IEEE International Conference on Communications
20-24 May 2019 // Shanghai, China
Empowering Intelligent Communications

Program

Workshop Schedule -- Monday, May 20, 2019

09:00 – 09:10 

 Welcome speech

09:10 – 09:50 

 Invited Industry Talk 1 (D. Lopez-Perez, Nokia Bell Labs, 40min) 

09:50 – 10:30 

 Invited Industry Talk 2 (X. Lin, Ericsson, 40min) 

10:30 – 11:00 

 Coffee break 

11:00 – 12:30 

 Oral session 1 (5 papers)

12:30 – 14:00 

 Lunch break 

   

14:00 – 14:45 

 Keynote 1 (R. Zhang, National Univ. of Singapore, 45min) 

14:45 – 15:30 

 Keynote 2 (D. Gesbert, EURECOM, France, 45min) 

15:30 – 16:00 

 Coffee break   (Interactive session, 2 papers)

16:00 – 17:30 

 Oral session 2 (5 papers)

 

 

Invited Industry Talk 1

UAV Cellular Communications: Practical Insights and Future Vision

David López-Pérez(Nokia - IE/Dublin)

Abstract--What will it take for drones -- and the whole associated ecosystem -- to take off? Arguably, infallible command and control channels for safe and autonomous flying, and high-throughput links for multi-purpose live video streaming. Meeting these aspirations may entail a full cellular support, provided through 5G-and-beyond HW and SW upgrades by both mobile operators and drone manufacturers. Will the current cellular infrastructure suffice to meet the demanding drone link requirements? Or should the operators, primarily catering to ground users, implement substantial upgrades? In this talk, well-founded answers to such -- and many other -- key questions will unfold as we provide a seminal evaluation of solutions that enable cellular-connected drones. Throughout the talk, the results of our extensive simulation campaigns will be overviewed, explained, and finally distilled into four essential guidelines.

David López-Pérez (david.lopez-perez@nokia-bell-labs.com) is a Senior Research Scientist and a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS) at Nokia Bell Laboratories, and his main research interests are on small cells, ultra-dense networks and unlicensed spectrum technologies, where he has pioneered work on LTE and Wi-Fi interworking. David is currently working on massive MIMO, future indoor networks and the next generation of Wi-Fi technology, IEEE802.11be. David has authored more than 135 research articles, holds over 49 patents applications, and has received a number of prestigious awards. He is an editor of IEEE TWC.

 

 Invited Industry Talk 2

Sky is Not the Limit: Connecting UAVs with Mobile Networks

Xingqin Lin

Abstract--Wide-area network coverage is needed to safely expand low-altitude drone operations for beyond visual line-of-sight missions.  Mobile networks are well suited to support low-altitude drone communication and to be integrated with drone traffic management systems to enhance the safety and security of drone operations. The licensed mobile spectrum serves as the foundation for mobile networks to provide wide-area, high-quality and secure connectivity that can enable cost-efficient drone operations beyond visual line-of-sight range. Current mobile networks are capable of serving drones in the low-altitude airspace. Specific performance enhancements can optimize LTE/5G connectivity toward more effective and efficient connectivity for connected drones while maintaining the performance of mobile devices on the ground. This talk will address the fundamental considerations of providing mobility connectivity to the sky, the current state-of-the-art of 3GPP UAV standardization aspects, and the application of machine learning to enhancing mobile connectivity for large-scale drone deployments.

Xingqin Lin (xingqin.lin@ericsson.com) is a Senior Researcher, a Standards Delegate, and a Tech Talent at Ericsson. He leads 4G/5G research and standardization in the areas of drones and satellites. He is a highly experienced telecom professional with expert knowledge in wireless communications and technology strategy. He is a frequent speaker, panelist, and technical contributor at numerous conferences and workshops. He is a key contributor to 5G NR, NB-IoT, and LTE-M physical layer specifications. His pioneering work on cellular connected drones helped establish the 3GPP Rel-15 work on enhanced LTE support for aerial vehicles. He served as an editor of the IEEE COMMUNICATIONS LETTERS from 2015-2018. He holds a Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering from The University of Texas at Austin, USA.

 

OS1: Oral session 1

Modeling and Coverage Analysis of Downlink UAV Networks with MmWave Communications

Wenqiang Yi and Yuanwei Liu (Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom (Great Britain)); Maged Elkashlan (Queen Mary, University of London, United Kingdom (Great Britain)); Arumugam Nallanathan(Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom (Great Britain))

 

Propagation Modeling for UAV Air-to-Ground Channel over the Simple Mountain Terrain

Zhuangzhuang Cui (Beijing Jiaotong University, P.R. China); Ke Guan (Beijing Jiaotong University, P.R. China & Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany); Danping HeBo Ai and Zhangdui Zhong (Beijing Jiaotong University, P.R. China)

 

Multi-User Wideband Sparse Channel Estimation for Aerial BS with Hybrid Full-Dimensional MIMO

Anwen Liao and Zhen Gao (Beijing Institute of Technology, P.R. China); Yongpeng Wu (Shanghai Jiao Tong University, P.R. China); Hua Wang (Beijing Institute of Technology, P.R. China); Yang Yang (Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, P.R. China); Di Wu (China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, P.R. China)

 

Reliability and Fairness for UAV Communication Based on Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access

Van-Lan Dao and Hung Tran (Malardalen University, Sweden); Svetlana Girs (Mälardalen University, Sweden); Elisabeth Uhlemann (Malardalen University, Sweden)

 

Performance Evaluation of Network Slicing for Aerial Vehicle Communications

Adrian Exposito Garcia (Airbus Group Innovations, Germany); Sandra Hofmann (Airbus, Germany); Christoph Sous (Ericsson, France); Lourdes Garcia (Ericsson, Germany); Aygun Baltaci (Airbus & Technical University of Munich, Germany); Christoph Bach and Ralf Wellens (Ericsson, Germany); Damini Gera and Dominic A. Schupke (Airbus, Germany); Hector Esteban (Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain)

 

IS: Interactive session

Secrecy Transmission Capacity of Large-Scale UAV-Enabled Wireless Networks

Jianping Yao and Jie Xu (Guangdong University of Technology, P.R. China)

 

Cell-free massive MIMO for UAV communications

Carmen D'Andrea (Università di Cassino e del Lazio Meridionale & Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecomunicazioni (CNIT), Italy); Adrian Garcia-Rodriguez (Nokia Bell Labs, Ireland); Giovanni Geraci (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain); Lorenzo Galati Giordano (Nokia Bell Labs, Ireland); Stefano Buzzi (University of Cassino and Lazio Meridionale/CNIT, Italy)

 

Keynote 1

Accessing From the Sky: UAV Communications for 5G and Beyond

Rui Zhang

Abstract--The integration of the dramatically increasing volume of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones into the future 5G and beyond wireless networks calls for a paradigm shift on the design of traditional cellular systems for terrestrial-only communications. In particular, how to realize cellular-connected UAV communications and UAV-assisted terrestrial communications are both practically appealing as well as challenging, due to the high altitude and high mobility of UAVs, the unique channel characteristics of UAV-ground links, the stringent constraints imposed by the size, weight and power (SWAP) limitations of UAVs, as well as the new degree of freedom by exploiting UAV placement/trajectory and communication co-design. Substantial research efforts from both academia and industry have been devoted to advancing this exciting new field, with remarkable progress made especially in the past couple of years. In this talk, we will provide a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art results on UAV-cellular integration, with a particular emphasis placed on the latest research findings on aerial-ground interference management and trajectory optimization in UAV communications. Open challenges and promising directions for future research will also be highlighted.

Dr. Rui Zhang (IEEE Fellow) received the Ph.D. degree from Stanford University in electrical engineering in 2007. He is now a Dean’s Chair Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, National University of Singapore. His current research interests include wireless power transfer, UAV communications and intelligent reflecting surface. He has published over 350 papers, which have been cited more than 28,000 times. He has been listed as a Highly Cited Researcher by Thomson Reuters / Clarivate Analytics since 2015, and was recognized in both Scientific Fields of Computer Science and Engineering in 2018. His works have received several IEEE awards, including the IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award in Wireless Communications, the IEEE Communications Society Heinrich Hertz Prize Paper Award, the IEEE Signal Processing Society Best Paper Award, and so on. He has served as an Editor for several IEEE journals, including TWC, TCOM, JSAC, TSP, etc., and as TPC co-chair or organizing committee member for over 30 international conferences. He is an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer.

 

Keynote 2

LEARNING FROM THE SKY: AUTONOMOUS FLYING ACCESS NETWORKS FOR BEYOND 5G

David Gesbert

Abstract--The use of flying robots (drones) carrying radio transceiver equipment is the new promising frontier in our quest towards ever more flexible,  adaptable and spectrally efficient wireless networks. Beyond obvious  challenges within regulatory, control, navigation, and operational  domains, the deployment of autonomous flying radio access network  (Fly-RANs) also comes with a number of exciting new research problems such as the issue of autonomous real-time placement of the drones in a  way that can guarantee user and network performance. We present several different scenarios of interest such as IoT monitoring, mobile broadband access and adhoc connectivity. The approaches lie at the cross-roads between machine learning, signal processing and optimization. Early-stage practical realizations are demonstrated.

David Gesbert (IEEE Fellow) is Professor and Head of the Communication Systems Department, EURECOM. Prior to EURECOM, he was with the University of Oslo and before this he was a founding engineer of Iospan Wireless Inc, a Stanford spin off pioneering MIMO-OFDM (now Intel). D. Gesbert has published about 300 papers and 25 patents, some of them winning the 2015 IEEE Best Tutorial Paper Award (Communications 
Society), 2012 SPS Signal Processing Magazine Best Paper Award, 2004 IEEE Best Tutorial Paper Award (Communications Society), 2005 Young Author Best Paper Award for Signal Proc. Society journals, and paper awards at conferences 2011 IEEE SPAWC, 2004 ACM MSWiM. He has been a Technical Program Co-chair for ICC2017. He was named a Thomson-Reuters Highly Cited Researchers in Computer Science. Since 2015, he holds the 
ERC Advanced grant "PERFUME" on the topic of smart device Communications in future wireless networks. He is a Board member for the OpenAirInterface (OAI) Software Alliance. Since early 2019, he heads the Huawei-funded Chair on Adwanced Wireless Systems Towards 6G Networks at EURECOM. Since 2017 he is also a visiting Academic Master within the Program 111 at  the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications 
within the joint BUPT-EURECOM Open5G Lab.

 

OS2: Oral session 2

Robust Trajectory and Resource Allocation Design for Secure UAV-aided Communications

Xiaofang Sun and Chao Shen (Beijing Jiaotong University, P.R. China); Derrick Wing Kwan Ng (University of New South Wales, Australia); Zhangdui Zhong (Beijing Jiaotong University, P.R. China)

 

Cellular-Connected UAV: Performance Analysis with 3D Antenna Modelling

Xiaoli Xu and Yong Zeng (The University of Sydney, Australia)

 

Age-Based Path Planning and Data Acquisition in UAV-Assisted IoT Networks

Zekun JiaXiaoqi QinZijing Wang and Baoling Liu (Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, P.R. China)

 

A Tractable Framework for Coverage Analysis of Cellular-Connected UAV Networks

Xianghao Yu (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany); Jun Zhang (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong); Robert Schober (Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany); Khaled B. Letaief (The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong)

 

Energy-efficiency for Fixed-Wing UAV-Enabled Data Collection and Forwarding

Fangyun Dong and Linpei Li (Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, P.R. China); Zhaoming Lu (BUPT, P.R. China); Qi Pan (Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, P.R. China); Wei Zheng(BUPT, P.R. China)

 

 

 

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