Tutorial 12: Designing green future networks: Achieving net-zero energy sustainability

Co-chair: Swades De, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, India
Co-chair: Li-Chun Wang, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

Abstract: Realizing energy sustainable communication networks has been a key challenge in the upcoming sixth generation (6G) networks. Recent years have witnessed the significant increase in network energy consumption with the steady rise in user Quality of Service (QoS) requirements due to the advent of Internet of Things (IoT), in addition to upcoming 6G network services. Network energy solutions are strongly correlated with the cost involved to the mobile operator in deploying the solution, necessitating a detailed techno-economic network analysis. In this tutorial we discuss system level node and network solutions towards achieving the prospects of achieving net-zero energy sustainability. In an ambient powered and grid connected multi-base station (BS) scenario, we present detailed techno-economic analysis highlighting the key challenges and system constraints. In an environment prone to space-time varying double stochasticity arising from the inherent cellular traffic and energy harvest, novel network operation frameworks involving cellular traffic and/or green energy balancing are presented. These frameworks are analyzed with respect to user QoS guarantee, network grid energy consumption, and the operator net revenue detailing the capital and operational expenditure gains. Next, we demonstrate the tradeoffs associated when designing the network from diverging perspectives, namely, carbon minimization and operator revenue maximization. We motivate that the power grid connectivity plays a vital role in achieving energy sustainability as well as scalability to the operator through cost profitability, thereby highlighting the efficacy of networked ambient powered BSs. The tutorial then motivates towards designing integrated aerial-terrestrial networks, presenting green network infrastructure framework. The tutorial concludes by presenting some open issues associated with designing future networks.

 

Co-chair Bios:

Swades De

Bio: Swades De (Senior Member, IEEE) received the B.Tech. degree in Radiophysics and Electronics from the University of Calcutta in 1993, the M.Tech. degree in Optoelectronics and Optical communication from IIT Delhi in 1998, and the Ph.D. degree in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2004. Dr. De is currently a Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Delhi. Before moving to IIT Delhi in 2007, he was a Tenure-Track Assistant Professor with the Department of ECE, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, NJ, USA, from 2004–2007. He worked as an ERCIM Post-doctoral Researcher at ISTI-CNR, Pisa, Italy (2004), and has nearly five years of industry experience in India on telecom hardware and software development, from 1993–1997, 1999. His research interests are broadly in communication networks, with emphasis on performance modeling and analysis. Current directions include resource allocation, energy harvesting, wireless energy transfer, energy sustainable and green communications, spectrum sharing, smart grid networks, and IoT communications. Dr. De currently serves as an Associate Editor of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS, IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON VEHICULAR TECHNOLOGY, and IEEE WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS MAGAZINE.

 

Li-Chun Wang

Bio: Li-Chun Wang (Fellow, IEEE) received Ph. D. degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, in 1996. From 1996 to 2000, he worked at AT&T Laboratories, where he was a Senior Technical Staff Member in the Wireless Communications Research Department. Since August 2000, he has joined the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University in Taiwan. He is now a Chair Professor and is jointly appointed by the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering from the same university. Dr. Wang was elected to an IEEE Fellow in 2011 for his contributions to cellular architecture and radio resource management in wireless networks. He has won two Distinguished Research Awards from Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology (2012, 2017). He was the co-recipients of IEEE Communications Society Asia-Pacific Board Best Award (2015), Y. Z. Hsu Scientific Paper Award (2013), and IEEE Jack Neubauer Best Paper Award (1997). His recent research interests are in the areas of cross-layer optimization for wireless systems, data-driven radio resource management, software-defined heterogeneous mobile networks, big data analysis for industrial Internet of things, and AI-enabled unmanned aerial vehicular (UAV) networks. He holds 26 US patents, and has published over 300 journal and conference papers, and co-edited the book, “Key Technologies for 5G Wireless Systems,” (Cambridge University Press 2017).