Wireless Communications: On the education and research

J. Hämäläinen, August 2013Department of Communications and Networking

Contents

• International Master’s Programme in Communications Engineering

• Master’s Thesis• Doctoral education• Comnet research

International Master’s Programme in Communications Engineering

The general structure

Our focus areas in the following discussion

Master’s Programme in Communications Engineering: The general structure

Degree: Master of Science in Technology- Two-year programme (120 ECTS) - Three majors: Networking Technology, Radio Communications,

Digital Signal Processing

Structure: Six study modules:1. Basic Module in Communications Engineering (20 cr)2. Intermediate Module in Communications Engineering (20 cr)3. Advanced Module in major (20 cr)4. Methodological Studies (10 cr)5. Elective Studies (20 cr)6. Master Thesis (30 cr)

In the following we focus on Radio communications major =>>>>>>

https://into.aalto.fi/display/enmasterelec/Homepage

Basic module in Radio Communications (20cr)

Compulsory courses:

In addition at least 5cr is selected from a list of 3 courses

This module gives basic understanding on the communications systems from radio communications perspective

Intermediate module in Radio Communications (20cr)

Compulsory courses:

In addition at least 7cr is selected from a list of 8 courses

This module further enhance the understanding on the communications systems from radio communications perspective

Advanced module in Radio Communications (20cr)

Compulsory courses:

At least 5cr is selected from a list of 7 courses

Let us dig in bit deeper on some ideas in this module =>>>>>>

Course contents

• Radio Communication Systems I (RCS I)– Contents: Fundamentals of channel modeling, radio system

evaluation methodology, general interference models, radio interface protocols and procedures (general level perspective)

• Radio Communication Systems II (RCS II)– Contents: Principles and standards of recent mobile

communication systems (HSPA, LTE, LTE-Advanced) are considered in details.

• Radio Resource and Spectrum Management (RRSM)– Contents: Modeling of interference in wireless networks,

interference mitigation and control, spectrum access methods and policies, fairness - performance tradeoff.

Idea behind the studies in this module

• RCS I and RRSM: – Goal of the courses is to strengthen the student’s understanding

on the radio communication systems and control principles.– Content of the courses is relatively static

• RCS II:– The course material is updated almost every year according to

progress in technology evolution. – Focus is in most recent/widely deployed communication

system(s). This year main focus will be in LTE and LTE-Advanced. Last year focus was on WCDMA/HSPA and LTE

– Course is focusing on radio communication principles from standards perspective.

Goal: Understanding on theoretical principles, practical systems and standards. Target is also that students can more easily find MSc thesis work from industry

RCS II: Implementation 1/3

• Lectures and exercises– Exercise problems consider both mathematical problems and

literature study where publications are used as a reference material

• Group assignment– Done in groups of 4-6 students– Consists of: presentation, debate, and report– Each group has assigned instructor (MSc/DSc level teacher)– Topics related to technologies that are recently/currently

standardized – Applied material should include both scientific papers and

standardization documents

RCS II: Implementation 2/3

Presentation and debate:– Each presentation consists of two

parts, and has duration of 30 minutes.

– First, 2-3 members of the group (supporters of the technology) give a brief overview of the topic and their findings (10-15 min).

– This is followed by a debate (15 min), where the rest of the group takes the role of opponents of the technology that was presented

– Audience and teachers may make questions as well.

RCS II: Implementation 3/3

• Report– group prepares a final report related to the presentation topic.

The report should have a length of approximately 7-10 pages and form of the report is defined by report guidelines

• Grading– The course exam gives a maximum of 30 points

• On top of exam points student may get (at maximum) 12 points from the group assignment and 3 points from the exercises.

– Out of the 12 points, the teachers will give a maximum of 8 points, and the remaining 4 points will be given based on group peer evaluation

• each group member evaluates the work done by the other group members. The peer evaluation will be carried out at the end of the course by e-mail.

Experiences from RCS II

• In general experiences has been very good and students have liked the course

• Participation to group work should be closely followed. Otherwise 1-2 students in each group may work less than others

• Grading is slightly challenging - especially the comparison of group works

• Students have been maybe too easily gaining high grades but that has been incentive to attract students to the groups– Course can be optionally carried out individually, then individual

assignment needs to be done but no extra points are granted

Methodological (10cr) and elective studies (20cr)

Methodological module: Compulsory course

At least 5cr is selected from the list that includes mostly math courses

Elective studies: Compulsory course

In addition, choose any courses to fulfill 20cr module

Master’s thesis

MSc thesis principles

• Work load: 30cr (= 6 months work)• Supervised by Aalto professor, instructor must admit at

least MSc degree– The purpose of the thesis is to prove that the student has

acquired the level of maturity that is required for a higher university degree.

– Thus, students are required to prove that they master their majors and the methods of research in their respective fields, and are also capable of carrying out an academic research project in an independent and mature way.

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https://into.aalto.fi/display/enmasterelec/Master%27s+thesis

MSc thesis principles

• Most thesis works done while working fulltime (either employed or on a scholarship)

• The objective is to complete the thesis work in 6 months, – It is not uncommon to finalize the project in eight or nine

months.

• Thesis options:– Based on needs of businesses and industries (most usual case)

• Funding and instructor from the company that orders the work

– Based on the needs of the academic community • Funding (in some cases) and instructor from university

– Students can also suggest a topic based on their own interests • Not very usual case, thesis done without funding

Typical MSc thesis structure

1. Introduction– Background discussion and setting the research problems, and

discussing the importance and justification of the study.

2. Theory– May include required theoretical background, literature study on

the topic, and general level system description (example: description of 3G or 4G including the parts needed to understand the thesis problem)

These parts of the thesis can be usually written based on textbooks, publications and e.g. standardization documents

Typical MSc thesis structure

3. Description (=what has been done and how)– May include discussion on research methodology, especially in

case of simulations and experimental studies. Also specific aspects of the research problem and its potential solutions can be discussed.

4. Presentation of the results and analysis – Student show the results and analyze them carefully.

5. Conclusions– Summary of the results and optionally a discussion on the future

research directions

These parts contain core part of the student’s own work.

Follow-up

• Supervisor:– After defining/accepting the structure supervisor gives for the

student a possibility to explain the progress made, which the supervisor can then comment. Supervisor may give guidance on some content issues especially when thesis is done in university research project.

– In the end of the process supervisor write the statement on the thesis and proposes the grade – after discussing with instructor.

• Instructor:– Main advisor on technical, content and writing issues. Instructor

also may support student to achieve high quality presentation, and help student to find relevant references. Instructor may also support student with tools and laboratory arrangements.

Thesis exampleOsman Yilmaz: Self-Optimization of Coverage and Capacity in LTE using Adaptive Antenna Systems (Nokia Siemens Networks), 2010.

Base StationCity

θ Antenna Tilt AngleLearning the thesis framework: Network self-optimization in LTE

Writing of the thesis report. Also two conference papers were done. Now Osman is with Nokia

System modeling

Performance evaluation

Thesis exampleAnkit Bhamri: Distributed coding and modulation for 2-hop communication via relays (Eurecom, France), 2010.

Writing of the thesis report. Ankit got PhD student position from Eurecom, France.

Understanding LTE and relaying basics.

LTE physical layer modeling.

Implementation on simulator and HW.

Beneyam Berehanu Haile: Co-channel Interference in Heterogeneous Networks:Rician/Rayleigh Scenario (Comnet), 2010.Thesis example

Understanding the system model

Creating the mathematical toolbox

Deducing the results

Showing the results

Writing of the thesis report. Beneyam is now a doctoral student in Comnet

Doctoral education

General structure of doctoral studies

• Recommended duration: 4 years• Doctoral degree requirements

– Theoretical studies (40cr) – Doctoral thesis that is examined by external evaluators and

defended in public.– Student should demonstrate independent and critical thinking in

relation to their field of research

• Theoretical studies are divided into two modules:– Research field (20-35cr) – Scientific practises and principles (5-20cr).

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Theoretical studies on the research field

• Research field (20-35cr): – Currently in School of Electrical Engineering there are 29 fields

(with named responsible professor(s)). – In Comnet there are 5 research fields represented:

• Communications Engineering• Network Economics• Information Theory• Networking Technology• Teletraffic Theory

• Supervisor of the doctoral student usually is also responsible professor of the research field

Scientific practises and principles

• Scientific practises and principles (5-20cr):– The aim is to provide students key characteristics of scientific

research and scientific knowledge. Students learn to apply the principles of good scientific practice.

– The study module may include studies in research methodology, research ethics and the history or philosophy of science and principles of scientific writing.

– Also learning about university practices, such as teaching and guidance of research work, can be included.

– The module may include some scientific preparatory tasks related to the research project and presentations in a scientific conference in the research field of the student.

Doctoral thesis

• Article dissertation, i.e., several scientific articles, published or accepted for publication, and a summary of these.– In joint papers the contribution of the doctoral candidate should be

independent one. – It is not recommend that an article dissertation contains conference

papers alone– Extended abstracts (1-2 pages) and papers published in national

conferences must not be included in a doctoral dissertation

• Monograph: Coherent scientific contribution on the research field. – In practice almost all monographs are based on papers published by candidate. – In case of monograph candidate must specify his or her own contribution to the

dissertation– If number of papers on which the monograph is based is small, then the

evaluation of a monograph is difficult. Such works require more often corrections and changes which means that the review process becomes longer

https://into.aalto.fi/display/endoctoralelec/Instructions+for+writing+the+doctoral+dissertation

Quality control

• Doctoral Programme Committee of the School– Approve the research topic and confirm the study plans of

doctoral students– Appoint the preliminary examiners for doctoral dissertation – Decide on the permission to publish dissertation manuscript– Appoint the opponent(s) for the defense – Grade dissertation

• This is true quality control– There are many cases in which committee has given negative

decisions in different phases of the doctoral degree process.

Doctoral thesis: Examples

• Ömer Bulakci: ”Backhaul Link Enhancement and Radio Resource Management for Relay Deployments”, 2013– Main publications: 5 Journal papers and 6 conference papers– Length: 76 pages (the summary part)

• Jarno Nousiainen: “Forwarding Capacity in Large Wireless Multihop Networks”, 2013– Main publications: 1 Journal paper and 7 conference papers– Length: 126 pages (the summary part)

• Muhammad Al-Rawi: “Opportunistic Packet Scheduling Algorithms for Beyond 3G Wireless Networks”, 2010– Monograph, 176 pages– Materials from 1 Journal paper and 6 conference papers included

• More dissertations can be found fromhttp://otalib.aalto.fi/en/collections/e-publications/dissertations/

Funding and supervision

• Most usual sources for funding– University research projects: Mosth usual way of funding– Grants from doctoral programmes: Heavy competition– Work outside the university: Part time students working in e.g.

industry (Nokia, Ericsson, operators) – Other grants: Some international students fund their studies from

grants they have gained in their home countries– https://into.aalto.fi/display/endoctoralelec/Financing+your+studies

• Supervision– Depends on the supervisor working style and student’s needs. – Typically weekly/biweekly/monthly follow-up meetings where

progress is followed, joint publications prepared, project, teaching and other things updated.

Degrees granted

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

D.Sc. (Tech.) 2 4 7 8 7

Lic.Sc. (Tech.) 3 1 1 2 NaN

M.Sc. (Tech.) 81 91 144 68 58

Comnet Research

Grand Challenges

Carbon-neutral networking• Sustainable communications• Connecting the remaining 2 billion to mobile and 5 billion to

Internet

Instant wireless Internet• Wireless access delays below the limit of human

perception

Scaling the Internet to a thousand devices per user• Internet of things, cyber-physical systems

Secure cyber space• Network security, critical infrastructure protection

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Source: EU FP7 project EARTH

Source: NSN

Source: Ericsson

“Aalto University found a total of 2 915 automation devices in Finland that were accessible to just about anybody through the Internet – and vulnerable to cyber attacks.”

Communications and Information Theory

Computational methods in discrete matematics and information theoryProf. Östergård

• Mathematical objects (existence and classification problems)

• Combinatorial algorithms

Advanced Transmission MethodsProfessors Hämäläinen and Tirkkonen

• Space-time codes,

• Codeboodk design for MIMO systems

• Optimized CQI feedback

• Nonlinearity (DirtyRF)

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libexact package

Beamforming codebooks based on Grassmannian Packings

Advanced Radio Communication Systems (1/2)

Professors Hämäläinen, Jäntti and Tirkkonen

Cognitive radio and spectrum aware communications• Co-primary and secondary sharing

• Overlay (black space) and underlay (D2D) transmissions

• Interference modeling and control

Wireless broadband systems and system optimization• HETNETS and deployable networks

• Small cells, relays

• Self-organization & self-optimization

• RRM

• Energy efficiency

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Cognitive radio networktestbed

TVWS Assesment tool http://quasar.netlab.hut.fi/

3GPP compliant simulation tools

Advanced Radio Communication Systems (2/2)

Wireless Sensor SystemsProfessors Jäntti and Ott

• Real-time sensing

• HW & SW Architectures

• Development and testing tools

• Protocols

• IoT, automation, and military applications

• RF tomographic imaging and Device Free Localization (DFL)

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Software Model

Low

Lev

el

Automated Daemons

Mid

dle

war

e

Ap

plic

atio

n

Leve

l

Comm .Stack

RTOS - APIs Peripheral Drivers

Power Manager

“Time SYNC”er

Device Abstraction APIs

Sys Monitoring

Comm. Drivers

Application

Transport

Network

MAC

PHY

pRoot node and middeware

DFL System

http://wsn.aalto.fi/en/

Performance analysis and teletraffic theory

Queuing theory and teletraffic theoryProf. Aalto

• Age and size based scheduling

• Dispatching problems

• Flow level performance analysis

• Internet traffic engineering

• P2P, wireless networks, M2M communications,…

Performance measurementsProf. Manner

• Energy-consumption measurements

• Experimental data center

• Internet traffic measurements

• Mobile access speed measurement service: Netradar (http://www.netradar.org/en)

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Comnet

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Comnet data center

Size- and state aware dispatching

Netradar

Internet technologies (1/2)

Professors Kantola, Manner, and Ott

Networking technology• Carrier grade Ethernet

• Access and core networks

• Software defined networking (OpenFlow)

• Energy efficient communications and networking

Network security and trust• Internet wide trust / Evolution of cooperation

• Customer edge switching

• Cyber security: Security of critical infrastructure

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Control place for Carrier-Grade Ethernet Network

Analysis of Cyber weapons and attacks

Internet technologies (2/2)

Internet protocols• End-to-end transport, multipath transport, flow and congestion

control

• Customer Edge Traversal

• Transport layer cognitivity

• Opportunistic Networking

• DTN routing, transport, and application protocols

• P2P

• Content-based networking

• Multimedia protocols

• Energy efficient operation

• IETF standardization

Military communications• Tacoms - Tactical Communications for Federated Network

Environment • Generic messaging protocol (MICS)

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The ONE simulator for Opportunisti Networkinghttp://www.netlab.tkk.fi/tutkimus/dtn/theone/

Proxies for Energy-Efficient Web Access

Network Economics

Prof. Hämmäinen

Quantitative analysis of mobile user behavior• Challenging the boundaries of complex data mining, privacy

• Understand the behavior in context, social activity and service adaption/diffusion

Optimal industry and technical architecture for flexible radio access• Enable flexible spectrum use: Technical, regulatory and

economic rules

Techno-economic bottlenecks of Internet scalability• Identify and eliminate techno-economical bottlenecks

preventing the scaling of Internet

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Spectrum regulation phase diagram

Contextual patterns in mobile service usage

Publications

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90

141 143

170

186

All publications2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

0

20

40

60

27

32 33

53

60

Journal articles2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Advanced Radio Communications Research Group

• ~ 6 D.Sc. level researchers

• 20-25 Doctoral students

• Variable number of M.Sc. thesis workers

Jyri

Riku

Olav

Profs:

Some research partners (with whom we have joint publications and/or research projects)

• Colleagues in Aalto

• University of Oulu

• Tampere University of Technology

• VTT

• Nokia Siemens Networks (Germany, Finland, Denmark, China)

• Nokia Research Center

• Renesas Mobile

• Ericsson Research

• Huawei Technologies

• Royal Institute of Technology KTH (Sweden)

• University of California at Davis (USA)

• Yonsei University (Korea)

• Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications (China)

• Peking University (China)

• Worchester Polytechnic Institute (USA)

• UPC, Barcelona

• Texas A&M (USA)

• National University of Cordoba (Argentina)

• Aalborg University

Questions?