ABSTRACT. NHK has formulated a new three-years corporate plan (FY 2018 - 2020) to deliver the highest-level broadcasting and services in 2020 and to evolve into "public media". In this corporate plan, NHK will explore the realization of "public value" by expanding its use of the Internet to deliver accurate, timely programming to an increasingly global audience. NHK STRL believes that our mission is to play a leading role in the research and development of state-of-the-art broadcasting technologies and services for sustainable development of broadcasting to 2020 and beyond. This presentation introduces an overview of Three-years R&D plan that is published at NHK STRL OPENHOUSE 2018.

ABSTRACT. The telecoms industry is undergoing a major transformation towards 5G networks in order to fulfil the needs of existing and emerging use cases. Traditionally, fixed and mobile networks have been deployed as separate systems delivering independent but often similar services such as broadband, messaging, voice and video communications, etc. It is widely anticipated that the 5G architecture should seamlessly support both fixed and mobile access technologies under a fully converged end-to-end system in order to deliver future service requirements. This presentation will : 

- Address the different levels of fixed and mobile convergence that can be achieved

- The high-level benefits associated to the different levels of convergence

- Emphasise the benefits of achieving full network convergence , emerging use cases and operator drivers - Industry activities towards network convergence

ABSTRACT. Compressed video data are growing at a faster rate than ever before. Already today, video data make up by far the highest percentage of bits on the Internet and in mobile traffic. This demonstrates the need for even more efficient compression which goes beyond the current state of the art High Efficiency Video Coding standard (HEVC). In order to master this demanding challenge, the ITU Video Coding Expert Group (VCEG) and the ISO/IEC Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) have already started working together in the Joint Video Experts Team (JVET). Last October, JVET issued a call for proposals for video coding technology beyond HEVC. Fraunhofer HHI has responded to the call by submitting cutting edge coding technology to be included in the final standard by 2020.

ABSTRACT. In the ATSC 3.0 physical layer standard, a Transmitter Identification (TxID) technology is introduced in order to identify and distinguish each transmitter in single frequency network (SFN) environment. In SFN, it is essential to accurately measure the strength and delay of broadcast signal from each transmitter, and therefore, the network configuration can be appropriately designed and managed by adjusting transmitting power and emission time of each transmitter. In ATSC 3.0, the TxID technology based on RF watermark provides an efficient way to identify each transmitter without turning it on and off. This paper presents TxID detection performance through computer simulation and laboratory test.

ABSTRACT. Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0 is newly approved standard for a next generation digital television service. In the physical layer standard of ATSC 3.0, the transmitter identification (TxID), which is inserted into a host ATSC 3.0 preamble, is introduced supporting single frequency networks (SFNs). This paper presents impact analysis of TxID signal into the ATSC 3.0 preamble signal according to TxID injection levels. Laboratory tests are intensively performed to analyze possible impact to the host ATSC 3.0 preamble.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, we provide and analyze the first ATSC 3.0 transmitter identification (TxID) based field test results in the single frequency network (SFN) environment of the Seoul metropolitan area, particularly where four transmitters are operating. For the field trial, a 900 W transmitter with an ATSC 3.0 TxID transmission function was developed and installed in the SFN environment. Moreover, a hardware receiver capable of TxID signal detection was also developed. It is confirmed that TxID signal detection is possible under the SFN channel condition. It is expected that our results will help the broadcasters optimize the ATSC 3.0 SFN coverage.

ABSTRACT. Due to the rapid increase on the use of mobile devices, delivering mobile broadcasting services (TV/data) is one of the top-priority capabilities for future digital TV (DTV) systems, such as the ATSC 3.0. To improve the mobile service coverage performance for highly populated indoor and closed areas (airports, shopping malls, stadiums, etc.), it becomes necessary to deploy single-frequency-network (SFN) type low-power gapfillters, which could be very costly due to the required backhaul links. This paper proposes a novel technology to use Layered Division Multiplexing (LDM) to implement in-band backhaul to multiple SFN gapfillers. By embedding the backhaul data of the mobile services in the LDM signal structure, a lowcost SFN relay station can be implemented as the gapfiller using conventional ATSC 3.0 receivers. Since the backhaul data is delivered using the same band as the mobile service signal, the proposed technology also achieves high spectrum efficiency. Furthermore, the proposed technology can be used to implement efficient backhaul solutions in the next generation mobile broadband systems (5G and beyond).

ABSTRACT. In the last few years, video consumption habits have consid-erably evolved in terms of devices and networks. These new tendencies induce new constraints for video coding and broadcasting solutions architecture. The ATSC 3.0 standards scope covers all the components of the distribution chain and proposes recommendations for audio and video coding, content distribution… In previous works, we designed a SHVC encoder able to per-form real-time encodings with interesting bit-rate savings. The Scalable extension of the High Efficiency Video Coding (SHVC) standard enables to encode several resolutions, qualities (SNR), bitdepths, codecs or color-gamut in a single bitstream with bit-rate savings over simulcast. In this paper, we first present the improvements and trade-off on our encoder performance in terms of coding speed and coding efficiency and its integration in a software compres-sion solution. Then, we describe an end-to-end ATSC 3.0 broadcast/broadband real-time distribution chain we have deployed and tested in lab conditions.

ABSTRACT. Cooperative intelligent transport systems (ITS) and connected vehicles are foreseen to change the way mobility is conceived today. Cooperative and connected vehicles will lead to improved road traffic safety and efficiency and will also trigger innovation in the infotainment area. These will foster the design of disruptive new business models for both the telco and automotive industries, triggering a profound impact in society and economy. However, before this can become a reality, many technical challenges still need to be solved. One important challenge relates to the provision of efficient and reliable vehicle-to-anything (V2X) communications for the vehicles. The new emerging generation of mobile communications, the so-called 5G technology, is aimed at giving an answer to this challenge. Among other coordinated efforts, the European-funded 5GCAR project is looking into such V2X technology components and enablers. This paper aims at presenting and describing the technologies that are being considered in 5GCAR to make the vision of the cooperative and connected vehicle a reality.

ABSTRACT. The fifth generation (5G) of cellular communications aims at encompassing a wide variety of types of communications, among which are vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications. These will be characterized by the interchange of both low-latency messages for control and notification purposes, and delay-tolerant messages, devoted to infotainment services. In this paper, a mechanism for dynamic traffic steering over the Uu and PC5 interfaces of V2X communications is proposed to ensure low latency for critical messages, even in high load conditions. As a proof of concept, a simulation has been carried out using long-term evolution (LTE) macrocells and IEEE 802.11n access points to provide the Uu interface and an approximation to the PC5 interface, respectively. The proposed solution has proven to effectively steer data packets regarding their criticality label, providing a delay-optimized link for critical messages and a best-effort behavior for the non-critical (delay tolerant) messages.

ABSTRACT. The advent of 5G communication systems introduces dedicated vehicular communication to our cities and highways, and along with it comes a host of multimedia services and safety applications. With low latency and high reliability being the order of the day for vehicular systems, this paper addresses the resource allocation issues associated with the existing 3GPP LTE Rel. 14 V2X specification. These issues will inevitably impact various V2X services ranging from safety critical to multimedia services. An enhanced reporting mechanism is proposed to alleviate the burden of number of resource collisions for V2X users. The simulation results reveal that the enhanced reporting mechanism to aid the base station in resource allocation, reduces the number of collisions by 50%, when the system operates with 25% of all UEs performing one shot transmissions.

ABSTRACT. Regional splitting of operators is one possible approach to support multi-operator cellular V2V communication. In this approach, a geographical area is divided into non-overlapping regions served by a unique operator. Although the regional splitting makes most of the communications among devices intra-operator, some inter-operator communications are still required in border areas. This kind of communication involves a high delay that may not be valid for the distribution of time-critical messages such as brake-after-crash messages. This paper focuses on latency reduction of inter-operator communications for the delivery of time-critical messages in multi-operator environments with regional splitting. In order to not increase the device cost, we propose a solution based on a forced inter-operator handover that is valid for devices with only one Radio Frequency (RF) unit. Analytical results demonstrate the usefulness of our proposal to reduce the latency of time-critical messages, while simulation results prove that non-time-critical messages are not affected by our proposal.

ABSTRACT. In recent 5G standardization activities, finely granular HARQ feedback (CBG HARQ) for partial retransmissions was introduced to support high data rates, while enabling coexistence with ultra-reliable low latency communication (URLLC). However, the CBG HARQ scheme comes with the drawback of increased feedback payload. In this paper, we discuss two reduced HARQ feedback schemes for using partial retransmissions, as used in CBG HARQ, while decreasing the feedback overhead implicated by finely granular feedback. These schemes exploit information on the location of puncturing by URLLC traffic, designated as Preemption Indication (PI). In this work, we show that these schemes achieve a similar performance to the regular CBG HARQ scheme, while significantly lowering the feedback overhead burden on the communication system.

ABSTRACT. As a new inter prediction mode, Frame Rate Up-Conversion (FRUC) is introduced for exploring the future video coding. In FRUC, for a coding unit, the motion information can be derived by the Template Matching (TM) technique. However, in the TM-based FRUC, the prediction direction, including forward, backward, or bi-directional prediction, is determined only based on the initial motion information without further using pixel information of the current block. This may decrease the efficiency of the FRUC mode. To solve this problem, in this paper, three selection schemes on prediction direction are proposed based on template matching distortion and rate distortion cost, respectively. In the first scheme, the relationship in terms of template matching distortion is obtained among different prediction directions. Accordingly, based on this relationship, the prediction direction can be determined both at encoder and decoder, and no additional bit needs to be transmitted to the decoder. In the second scheme, the prediction direction is determined based on rate-distortion optimization, and two additional bits are transmitted to the decoder for each block. Finally, by combining the above two schemes, the third scheme is proposed to further enhance coding efficiency while reducing coding complexity. Our proposed algorithm is integrated into the Joint Exploration Model 5.0.1 platform. Experimental results show that average Bjøntegaard delta rate (BD-rate) savings of 0.23% (Y), 0.47% (Y), 0.51% (Y) for three schemes are achieved by using the proposed three schemes, respectively, with no or a little increase of computational cost.

ABSTRACT. In order to further improve intra-coding efficiency, the latest video coding reference software JEM adopts a few intra-coding techniques which extremely increase the coding complexity. In view of this, this paper proposes a commutative mode-dependent transform (CMDT) framework for intra coding, aiming to make a trade-off between the coding efficiency and the coding complexity. In this work, we first design a mode-dependent transform set for each specified intra mode, where only DCT-II and DST-VII are used. Meanwhile, due to the complex and varying textures in natural videos, it is difficult to adapt the various characteristics of the prediction residuals using a set of fixed transform cores. Considering this, we develop a commutative mechanism inspired by the observation that the adjacent intra modes have similar characteristics of the prediction residuals. Through the commutative mechanism, the horizontal and vertical transform cores of a specified intra mode are exchanged as the best transform set of the adjacent intra mode, which could improve the transform coding efficiency without any syntax overhead. The CMDT has been implemented on the reference software JEM 7.0 and experimental results show that the CMDT can achieve 2.11%, 2.53% and 2.59% bit rate saving in average on luma and chroma components, respectively, with negligible encoding and decoding time increase.

ABSTRACT. Rate-distortion optimized quantization (RDOQ) is shown to provide significant coding gain in HEVC but it also suffers from huge computational complexity. In this paper, we simplify the RDOQ tool in HEVC by enforcing more zero levels at high frequency locations without sacrificing coding efficiency much. First, we analyze the properties of each quantized level at different frequency locations. Subsequently, we set the quantized level of value 1 to 0 at specified high frequency locations to save the RDOQ processing time. In addition, a smaller round offset for quantization is adaptively used to minimize coding loss at high frequency locations. Our scheme is shown to reduce total quantization time by an average of 15.6% with only 0.01% loss in BDBR under the all intra coding configuration, and 13.17% of average time saving with 0.07% BDBR loss under the Random Access configuration.

ABSTRACT. AVS2 is the new generation of video coding standard developed by the Audio Video Coding Standard Working Group of China. Similar to HEVC, a flexible partition structure is adopted to improve coding performance in AVS2. For intra coding, a coding unit (CU) is recursively split into sub CUs based on the quad-tree structure. CUs should be further split into prediction unit (PU) with various square or non-square shapes. All these processes increase encoding complexity dramatically. In this paper, a fast intra coding algorithm for CU partition and PU partition is proposed to reduce the complexity in AVS2 intra coding. Specifically, the statistical analysis model between texture complexity and partition mode is established. According to the model, an adaptive online-offline threshold selection algorithm is proposed to determine the early skipping and early termination in CU and PU level. Experimental results show that the proposed fast intra coding algorithm achieves more than a 54% encoding time reduction on average with only a 0.77% BD-rate increase under all-intra configuration for the AVS2 reference software RD18.0.

ABSTRACT. With the rapid development of 3D capture technologies, point cloud has been widely used in many emerging applications such as augmented reality, autonomous driving, and 3D printing. However, point cloud, used to represent real world objects in these applications, may contain millions of points, which results in huge data volume. Therefore, efficient compression algorithms are essential for point cloud when it comes to storage and real-time transmission issues. Specially, the attribute compression of point cloud is still challenging owing to the sparsity and irregular distribution of corresponding points in 3D space. In this paper, we present a novel point cloud attribute compression scheme based on hierarchical clustering and 3D intra prediction. Unlike the commonly used octree decomposition based compression approaches, we divide point cloud into distinguishing clusters by a hierarchical clustering algorithm. Accordingly, a genetic algorithm based intra prediction is introduced to organize the irregularly distributed points in each cluster, and the color attributes of these points are mapped to 2D uniform grids. Finally, a well-developed image coding method is leveraged to achieve adorable compression performance. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed scheme is much more efficient than traditional attribute compression schemes.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents field testing results of Layered Division Multiplexing (LDM) and Scalable HEVC (SHVC) broadcast in the ATSC 3.0 standard. A 1080p HD content is encoded in Base Layer (BL) of SHVC targeted for a robust indoor or mobile service, and it is combined with Enhancement Layer (EL) of SHVC to provide 4K-UHD fixed service. The field testing also includes existing HEVC simulcast and Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) broadcast, so as to provide comprehensive measurement analysis as well as comparison study given the possible service options that ATSC 3.0 provide.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents channel bonding performance of ATSC 3.0 systems with equal PLP rate in fixed channel environments. Channel bonding is used to enhance data rate of broadcasting systems beyond a single channel capacity by utilizing additional channels. Moreover, it can also provide frequency diversity gains by combining non-contiguous channels with different channel profiles. Simulation results show that reception performance is improved by employing channel bonding across different channel profiles.

ABSTRACT. ATSC 3.0, the latest Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) standard, allows a higher spectral efficiency and/or a transmission robustness with Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology compared to existing single-antenna DTT networks. Regarding MIMO precoding, three precoding blocks known as Steam Combining (SC), IQ Polarization Interleaving (IQPI) and Phase Hopping (PH) are possible in ATSC 3.0. The three MIMO precoding blocks are standardized as optional, but the performance has not been evaluated. This paper focuses on the performance evaluation of the three MIMO precoding algorithms in ATSC 3.0 using physical layer simulations. Potential gains in required signal to noise ratio (SNR) for several modulation and coding combinations have been evaluated in a fundamental cross-polarized 2x2 MIMO transmission model and MIMO channel snapshots actually captured in an urban area. The fundamental simulation results showed that IQPI and PH provide some gains in a power imbalanced channel and in a small cross polarization discrimination case, respectively. The study based on the practical MIMO channel snapshots concluded that SC potentially provide some gains especially with QPSK and high code rate, but IQPI and PH are less likely to beneficial in an actual static reception scenario.

ABSTRACT. This paper presents a new lattice representation for ATSC 3.0 MIMO which transforms 2x2 complex channel model into 4x4 real-valued linear system. It provides a better understanding of the ATSC 3.0 MIMO precoding and allows the design of simple decoding algorithms. Based on the new lattice representation, a new maximum-likelihood (ML) decoding algorithm is derived. Also, a sub-optimal decoding algorithm based on successive interference cancellation is proposed. The simulation results show that the new ML decoding achieves identical performance to the conventional ML decoder. Furthermore, the sub-optimal decoding algorithm can significantly reduce the decoding complexity.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, the joint transmission of ATSC 3.0 Layered Division Multiplexing (LDM) with co-located Multi-Antenna schemes (MIMO) is investigated for the mobile or Core Layer (CL). Previous works have already assessed the ergodic capacity of LDM plus MIMO, but the performance over realistic channels has not been performed yet. Four potential system models for the CL are compared, depending on the number of mobile receiving antennas and the use of Transmit Diversity Code Filter Sets (TDCFS). Mobile layer performance is evaluated by means of physical layer simulations. The main results obtained show that system models with one antenna receivers provide similar performance as more-complex implementations with two receiving antennas. The use of TDCFS is also recommended for mobile channels.

ABSTRACT. This paper regards photonically enabled millimeter wave links for use in 5G. Following a short review of the trade-off between link directivity, achievable capacity and coverage area, it discusses the use of optical space division multiplexing as suggested in the 2^nd phase 5G-PPP project blueSPACE. Finally it relates the latter to the potential use of millimeter waves for broad- and multicast within the framework of 5G.

ABSTRACT. Analog optical fronthaul for 5G network architectures is currently being promoted as a bandwidth- and energy-efficient technology that can sustain the data-rate, latency and energy requirements of the emerging 5G era. This paper presents 5G-PHOS project approach, which relies on a new optical fronthaul architecture that can effectively synergize optical transceiver, optical add/drop multiplexer and optical beamforming integrated photonics towards a DSP-assisted analog fronthaul for seamless and medium-transparent 5G small-cell networks.

ABSTRACT. We discuss hybrid WDM/SDM delivery of mobile fronthaul in PONs, employing SDN-enabled BVTs based on adaptive multicarrier modulation. First, we present a generic scheme for the WDM/SDM fronthaul delivery and discuss the limits of the solution. Also, the paper explains the programmability options of the different optical elements presented. Finally, a set of preliminary experiments is reported and the most relevant results are highlighted.

ABSTRACT. Addressing bandwidth limitation in the fronthaul segment of next generation 5G network has become nowadays an important problem in the data communication community. Radio over Fiber together with Spatial Division Multiplexing has been recently proposed as the suitable technologies to implement the fronthaul network segment. In this work, we address this topic studying experimentally analog optical links for 5G communications.

ABSTRACT. With the development of deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs), object detection task has achieved great improvement. However, most current CNN based object detection models take huge computation and memory resource and are hard to deploy on the mobile device with limited resource. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a light and fast object detection algorithm running on NVIDIA Jetson TX2, an GPU platform targeted at power constrained mobile applications. Firstly, we mainly use depthwise separable convolution to replace traditional convolution to design a new network architecture. Then, we prune filters from the network we design. By removing whole filters in the network together with their connecting feature maps, the computation and memory are reduced significantly. Afterwards, compared to other methods implemented on the embedded gpu system, we can get higher FPS and use less memory with little accuracy decreased on PASCAL VOC 2007 task.

ABSTRACT. Nowadays, automatic object-size measurement (AOSM) techniques are in high demand since there are numerous applications including three-dimensional multimedia entertainment games, cyber-physical interaction, and real-time geographical survey. When the scene is complex with many objects, the AOSM problem is quite challenging because it is very hard to describe the object of interest a priori. In this paper, we design a novel efficient automatic human-height measurement scheme using a single camera. Our proposed new scheme is very robust so that the heights of multiple persons within the scene can be estimated automatically and simultaneously. The experimental results demonstrate that the average error percentage is less than 2%.

ABSTRACT. Full 4K videos (3840x2160, 60 FPS) are becoming popular in human life. They can provide better user experience because of their sharpness and smoothness. However, the lack of full 4K video sources is limiting their popularization. The problem can be overcome by up converting HD (1920x1080, 24 FPS) videos, but the transcoding progress is time consuming, and traditional distributed video transcoding is not applicable as frame rate up convert (FRUC) during the progress may introduce timestamp mismatch and quality loss. What's more, cases like IPTV need video streams with a fixed group of pictures (GOP) to obtain stable transmitting and channel switching, while no existing distributed transcoding method can obtain such requirement. To utilize the advantages of cloud computing in such scenarios, in this paper we propose a novel distributed scheduling algorithm for FRUC video transcoding.The algorithm slice videos at instantaneous decoder refresh (IDR) frames to prevent quality loss, and introduce overlap while processing for fixing GOP, and finally remove the redundancies for timestamp matching. Experiment results show that with the same amount of computing resources, our algorithm transcodes a video faster than single node transcoder, and shows more efficiency than single node transcoder when the number of CPU cores increases.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, a segment constraint ABR algorithm for HEVC based on x265 platform is proposed for the practical situation when the video needs to be transmitted through network with bitrate stability for each segment. Default ABR algorithm in x265 and R-λ model are integrated and a segment-based rate control scheme is developed. The proposed algorithm can achieve an average of 46% segment bitrate fluctuation reduction with tolerable increase in encoding time and negligible changes in PSNR and QP.

ABSTRACT. In Long Term Evolution (LTE) Release 14, the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) introduced a significant extension to the 3GPP evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service named Further evolved Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Service (FeMBMS). In FeMBMS the option of a dedicated broadcast transmission mode on a separate carrier with an Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiplexing (OFDM) Cyclic Prefix (CP) length of up to 200 μs was introduced, potentially enabling broadcasters to transmit FeMBMS via existing High Tower, High Power (HTHP) infrastructure. Synchronization and basic signaling for FeMBMS needs to be provided periodically via a Cell Acquisition Subframe (CAS) utilizing the traditional OFDM CP length of 16.67 μs. To evaluate the capabilities of the FeMBMS dedicated broadcast transmission mode and the influence of the short CP length used for transmitting the CAS in a realistic environment of a city, we integrated FeMBMS into the Simulator for Mobile Networks (SiMoNe), a software platform for realistic mobile network simulations developed by Technische Universitaet Braunschweig. SiMoNe provides pathloss predictions based on a ray-tracer that takes into account 3D building data. In this paper, we present simulation methods and evaluate the impact of the CAS on the coverage of portable and mobile devices that can be achieved when three existing HTHP TV towers are used for the transmission of FeMBMS. Simulation results show a significant reduction of coverage area due to the CAS and indicate a coverage difference between subframe types.

ABSTRACT. 3GPP Release 14 has further improved eMBMS to enable the provision of television services according to requirements commonly found in the broadcasting industry. The improvements include several radio interface enhancements such as the support for larger inter-site distances in SFN deployments, the introduction of a dedicated eMBMS carrier with 100% broadcast resource allocation complete with a new, lower overhead subframe, stripping out the unicast control region. Studied in this paper are the main innovations introduced in Release 14 with respect to SFN coverage performance. Analysis has been carried out for low power low tower (LPLT) i.e. cellular networks and high power high tower (HPHT) networks typical in broadcasting today. Special focus is given to providing reception to fixed roof-top antennas, broadcasters’ main coverage mode.

ABSTRACT. The ever-increasing demand for video and multimedia content over mobile networks leads to high requirements in terms of data rate and radio resource management. Multimedia Broadcast/Multicast Service (eMBMS) is one of the most viable solution to meet such requirements. MBMS Single-Frequency Networks (MBSFN) improve the efficiency of eMBMS transmitting the same content at the same time over the same frequencies. This requires very challenging radio resource management and Area Formation procedures. In this work we analyzed the performance of a Area Formation algorithm, which has the aim to maximize the aggregate data rate of the system by serving users with poor channel conditions via unicast links. Our study aims to evaluate the impact that the band used to serve such users has on the performance of the algorithm by considering two different case and different background traffic values.

ABSTRACT. The rapid growth of the demand for group-oriented services requires wireless systems to efficiently manage both unicast and multicast applications. 5G network operators have to implement efficient radio resource management techniques to handle traffic flows that differ in the (i) required quality of service, (ii) transmission mode (i.e., unicast and multicast), and (iii) perceived channel quality. A possible solution to effectively handle mixed unicast and multicast traffic is to manage unicast subscribers in virtual groups, similarly to multicast users, according to a Virtual Unicast Group (VUG) approach. In this paper we analyze the ability of VUG to flexibly distribute resources between unicast and multicast wireless video services when varying the cost function utilized for distributing network resources.

ABSTRACT. Multicast transmission is one of the key enablers towards a more efficient distribution of multimedia content in group-oriented services delivered in current and envisaged cellular networks. Traditionally, most multicast techniques adopt conservative strategies to choose the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) to deliver the service to all the multicast users. Unfortunately, these conservative strategies present two main drawbacks. Firstly, the multicast MCS is selected according to the propagation characteristics of the worst user in the multicast group, thus severely compromising spectral efficiency. Secondly, this MCS selection is done on the basis of wideband channel quality indicators (CQIs), and therefore neglects the frequency-selective character of the channel experienced by the different users. In trying to confront these two drawbacks, novel subband CQI-based schemes are proposed in this paper leading to improved spectral efficiencies while still fulfilling quality of service (QoS) metrics.

ABSTRACT. In this paper we present a 5G Internet Radio-Light (IoRL) architecture for homes that can be readily deployed because it utilizes unlicensed visible light and millimeter wave part of the spectrum, which does not require Mobile Network Operator (MNO) permission to deploy and which is used to provide inhabitants of houses with accurate location, interaction, access to Internet and Cloud based services such as high resolution video on a Tablet PC. The paper describes the home use cases, the user and functional requirements and the IoRL architecture.

ABSTRACT. The Long-term evolution (LTE) is a standard for high speed mobile communications and 4G LTE communications is all around the world but the future is all about 5G, which is likely to be an evolution from 4G. This is the next generation of mobile communications technology, which in fact could be ten times faster than the existing 4G connection that will give a superbly speedy and reliable internet access. The internet of radio light (IoRL) project aims to acquire a safer, more secure, customizable and intelligent building network. This paper presents the solution to the existing issues in the LI-FI systems. There are four essential applications that will be achieved by overcoming the issues. They are Location, Monitoring, Guiding and Interaction Applications. The paper discusses the development of each application and its importance.

ABSTRACT. Virtual Reality (VR) is a technology that is rapidly developing, leading to a whole array of innovative commercially viable products. Some of the challenges facing the early development of Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) include high cost, restricted physical movement and laborious setup. This paper highlights several of these challenges and outlines an architecture in which systems can require less specialised equipment, be used with greater freedom and are simpler to setup. This paper shows how using the correct applications, the Internet of Radio Light (IoRL) architecture could lead to enhanced VR experiences. Specifically, a wireless six Degrees of Freedom (DOF) VR system for both existing mobile and PC operated VR. The aim is, to exploit the existing IoRL architecture to provide a safer, wireless, high speed, less laborious, more immersive and improved VR experience with broader applications.

ABSTRACT. With the massive technological advancements being made every year, the need for better and faster data rates, better and improved security measures is being given high importance in the research community. Therefore, open space communication has become a hot topic in the recent years of which Visible Light Communication (VLC), is one of the highly researched areas. The reason for its high popularity is because of its ability to provide high data rates, high bandwidth and a very secure medium of transmission as it cannot penetrate walls. This paper investigates the impact of visible light communication on audio and video transmissions. A real experimental test-bed is setup to test the performance of audio transmission over VLC under various conditions such as distance from the source, interfering lighting, etc. Subjectives tests are carried out to assess the quality of the audio VLC link as perceived by the user. Additionally, a comprehensive study on existing simultaneous video and audio transmission systems over VLC is provided and the challenges and remaining open issues are identified.

ABSTRACT. Software defined Networking (SDN) represent the future framework for the mobile networks. This paper discusses the required modifications within the EPC in order to overcome some of the limitations of the current EPS, these modifications include introducing an SDN based solution Software Based Mobile Core Network Architecture (SBMCNA), we also show that Openflow protocol 1.3 has been extended to develop two methods to support GPRS Tunnelling Protocol (GTP) operations. The use of an intelligent Forwarding device (FD) were proposed to reduce the signalling load. SBMCNA were built on OMNeT++ by extending simuLTE [12] and Openflow 1.3 [13] modules. Load balancing and resiliency were used to demonstrate the capability of the proposed system to reduce the signalling load. The preliminary results of the system performance are presented.

ABSTRACT. This paper proposes, describes and analyses two innovative approaches which make use of the Multipath Transmission Control Protocol (MPTCP) and its multiple flows for prioritised AR/VR content delivery. The first approach involves delivery of prioritised data using a fixed subflow and therefore the establishment of a virtual private channel (VPC) for sending data. The second approach introduces a novel QoS on-the-fly (QoSF) algorithm that evaluates all subflows' delivery performance and dynamically selects one of them to deliver the prioritised content with the lowest latency. Both algorithms are assessed in single-homed and multi-homed configurations and present different performance improvements in comparison to the classic MPTCP. While QoSF algorithm demonstrates the best performance in scenarios where the delivery latency variation between subflows is high, the VPC algorithm has the best results in scenarios where this variation is smaller.

ABSTRACT. Video stitching remains a challenging problem in computer vision, especially for the widely existed artifacts around moving objects, including parallaxes, ghosts, etc. Traditional methods usually rely on single projective model, which may cause inaccurate correspondences of moving objects in the overlapped region. In this paper, we leverage the optical flow field in the overlapped area, which provides pixel-wise dense projection, so that the artifacts can be drastically reduced. However, since the projection of non-overlapped area is calculated from overlapped area's projection, we propose to automatically select the left or right frame as a reference to avoid the inconsistent transformation when an object moves across the border between overlapped and non-overlapped area. Experimental results demonstrate the advantage of our method over state-of-the-art ones around moving objects.

ABSTRACT. For transmitting bulky virtual reality (VR) videos efficiently, one industry-recognized mechanism is partitioning each of them into tiles and streaming the corresponding content according to user's viewport (field of view, FoV). The performance of FoV-based streaming management can be improved by FoV prediction and tiles that are prefetched by FoV prediction are stored in buffer. Buffer is of great concern to guarantee the consecutive and smooth playback throughout the whole navigation. In this paper, we design a novel VR video streaming system using MPEG Media Transport (MMT) to support tile-based transmission mechanism, considering each tile is coded at different quality levels. And the buffer model of this system is modified based on the accuracy of FoV prediction and variable bandwidth. In addition, we propose a dynamic buffer size management and the corresponding optimization method. Simulation result shows that the dynamic buffer size management have a better performance in quality of experience (QoE) than non-dynamic management.

ABSTRACT. Virtual Reality (VR) can be used for many applications in diverse fields such as engineering, gaming, healthcare, education, etc. Internet of Things (IoT) devices, including CCTV monitoring cameras and smart watches, support diverse services including providing sensor data, intelligence in appliances and multimedia. This paper proposes and describes VRITESS, a novel VR-IoT environment synchronisation scheme which facilitates a seamless user experience for IoT devices through use of VR, and synchronised representation of IoT devices in the virtual world. Certain IoT devices, which are located in extreme environments or are not straightforward in terms of operation for many users, can be manipulated in a simpler way in a virtual environment. A synchronisation mechanism keeps the real devices up-to-date, according to actions and events that happened in the virtual world and vice-versa: actions applied on the real devices are transferred to the virtual world. The proposed solution is tested in a real-life testbed developed in the Performance Engineering Laboratory at Dublin City University, Ireland, with the Oculus Rift and several IoT devices.