Assignment

COL867 - Special Topics in High Speed Network

Amal Prasad - 2017CS1032

1. Edge Computing is one of the key characteristics/enablers of 5G

Networks.

(a) Discuss the advantages/merits of Edge Computing in 5G networks

❖ Edge computing tackles latency in 5G networks: Centralisation leads to slow speed
and bad performance when dealing with endpoints on the internet’s edge, such as IoT
devices/sensors and mobile devices. It is the only way to meet the latency targets that
have been set (1ms network latency)

❖ Bandwidth cost savings: Edge computations on IoT devices helps send only selected
tasks to servers

❖ Better privacy options and regulatory compliance: If data is not sent to the server
and kept with the IoT device, security is achieved

❖ Support for situations when network connectivity is inconsisten

(b) Discuss the limitations of Edge Computing in 5G networks

❖ Infrastructure requirement is hig
❖ Large storage capacity is neede
❖ Security challenges in edge computing is high due to huge amount of dat
❖ Very high cos

2. Argue why one needs to deploy Micro/Femto cells in a 5G environment?

Discuss the challenges and limitations of Micro/Femto cells in a 5G
deployment

Micro/Femto cells support higher QoS capabilities and exibility. Such cells are easily
maintained and implemented because of lower weights. These cells are eco-friendly
because of lesser cell towers and low power requirements. They also have higher
capacity because than macro cells and are less prone to interference. More bene ts
include lower delay, in-building coverage and better cell-edge coverage

Challenges
• Identi cation of the millions of necessary locations
• Energy ef ciency Challenge

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• Acquiring permits for identi ed locations
• Operational costs to lease, deploy and maintain sites for most of these new small cells

3. What are the disadvantages/limitations of mmWave communications in

the context of 5G. Your answer should list challenges related to
Communications, Networks and Hardware devices

Path Loss

The free space path loss is dependent on the carrier frequency fc. Antenna size
decreases with an increase in fc. Path loss may be unchanged because constant antenna
aperture is maintained in most network end points. Furthermore, if both end points have
constant aperture, path loss will surprisingly reduce

Blockage

mmWave are very susceptible to blockages since they expose prismatic propagation. This
will result in a large scale drawback that cannot be bypassed with small scale diversity
countermeasures

Atmospheric and Rain Absorption

A major impediment to mmWave communications is attenuation due to rain, foliage, and

atmospheric absorption

4. IoT Scheduling

K heterogeneous IoT devices communicate with the IoT gateway over RF

links. The wireless links have different bit error probabilities. Propose a
scheduling mechanism at the gateway that will poll the K IoT devices and
ensure ef cient communication between the gateway and the K IoT
devices. Make any realistic assumption that may be needed to solve the
problem.
We can use a probabilistic scheduling mechanism here. Each device gets a probability
assigned and the one with highest probability gets to send/receive the message. The
probability will increase when bit error decreases and vice-versa. This allows other nodes

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 good nodes to send data. Furthermore, the probability will depend on the importance of a
node as in how pivotal for the task a particular node is.

5. The connection between AI/ML and Edge Nodes/Edge Computing may

not be immediately obvious. Give concrete examples of how AI/ML could
be leveraged in Edge nodes
Fast Data in Automotive Secto

Autonomous vehicles have to be very minutely designed taking care of any change in the
surroundings because of the real time dynamic nature of driving. Connectivity of the car to
the network may become weak at times but they have to be taken care of and AI/ML
comes into play here

eg- Toyota Connected leveraging Amazon Web Service

Toyota now performs analytics at the edge using AWS and sensors. Using analytics,
customers safety, convenience and comfort can be increased with the products
Eg
• Detecting and alerting drivers about tornadoes or other dangerous weather
conditions. Doing ML makes it faste
• Keeping the environment clean. Using edge and ML, reports can be led against
trash piles
• Reducing graf ti. These are detected in the same way as garbage is
• Improving maps in real time, optimising public transportation routes and
emergency services. These can be automated using ML and edg
• Improving safety outside and inside the car

Connected Home Machine Learning for Multiple Devices in syn

Smart home environments uses GPS, ML and AI to perform lots of sophisticated tasks
such as changing the thermostat setting by recognising what I like when I come home.
Smart locks can be installed in homes using visual recognition and similarly smart
doorbells can recognise me, lights can be controlled using this and maybe start playing
music. If these tasks are done separately, they are not very dif cult but to implement them
in conjuncture and on a daily basis is the genius

Machinery Maintenance using predictions in industrial environment

Lots of machinery and big equipments are used for production and processing; in order to
ensure proper functioning, monitoring them regularly is a must and if it is not done,
companies can suffer huge losses. Edge computing and ML at these hardware can look
for warning signs and perform regular maintenance and checks

VR/AR in Retai

Some stores provide the customers an option to try out clothes and makeups virtually by
using cameras and augmentations to try on products quickly and easily. This cuts out the

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 tedious task of physically trying on products, these ML-based algorithms enable

customers to nd what they are looking for ever more quickly

6. N heterogeneous IoT (last mile) devices are sensing diverse data (e.g.,
Pressure, Temperature, Humidity, Vibration, etc.) and storing a time series
of the data. These N heterogeneous devices communicate the date to the
sink node (e.g., the 5G gateway) over wireless links. The gateway will
aggregate the date from the N devices and forward it to the upstream
cloud.

(a) From the point of view of data analytics, what are the challenges at the
Gateway node

(b) How will you overcome the challenges

❖ Challenge: Enabling interoperability: Seamless intercommunication should be made
possible in an IoT system across the connected sensors and devices through the
Gateway. Solution: Supporting multiple connectivity sensor protocols, like Z-Wave,
ZigBee, BLE, Wi-Fi, BACnet etc

❖ Challenge: Handling high raw data volume for processing in the IoT gateway drives
high energy consumption. Solution: Reduce the number of data transmission (which
tells the data volume) using LMS adaptive lters

❖ Challenge: Continuous availability of the gateway, without any downtime and security
breaches. Solution: IoT Gateway Clustering: Many gateways are deployed in the
networks and a concept like cloud networks is used to support P2P connectivity

❖ Challenge: Network Throughput. Solution: Leverage of knowledge discovery in

databases and avoid raw data encapsulation into IP packets which increased latency

❖ Challenge: Raw data processing from the sensors. Solution: Information centric
networking (ICN) solutions: IoT Network edge data processing can be improved

❖ Challenge: Network attacks (active and passive) eg- device monitoring, eavesdropping,
man-in-the-middle. Solution: Many security strategies can be used to such as pyaload
encryption, certi cate usage, rest and transit data encryption and so on along with
secure connectivity.

7. Some of the key bene ts of Edge Computing are Speed, Security,

Scalability and Reliability. Explain how edge computing provides these
bene ts

Speed: If all data is sent to the server in its raw form, the latency increases due to the
overhead of sending the data to the server. Using edge computing, many computations
are done at a source very close to the device and processed data is sent to the server,
this reduces the overhead and overall performance improves.

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Security: Edge computing sends less information through the network and processes the
data before sending so the network becomes more secure
Scalability: In cloud, everything happens on the cloud, but in edge, edge server manages
the devices rst and then the main server receives the data, so by appropriately using
these local servers, edge computing becomes highly scalable without worrying too much
about the availability of storage
Reliability: Edge computing decreases network traf c and storage requirements at the
cloud and this leads to more structured and smooth business operations. It prevents site
electrical failures and increases optimal site up-time. Heart rate monitors and other health
related equipments become more reliable with edge computing

8. List and describe at least ve attack vectors related to Edge Computing.

A. Interfaces: Interfaces are used while communicating with the cloud and device and
also access security to device using protocols such as HTTP.
B. Protocols: The network interface protocol ports are major attack vectors on an
internet-connected device. Access to the device is exposed through these ports (eg-a
web interface is exposed typically through port 80) and can provide the attacker with
the information about the type of attacks possible.
C. Password and authentication risks: For the the convenience of users and
administrators, strong authentication measures such as multi-factor or two-stage
authentication are not employed by Edge systems.
D. Physical Security: The device can be compromised physically or opened using some
way.
E. Firmware Update Process: Edge computing has a requirement to be updated
regularly and x pervious bugs. This update process also creates an attack vector

9. Discuss the interdependence of 5G, IoT and Edge Computing. How are
these three technologies correlated and how do they impact each other.

Industry 4.0 refers to an array of areas like smart city grids, mobile content streaming,
data analytics and autonomous vehicles. 5G, IoT and Edge Computing together are the
enablers for Industry 4.0. If these are not all done simultaneously and only say IoT is
expanded, there will be network issues in handling the billions of devices and also in
processing the huge volume of data

5G is the foundation for reaching the heights of IoT. Being much more than downloads;
DG is a unique combination of very low latency, high-speed connectivity, and ubiquitous
coverage. Connected cars, trucks and other vehicle and transport is supported by 5G and
it provides ultra smooth, low-latency solutions because even a split second delay can
result in 4-way crash from smooth traf c. Real-time network performance is critical in
many areas such as heavy machinery environments, these devices can be controlled
remotely using 5G

Devices are at the edge of the networks and each device produces a huge amount of data
and there is a large number of devices from end points, now these end points if send all
data on to the network in the raw form, storage limitations, bandwidth limitations, latency
and throughput issues will Crete havoc in the IoT. Thus edge computing is essential for

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 the scalability of IoT. Furthermore, traditional approaches can’t provide real time solutions
and edge computing has become essential

10. N IoT devices are connected to the edge compute server. The N devices
are running concurrently. Explain how the edge compute server will be
able to concurrently handle the N IoT devices
The server will maintain a queue for the tasks that come to it and each task will be
determined by two things i) the IoT device that sent the task ii) the data of the task.
Scheduling algorithms can be used as per the requirements such as FCFS, Priority
Scheduling, Multi-level queue scheduling and so on. After a task has been fully nished, it
will be sent to the concerned IoT device

11. Argue FOR or AGAINST the statements below:

(i) Since Edge devices and therefore Edge Computing/Networking is

becoming more and more important, Cloud computing is likely to play a
limited role in the future.
NO. It will have lower role but not limited. Their functionalities are not entirely same and
both will play substantial roles. Edge computing offers low latency real time solutions but it
doesn’t store data. Cloud computing is based on infrastructure and storage, it can also be
easily scaled according to needs. Edge computing will thus complement cloud computing
rather than replacing it.

(ii) The bandwidth between IoT devices and the edge servers needs to be
strictly greater than the bandwidth between the edge servers and the cloud
servers.
YES. All data is sent to edge device, however edge device only sends certain fraction of it
to the cloud. Thus much larger volume transfer is needed between IoT device and edge
server. Therefore, the bandwidth should be greater.

(iii) De ne “Mini Edge Computing” to be edge computing between the IoT

devices and the current edge devices. We are likely to see a huge increase
in “Mini Edge Computing” devices in the years to come.
YES. It will then be tiered edge computing. 1st level between a cloud server and edge
device, then between edge device and another edge device and so on. Two-three tiers of
edge computing will increase the average performance but those data that are to be sent
to the cloud server will now have greater latencies.

(iv) With super high speed WiFi 6 networks, 5G networks are going to
become increasingly irrelevan

NO. 5G provides much more than Wi 6, 10x lower latency vs only 75% lower latency,
1000x capacity against only 4x capacity and 50x speed. Although Wi is low cost and
easy to deploy, 5G has much longer range and uses licensed spectrum so bandwidth is
not determined by current number of users.

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 12.You are told to implement 5G Network Slicing in your networking lab.
Describe the key metrics and factors that you need to keep in mind as you
work on a proof-of-concept
Latency, Data Security, Throughput, Energy Ef ciency, Mobility, Massive Connectivity,
Reachability, Guaranteed Qo

13. What impact will 5G have on backhaul networks

First of all, 5G offers high internet bandwidth, speed and ef ciency using existing backhaul
networks. Using 5G low latency cores, backhaul will become any haul with access
networks built in data centres. 5G features like mMTC and uRLLC will enable network
topologies

14. The transmission range (R) of an IoT node is the coverage area of the
node. Nodes within the transmission range are able to communicate with
each other.

(a) Plot the probability of connectivity (Pc) in a network as a function of R

(x-axis

(b) How will the above plot change as you increase the number of nodes in
the network? Plot Pc versus R with varying number of nodes in the
network
Pc varies with inverse R2 and the transmission can be done successfully for a threshold
number of nodes. When the number further increase, the probability decreases.

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 15. Suppose four active IoT nodes – nodes A, B, C and D – are competing
for access to a channel using slotted ALOHA. Assume each IoT node has
an in nite number of packets to send. Each node attempts to transmit in
each slot with probability ‘p’. The rst slot is numbered slot 1, the second
slot is numbered slot 2, and so on.

(a) What is the probability that node A succeeds for the rst time in slot
5? Hint: rst compute the probability that node A succeeds in a slot,
then compute the required probability.
Probability A succeeds in one slot =pA= only A sends = p.(1-p)^

Probability A succeed in 5th for the rst time = ((1-pA)^4)*p

(b) What is the probability that some node (either A, B, C or D) succeeds in

slot 4?
Probability some node succeeds = only one node sends = C(4, 1)*p*(1-p)^

C(4, 1) = Number of ways to choose 1 out of

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