clusters of sub-domain topics. This research emphasizes the study of B5G patent landscape and key technology interaction roadmap in comprehensive steps as a valuable reference for B5G mobile network R&D, as well as for conducting tech-mining of other technology domains of interests.

Technological sovereignty of the EU in advanced 5G mobile communications: An empirical approach

Two key issues within the debate around ‘technological sovereignty’ in the European Union are (i) access by countries and firms to enabling and emerging technologies and (ii) how strategic dependencies can be managed in order to preserve competitive positions in global value chains. In this paper, we present and discuss a multidimensional synthetic metric – the Technological Sovereignty Index (TSI) – to provide a global measure that captures the degree of exposure to specific technologies by a country (or group of countries) as well as the vulnerabilities that may be present. The paper validates the TSI by examining the EU's position (until 2021) within the global value chain of advanced 5G mobile communications, focusing on the hardware and component segments. Our findings reveal a weak degree of technological sovereignty due to (i) the shortage of specialized human capital in the EU and (ii) outsourcing trends in the relevant segments; however, untapped capabilities may exist that could partially offset strategic shortcomings.

Prioritizing the Potential Smartification Measures by Using an Integrated Decision Support System with Sustainable Development Goals (a Case Study in Southern Italy)

With the increasing population of cities, expanding roads as one of the essential urban infrastructures is a necessary task; therefore, adverse effects such as increased fuel consumption, pollution, noise, and road accidents are inevitable. One of the most efficient ways to mitigate congestion-related adverse effects is to introduce effective intelligent transportation systems (ITS), using advanced technologies and mobile communication protocols to make roads smarter and reduce negative impacts such as improvement in fuel consumption and pollution, and reduction of road accidents, which leads to improving quality of life. Smart roads might play a growing role in the improved safety of road transportation networks. This study aims to evaluate and rank the potential smartification measures for the road network in Calabria, in southern Italy, with sustainable development goals. For this purpose, some potential smartification measures were selected. Experts in the field were consulted using an advanced procedure: four criteria were considered for evaluating these smartification measures. The Integrated fuzzy decision support system (FDSS), namely the fuzzy Delphi analytic hierarchy process (FDAHP) with the fuzzy technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (FTOPSIS) were used for evaluating and ranking the potential smartification measures. The results demonstrated that the repetition of signals in the vehicle has the highest rank, and photovoltaic systems spread along the road axis has the lowest rank to use as smartification measures in the roads of the case study.

An investigation of mobile health (mHealth) applications available to support knee arthroplasty rehabilitation and recommendations for implementation: A scoping review

Keywords: mHealth; Applications; Arthroplasty Purpose: Length of hospital-stay following total knee arthroplasty (TKA) is approximately 1-3 days, with associated costs of revisions around £75,000 per patient. Patient control of recovery, self-management and compliance to home-based rehabilitation is therefore of utmost importance. The use of mHealth applications (apps), to promote independence and self-management, provides potential for a cost-effective, patient-centred strategy to achieve this. The objective of this study was to scope and review the quality of publicly available, patient-focused apps for TKA, with the aim of identifying and recommending one for trial and clinical implementation within a Hampshire hospital. Methods: A scoping review was chosen to systematically map, synthesise and review the latitude of apps available via the Apple Store and Google Play. Apps were identified if they were free of charge to the user, suitable for use within the UK and in English; due to the ubiquitous nature of app usage, apps were selected if they targeted both total knee or hip arthroplasty. Quality analysis of each app was conducted using the Mobile App Rating Scale (MARS); a simple 4-dimension, objective, and reliable tool for classifying and assessing quality of mhealth apps. Results: Nine apps, from 692 screened, met the inclusion criteria and were reviewed using MARS. The mean overall MARS score (where 1 = inadequate and 5 = excellent) was 3.57 (SD = ±0.87). Four apps had a score above 4, three of which were identified as utilising an app platform already in use by NHS Trusts. Five apps had a score of less than 3. The highest rated app was the Northumbria Orthopaedic NHS Trust App (4.57) which utilised the app platform ‘My Patient Journey’. This app was noted to consider features that ensured the app was engaging and also likely to promote positive rehabilitative behaviours. Conclusion(s): This study provides an overview of mHealth apps available to health-care professionals and patients post-TKA. Further investigation into the use of this platform is required, to personalise and adjust it for specific Trust use. Randomised trials are now required in order to characterise the use and efficacy of this app on health knowledge, behaviours and use. Moreover, to understand their effectiveness in rehabilitation and improve quality of life following TKA, hereby reducing its burden on public health and clinical systems. Impact: The NHS finds itself in the midst of an mHealth revolution and mobile technology offers the opportunity to access clinical apps, evidence-based resources and advanced mobile communication in one device. The mobility of such apps enables patients to use them in their home setting, reducing the need for face-to-face contact and, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, has shown itself to be a technology that presents a future healthcare option. This study provides an overview of the mHealth apps available to a range of health-care professionals across all disciplines and patients post-TKA surgery; summarising their strengths and limitations to make recommendations for future implementation. The introduction of such management will take time, funding, a shift in clinician approach and patient expectation-management, in addition to further research to optimise delivery. Funding acknowledgements: This study is a final year physiotherapy dissertation, courtesy of University of Winchester. No funding was received from internal/external sources.

Enhanced dielectric properties and chemical bond characteristics of ZnNb2O6 ceramics due to zinc oxide doping

Regarding advanced 5G mobile communication, microwave dielectric ceramics are considered as the most potential materials to develop new-generation base station resonators. Herein, ZnNb 2 O 6 ceramics with ε r of approximately 24 have been prepared using the solid-state reaction method, with tailored extra ZnO of x mol% (x = 1, 2 and 3). We have for the first time applied the P-V-L chemical bond theory to investigate ZnNb 2 O 6 ceramics with ZnO doping, by exploring the relationship of dielectric properties and chemical bond characteristics. Particularly, the Raman spectra demonstrates that the full width at half maximum of υ 1 (A g ) vibration mode can exhibit significant correlation with the quality factor ( Q × f ). To further support the experimental study, we have also conducted the first-principle calculation of electron density difference via CASTEP package, which further confirms the change of temperature coefficient of resonance frequency ( τ f ). Our newly designed ZnNb 2 O 6 ceramics doped with 1 mol% ZnO exhibit excellent dielectric properties, i.e., ε r = 23.74, Q × f = 102,824 GHz and τ f = −55.38 ppm/°C, which demonstrates great potential to construct miniaturized 5G base station with advanced ceramic dielectrics.

Analysis of Cognitive Radio for LTE and 5G Waveforms

Spectrum sensing is one of the major concerns in reaching an efficient Quality of service (QOS) in the advanced mobile communication system. The advanced engineering sciences such as 5G, device 2 device communications (D2D), Internet of things (IoT), MIMO require a large spectrum for better service. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is not a choice in advanced radio due to the Cyclic Prefix (CP), wastage of the spectrum, and so on. Hence, it is important to explore the spectral efficient advanced waveform techniques and combine a cognitive radio (CR) with the 5G waveform to sense the idle spectrum, which overcomes the spectrum issue. The demand for spectrum is ever increasing; however, spectrum is limited and is an acutely scarce resource. To alleviate the issue, techniques like Cognitive Radios (CR) have been devised. However, such techniques are non-standardized, and many variations of CR algorithms have been tried and tested. This paper details the several spectrum sensing methods tailored for CR. We explain the benefits, uniqueness, and drawbacks of the various techniques to provide a comprehensive review of the scene, including all recent and novel techniques of CR. Finally, we provided experimental results for the performance of the CR for key 5G and beyond modulation techniques to elaborate the dependency of the CR techniques for CR applications and provide a competitive review of their performance. Experiments show that the CR integrated with NOMA shows better performance as compared with existing techniques.

Mobile Health (mHealth) in the Developing World: Two Decades of Progress or Retrogression

Mobile healthcare, or mHealth, is one of the key pillars of information and communication technologies for healthcare that consists of telemedicine, telehealth, eHealth, and mHealth. In the past two decades, mobile health has become a transformative concept for healthcare delivery innovations on a global scale. The success was based on the market-driven strategies that utilised the advances in mobile communications, computing, and sensor technologies, especially in recent years. Those market-driven mobile health systems were also closely associated with the global proliferation of smartphones, and based on the correlated usage principle of the smartphone applications for healthcare and wellbeing. However, the global commercial success of the smartphone-based mHealth model was not widely translated into successful scaled-up and tangible healthcare benefits, especially in low- and-middle income countries, compared to the consumer mobile health markets. The numerous healthcare challenges in the developing world remained largely untackled by the existing mobile health systems and models. The much-hyped transformative benefits of these systems remain largely unfulfilled. For two decades since the inception of this concept, the majority of the population in resource-limited healthcare settings still remain in poorer health and live in worsened conditions, with limited if any access to basic healthcare services. The much-hyped mobile health services that promised transforming these fragile and limited healthcare conditions, did not come to wider fruition globally. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its devastating human and economic impact worsened this status. An overview of the origin and the basic principles of mobile health, its current landscape and status in the developing world is presented. The impact of the smartphone-centric model that dominated the landscape of mobile health systems in these countries is discussed, and a critical view on the limitation of this mobile health model adopted widely in these settings is provided.

From Presence to Participation: Engagement with an SMS Program for Fathers of Children on the Autism Spectrum

Fathers of children on the autism spectrum are often in need of support due to high levels of parenting stress and the complexity associated with raising these children. While the importance of the fathering role as both parent and partner is well recognized, the recruitment of fathers into support programs is often resource intensive and generally fails to achieve desired levels of enrollment and retention. Text2dads explored paternal engagement with a program providing text-based information and support to smartphones of Australian fathers (N = 184) raising children on the autism spectrum. The evaluation is scaffolded by Piotrowska et al.’s CAPE model of engagement—Connection, Attendance, Participation and Enactment. Analysis demonstrated high rates of connection and participation when compared to other father-focused interventions. Evidence from response rates, comments and surveys demonstrate that fathers actively participated in the project while also reporting that they applied information gained from Text2dads in their parenting behavior. Advances in mobile communication have created opportunities to engage with fathers using alternative modes of intervention. The present study demonstrates support for the acceptability of this cost effective and highly scalable program.

Flexible CMOS chip converted by a novel chip transformation process

In this Letter, the authors report a flexible CMOS chip converted by a novel chip transformation process. To realise a truly flexible CMOS chip, a two-step etching process was employed in the transformation process: (i) vapour etching to remove inter-dielectric layers followed by polymer encapsulation and (ii) plasma etching to remove the substrate of the chip. The I–V results measured after the chip transformation process show a voltage variance of <0.8% compared to the rigid chip. The bending test also revealed very small changes (0.6%) under strain conditions. Their results offer a viable route to use the foundry-fabricated CMOS chip for flexible chips; thus, a high-performance flexible chip can be realised. This technology will enable us to utilise various foundry-processed chips for future flexible applications such as health and environment monitoring, advanced mobile communication systems, and wearable electronics via a simple post-transformation process.

One-Chip Integration of RF MEMS Switched Capacitor and Power Amplifier Using CMOS-Compatible Post Fabrication Process

This study presents a single-chip integrated reconfigurable 180-nm complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS) power amplifier (PA) with a radio frequency micro-electro-mechanical system (RF MEMS) switched capacitor, which is highly useful for advanced wireless mobile communication systems. The proposed reconfigurable PA prototype was designed to support the 0.9, 1.8, 2.4, and 5.0 GHz quad-bands by varying the capacitance values of the RF MEMS switched capacitor at the output matching network. The RF MEMS switched capacitor was post-fabricated on the same silicon substrate with which the PA circuit was integrated using 180-nm CMOS fabrication technology. The entire fabrication step was performed based on a CMOS-compatible low-temperature post process to avoid the performance degradation of the CMOS PA circuit. The fabricated RF MEMS switched capacitor exhibited capacitances of approximately 1.0 and 3.9 pF at a frequency of 0.9 GHz in its OFF and ON states, respectively. The measured output powers of the integrated quad-band PA were 27.13, 26.63, 26.29, and 23.43 dBm at the frequencies of 0.9, 1.8, 2.4, and 5.0 GHz with the continuous-wave signal, respectively.

Do intentions indicate actual behaviour? A comparison between scenario‐based experiments and real‐time observations of warning response

AbstractThe sharp increase in the use of smartphones and rapid advances in mobile communication offer new ways to warn the public about developing natural or technological hazards. So far, the effectiveness of different warning types, namely standard and impact‐based warnings (SW and IBW), were mainly tested in scenario‐based experiments and not in real life. However, it can be questioned whether scenario‐based experiments are the appropriate methodology to test different warnings, for instance due to the absence of feelings catalysed by real events. Therefore, we collected information about warning responses in real time via the smartphone application ‘Wetter‐Alarm’ of a Swiss weather provider. In the first phase of the study, we conducted a field experiment to investigate actual responses for SW and IBW. In the second phase, we compared these results with behavioural intentions collected via a scenario‐based experiment with an almost identical set‐up. The comparison shows that warning messages were perceived and understood very similar in both experiments. Also, we did not observe any significant interactions between warning type (SW vs. IBW) and study (field vs. scenario‐based experiment). These findings indicate that the effects of warning type on behaviour can be studied on the basis of experimental (i.e. scenario‐based) research designs. The paper ends with some reflections on the potential of big data in the social sciences and on a research agenda for real‐time data collection to improve warning effectiveness and, ultimately, climate risk management.

Approved algorithmic security enhancement of stream cipher for advanced mobile communications

ABSTRACT Confidentiality and integrity processes are based on SNOW and ZUC algorithms. These standardized algorithms are designed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for advanced mobile communication systems. Each algorithm has two S-boxes in its nonlinear layer structure. This paper proposes three different approaches to enhance the security level of both algorithms. The first approach aims to select the best combination of two S-boxes in the nonlinear part of each algorithm. Results showed that the best randomness properties are achieved by combining the Feistel structure (S1-box) and Rijndael (S2-box) in the SNOW algorithm and New Rijndael (S1-box) and Rijndael (S2-box) in the ZUC algorithm. The second approach aims to increase the nonlinearity and complexity of these algorithms by selecting a strong S-box to cascade the best-existing two S-boxes for both algorithms. The third approach is an extension of the former, based on a dynamic reform of such S-boxes as a function of the “Authentication Token” to increase the computational complexity of the upgraded two algorithms. These proposed upgrades are simulated by C language and tested successfully for their statistical properties using the standard NIST SP 800-22 test suite.

5G Mobile Communication, Challenges: A Survey

The hest for technological advancement in mobile communication is due to augmentation of wireless user. The deployment of 5G mobile communication is less than 4G mobile communication due to challenges in security like cyberwarfare, espionage, critical infrastructure threats. Nevertheless, critic of neurological discomforts, tissue damage in living organisms occur in the existence of EMF radiation. Also, physical scarcity for spectral efficiency arises due to ubiquitous data traffic. Inspite of these disputes data rate, low latency, device to device communication is also a challenge. In this paper we provide a survey on radiation effects, security threats, traffic management.