Access profile

The doctoral programme is designed for students who have taken master’s degrees in telecommunications or computer science and wish to examine a topic or area in greater depth to contribute knowledge. Although we could say that this is the ideal starting point, it is not the only one. Students with other educational backgrounds could also be accepted, although they may need to take bridging courses.

The doctoral programme is designed for people with technological interests who are creative and want to advance the state-of-the-art in the subject. This activity requires an attitude to technology that goes beyond user knowledge to reach an understanding of technology itself, which the doctoral student will know how to improve as a result. Doctoral studies have two benefits. First, they meet personal needs to understand things, and second they train the person, providing them with methodology and knowledge that they can use in their professional activity in positions that require technological creativity.

Research and development departments in companies or the creation of emerging companies are places where this knowledge could be exploited to the maximum.

The natural route into the doctoral programme is via the various master’s degrees in Telecommunications Engineering at the UPC taught by the ETSETB and the EETAC, in which case bridging courses are not required. For students from other master’s programmes, the academic committee of the doctoral programme will analyse applicants’ academic record and the area in which they will develop their thesis. Based on this information, the committee will decide whether students need to take bridging courses up to a maximum of 30 credits. As a general rule, students who hold a master’s degree in telecommunications (or an equivalent qualification) from other Spanish or European universities can access the research phase directly. Students with a master’s degree in computer science may be asked to take a bridging course in the subject area of telecommunication networks. Students who come from other master’s degrees should take additional credits so that they can gain the knowledge they need rapidly. The range of topics and approaches used to carry out the research makes it difficult to establish specific admission requirements (some theses have a high mathematics content, others are more focused on application). However, in general, knowledge of tools that can be used for performance evaluation will be assessed. Hence, applicants must be able to handle mathematical models, numerical methods, simulation tools such as ns-3, OMNET, Matlab or have knowledge of programming in Java, C++, C or Python for the construction of prototypes. Knowledge of written and spoken English is essential, as this is the language that will be used in the doctoral degree, for training, generation of publications and reports, and the exchange of knowledge with other researchers.

Output profile

Doctoral candidates who complete a doctoral degree will have acquired the following competencies, which are needed to carry out quality research (Royal Decree 99/2011, of 28 January, which regulates official doctoral studies):

a) A systematic understanding of the field of study and a mastery of the research skills and methods related to the field.
b) An ability to conceive, design or create, put into practice and adopt a substantial process of research or creation.
c) An ability to contribute to pushing back the frontiers of knowledge through original research.
d) A capacity for critical analysis and an ability to assess and summarise new and complex ideas.
e) An ability to communicate with the academic and scientific community and with society in general as regards their fields of knowledge in the manner and languages that are typical of the international scientific community to which they belong.
f) An ability to foster scientific, technological, social, artistic and cultural progress in academic and professional contexts within a knowledge-based society.

The award of a doctoral degree must equip the graduate for work in a variety of settings, especially those requiring creativity and innovation. Doctoral graduates must have at least acquired the personal skills needed to:

a) Develop in contexts in which there is little specific information.
b) Find the key questions that must be answered to solve a complex problem.
c) Design, create, develop and undertake original, innovative projects in their field.
d) Work as part of a team and independently in an international or multidisciplinary context.
e) Integrate knowledge, deal with complexity and make judgements with limited information.
f) Offer criticism on and intellectually defend solutions.

Finally, with respect to competencies, doctoral students must:
a) have acquired advanced knowledge at the frontier of their discipline and demonstrated, in the context of internationally recognised scientific research, a deep, detailed and well-grounded understanding of theoretical and practical issues and scientific methodology in one or more research fields;
b) have made an original and significant contribution to scientific research in their field of expertise that has been recognised as such by the international scientific community;
c) have demonstrated that they are capable of designing a research project that serves as a framework for carrying out a critical analysis and assessment of imprecise situations, in which they are able to apply their contributions, expertise and working method to synthesise new and complex ideas that yield a deeper knowledge of the research context in which they work;
d) have developed sufficient autonomy to set up, manage and lead innovative research teams and projects and scientific collaborations (both national and international) within their subject area, in multidisciplinary contexts and, where appropriate, with a substantial element of knowledge transfer;
e) have demonstrated that they are able to carry out their research activity in a socially responsible manner and with scientific integrity;
f) have demonstrated, within their specific scientific context, that they are able to make cultural, social or technological advances and promote innovation in all areas within a knowledge-based society;
g) have demonstrated that they are able to participate in scientific discussions at the international level in their field of expertise and disseminate the results of their research activity to audiences of all kinds.

Number of places

8

Duration of studies and dedication regime

Duration
The maximum period of study for full-time doctoral studies is three years, counted from the date of admission to the programme to the date of submission of the doctoral thesis. The academic committee of the doctoral programme may authorise a doctoral candidate to pursue doctoral studies on a part-time basis. In this case, the maximum period of study is five years, counting from the date of admission to the programme to the date of submission of the doctoral thesis. For calculating these periods, the date of admission is considered to be the date of the first enrolment for tutorials, and the date of submission the moment in which the Doctoral School officially deposits the doctoral thesis.

For full-time doctoral candidates, the minimum period of study is two years, counted from the date of an applicant's admission to the programme until the date on which the doctoral thesis is deposited; for part-time doctoral candidates it is four years. When there are justified grounds for doing so, and the thesis supervisor and academic tutor have given their authorisation, doctoral candidates may request that the academic committee of their doctoral programme exempt them from the minimum period of study requirement.

The calculation of periods of study will not include periods of absence due to illness, pregnancy or any other reason provided for in the regulations in force. Students who find themselves in any of these circumstances must notify the academic committee of the doctoral programme, which, where appropriate, must inform the Doctoral School. Doctoral candidates may also temporarily withdraw from the programme for up to one year, and this period may be extended for an additional year. Doctoral candidates who wish to interrupt their studies must submit a justified request to the academic committee of the doctoral programme, which will decide whether or not to approve the request. Each programme will establish conditions for readmission to doctoral studies.

Extension
If full-time doctoral candidates have not applied to deposit their thesis by the end of the three-year period of study, the academic committee of the programme may authorise an extension of up to one year. In exceptional circumstances, a further one-year extension may be granted, subject to the conditions established by the corresponding doctoral programme. In the case of part-time doctoral candidates, an extension of two years may be authorised. In both cases, in exceptional circumstances a further one-year extension may be granted by the Doctoral School's Standing Committee, upon the submission of a reasoned application by the academic committee of the doctoral programme.

Dismissal from the doctoral programme
A doctoral candidate may be dismissed from a doctoral programme for the following reasons:

• The doctoral candidate submitting a justified application to withdraw from the programme.
• The maximum period of study and of extensions thereof ending.
• The doctoral candidate not having enrolled every academic year (unless he or she has been authorised to temporarily withdraw).
• The doctoral candidate failing two consecutive assessments.
• The doctoral candidate having disciplinary proceedings filed against him or her that rule that he or she must be dismissed from the UPC.

Dismissal from the programme implies that doctoral candidates cannot continue studying at the UPC and the closing of their academic record. This notwithstanding, they may apply to the academic committee of the programme for readmission and the committee must reevaluate them in accordance with the criteria established in the regulations.

Enrollment aid

Do not exist.

Organization

• Sallent Ribes, Sebastian

• Aguilar Igartua, Mónica
• Calveras Auge, Anna
• Martin Escalona, Israel
• Muñoz Tapia, Jose Luis
• Sallent Ribes, Sebastian
• Serrat Fernandez, Juan

• Department of Network Engineering (PROMOTORA)

Agreements with other institutions

There are various joint supervision agreements with European and international universities, for example, with Uruguay, Mexico and Lebanon, among other countries, and projects such as 5GAuRA, which is part of the H2020 Marie Curie Programme.

In addition, verbal agreements have been made with European universities for short-term visits of our doctoral students. As a result, doctoral students have been able to carry out research visits of at least three months in the universities or technology schools of Amsterdam, Grenoble, Glasgow, Milan, Louvain and China (Changsha), among other places.

Joint supervision is also carried out with the Telecommunications Technology Centre of Catalonia (CTTC) in the area of wireless technology, fixed networks and security.

Access profile

The doctoral programme is designed for students who have taken master’s degrees in telecommunications or computer science and wish to examine a topic or area in greater depth to contribute knowledge. Although we could say that this is the ideal starting point, it is not the only one. Students with other educational backgrounds could also be accepted, although they may need to take bridging courses.

The doctoral programme is designed for people with technological interests who are creative and want to advance the state-of-the-art in the subject. This activity requires an attitude to technology that goes beyond user knowledge to reach an understanding of technology itself, which the doctoral student will know how to improve as a result. Doctoral studies have two benefits. First, they meet personal needs to understand things, and second they train the person, providing them with methodology and knowledge that they can use in their professional activity in positions that require technological creativity.

Research and development departments in companies or the creation of emerging companies are places where this knowledge could be exploited to the maximum.

The natural route into the doctoral programme is via the various master’s degrees in Telecommunications Engineering at the UPC taught by the ETSETB and the EETAC, in which case bridging courses are not required. For students from other master’s programmes, the academic committee of the doctoral programme will analyse applicants’ academic record and the area in which they will develop their thesis. Based on this information, the committee will decide whether students need to take bridging courses up to a maximum of 30 credits. As a general rule, students who hold a master’s degree in telecommunications (or an equivalent qualification) from other Spanish or European universities can access the research phase directly. Students with a master’s degree in computer science may be asked to take a bridging course in the subject area of telecommunication networks. Students who come from other master’s degrees should take additional credits so that they can gain the knowledge they need rapidly. The range of topics and approaches used to carry out the research makes it difficult to establish specific admission requirements (some theses have a high mathematics content, others are more focused on application). However, in general, knowledge of tools that can be used for performance evaluation will be assessed. Hence, applicants must be able to handle mathematical models, numerical methods, simulation tools such as ns-3, OMNET, Matlab or have knowledge of programming in Java, C++, C or Python for the construction of prototypes. Knowledge of written and spoken English is essential, as this is the language that will be used in the doctoral degree, for training, generation of publications and reports, and the exchange of knowledge with other researchers.

Access requirements

Applicants must hold a Spanish bachelor’s degree or equivalent and a Spanish master’s degree or equivalent, provided they have completed a minimum of 300 ECTS credits on the two degrees (Royal Decree 43/2015, of 2 February)

In addition, the following may apply:

• Holders of an official degree awarded by a university in Spain or any other country in the European Higher Education Area, pursuant to the provisions of Article 16 of Royal Decree 1393/2007, of 29 October, which establishes official university course regulations, who have completed a minimum of 300 ECTS credits on official university degrees, of which at least 60 must be at the master's degree level.
• Holders of an official Spanish bachelor’s degree comprising at least 300 credits, as provided for by EU regulations. Holder of degrees of this kind must complete bridging courses unless the curriculum of the bachelor’s degree in question included research training credits equivalent in value to those which would be earned on a master's degree.
• Holders of an official university qualification who, having passed the entrance examination for specialised medical training, have completed at least two years of a training course leading to an official degree in a health-sciences specialisation.
• Holders of a degree issued under a foreign education system. In these cases, homologation is not required, but the UPC must verify that the degree certifies a level of training equivalent to an official Spanish master's degree and qualifies the holder for admission to doctoral studies in the country where it was issued. Admission on this basis does not imply homologation of the foreign degree or its recognition for any purpose other than admission to doctoral studies.
• Holders of a Spanish doctoral qualification issued under previous university regulations.

Note 1: Doctoral studies entrance regulations for holders of an undergraduate degree awarded before the introduction of the EHEA (CG 47/02 2014)

Note 2: Governing Council Decision 64/2014, which approves the procedure and criteria for assessing the fulfilment of academic admission requirements for doctoral studies by holders of non-homologated foreign degrees (CG 25/03 2014)

Admission criteria and merits assessment

Ultimately, admission to the doctoral programme will be regulated by the academic committee of the doctoral programme. As described in Section 8 of this document, this body is directed by the coordinator of the doctoral programme, assisted by a committee comprised of lecturers who participate in the programme who are put forward by the research groups. If the ex officio members of the committee consider it necessary, they may propose other lecturers who represent relevant research areas. The composition of the academic committee of the doctoral programme should be approved by the board of the Department.

The function of the academic committee is to ensure the quality of the doctoral programme by participating in the processes of admission, monitoring, evaluation and assessment. If there is no proposal of a thesis supervisor, the academic committee is responsible for assigning one. Based on the applicants’ thesis topic preferences, the member of the academic committee who is most closely associated with this area will propose a supervisor. If the person responsible for this area cannot meet the requirement, another area will be sought and the request will be repeated. If a supervisor cannot be found after consulting all members of the academic committee, the application cannot be accepted.

If a thesis supervisor is available, applicants are then assessed on the following aspects, with a score of 0 to 10 given for each one and the following weightings:

• Academic record and academic background (30%).
• Research experience (10%).
• Language knowledge (10%).
• Other relevant aspects described in the CV that are not considered in the three previous points (5%).
• Evaluation by the doctoral thesis supervisor (30%).
• Evaluation by the academic committee of the doctoral programme (15%).

Students will be accepted if they have a score of 7 points or over. In all cases, applicants will be notified of the decision, and will be given a report on the overall and partial evaluations. So that the decision is not personalised, the supervisor’s and academic committee director’s evaluations will be averaged, and this will be the score that is announced.

Along with admission, the academic committee will provide enrolment recommendations if bridging courses are required. The recommended credits (up to a maximum of 30) for bridging courses correspond to subjects in the area of telematics that can be taken in the shortest time possible.

Training complements

The academic committee for the programme may require that doctoral students pass specific bridging courses. In this case, it will monitor the bridging courses that are taken and establish suitable criteria to limit their duration.

The bridging courses will be on research training, but doctoral students will never be asked to enrol for a number equal to or above 60 ECTS. The academic regulations of doctoral studies state that bridging courses may also be cross-disciplinary. However, this point is likely to be amended so that bridging courses are only associated with research credits, particularly when an applicant enters the doctoral programme with a bachelor’s degree worth 300 ECTS.

Considering the doctoral student activity report (DAD), the academic committee of the programme could propose additional measures to those established in the regulations that lead to the withdrawal of doctoral students who do not meet the established criteria.

The natural route into the doctoral programme is via a master’s degree in Telecommunications Engineering at the UPC, in which case it is not necessary to complete bridging courses. For students from other master’s degree programmes, the academic committee of the doctoral programme will analyse the applicant’s academic record and decide the area in which they will prepare their thesis, as well as whether it is necessary to complete bridging courses, up to a maximum of 30 credits.

Currently, bridging courses are offered in the framework of master’s degrees in Telecommunications Engineering at the UPC taught by the ETSETB and the EETAC (https://eetac.upc.edu/en/study/masters-degrees/masteam, https://matt.masters.upc.edu/).

Below are some of the subjects that are currently offered on these master’s degrees:

Enrolment period for new doctoral students

Students enrolling in the doctoral programme for the first time must do so by the deadline specified in the admission decision.

Unless otherwise expressly indicated, enrolments corresponding to admission decisions issued from the second half of April on must be completed within the ordinary enrolment period for the current academic year.

More information at the registration section for new doctoral students

Enrolment period

Ordinary period for second and successive enrolments: first half of October.

More information at the general registration section

Procedure for the preparation and defense of the research plan

Doctoral candidates must submit a research plan, which will be included in their doctoral student activity report, before the end of the first year. The plan may be improved over the course of the doctoral degree. It must be endorsed by the tutor and the supervisor, and it must include the method that is to be followed and the aims of the research.

At least one of these annual assessments will include a public presentation and defence of the research plan and work done before a committee composed of three doctoral degree holders, which will be conducted in the manner determined by each academic committee. The examination committee awards a Pass or Fail mark. A Pass mark is a prerequisite for continuing on the doctoral programme. Doctoral candidates awarded a Fail mark must submit a new research plan for assessment by the academic committee of the doctoral programme within six months.

The committee assesses the research plan every year, in addition to all of the other activities in the doctoral student activity report. Doctoral candidates who are awarded two consecutive Fail marks for the research plan will be obliged to definitely withdraw from the programme.

If they change the subject of their thesis, they must submit a new research plan.

Formation activities

Activity: Tutorial.
Hours: 288.
Type: compulsory.

Activity: Mobility.
Hours: 480.
Type: optional.

Activity: Assessment based on doctoral student activity report (DAD) and research plan.
Hours: 4.
Type: compulsory.

Activity: Training in information skills.
Hours: 1.5.
Type: optional.

Activity: Research methodology.
Hours: 12.
Type: optional.

Activity: Innovation and creativity.
Hours: 8.
Type: optional.

Activity: Language and communication skills.
Hours: 18.
Type: optional.

Activity: Courses and seminars.
Hours: 18.
Type: compulsory.
At least six seminars will be held per year. Students should attend at least three.

Activity: Specific programme workshops.
Hours: 6.
Type: compulsory.
This doctoral programme participates in an annual workshop, which is already in its third edition. The Barcelona Forum on PhD workshop. Research in Information and Communication Technologies takes one day.

Activity: Publications.
Hours: 50.
Type: compulsory.
Description: training objective and content.
The doctoral programme determines that each student must have at least one relevant JCR publication (as well as other types of publications) to complete their doctoral thesis. Publications can be completed in any phase of the three years of the doctoral degree.

Activity: Other workshops.
Hours: 72.
Type: optional.

Procedure for assignment of tutor and thesis director

The academic committee of the doctoral programme assigns a thesis supervisor to each doctoral candidate when they are admitted or enrol for the first time, taking account of the thesis supervision commitment referred to in the admission decision.

The thesis supervisor will ensure that training activities carried out by the doctoral candidate are coherent and suitable, and that the topic of the candidate’s doctoral thesis will have an impact and make a novel contribution to knowledge in the relevant field. The thesis supervisor will also guide the doctoral candidate in planning the thesis and, if necessary, tailoring it to any other projects or activities undertaken. The thesis supervisor will generally be a UPC professor or researcher who holds a doctoral degree and has documented research experience. This includes PhD-holding staff at associated schools (as determined by the Governing Council) and UPC-affiliated research institutes (in accordance with corresponding collaboration and affiliation agreements). When thesis supervisors are UPC staff members, they also act as the doctoral candidate’s tutor.

PhD holders who do not meet these criteria (as a result of their contractual relationship or the nature of the institution to which they are attached) must be approved by the UPC Doctoral School's Standing Committee in order to participate in a doctoral programme as researchers with documented research experience.

The academic committee of the doctoral programme may approve the appointment of a PhD-holding expert who is not a UPC staff member as a candidate’s thesis supervisor. In such cases, the prior authorisation of the UPC Doctoral School's Standing Committee is required. A UPC staff member who holds a doctoral degree and has documented research experience must also be proposed to act as a co-supervisor, or as the doctoral candidate’s tutor if one has not been assigned.

A thesis supervisor may step down from this role if there are justified reasons (recognised as valid by the committee) for doing so. If this occurs, the academic committee of the doctoral programme will assign the doctoral candidate a new thesis supervisor.

Provided there are justified reasons for doing so, and after hearing any relevant input from the doctoral candidate, the academic committee of the doctoral programme may assign a new thesis supervisor at any time during the period of doctoral study.

If there are academic reasons for doing so (an interdisciplinary topic, joint or international programmes, etc.) and the academic committee of the programme gives its approval, an additional thesis supervisor may be assigned. Supervisors and co-supervisors have the same responsibilities and academic recognition.

The maximum number of supervisors of a doctoral thesis is two: a supervisor and a co-supervisor.

For theses carried out under a cotutelle agreement or as part of an Industrial Doctorate, if necessary and if the agreement foresees it this maximum number of supervisors may not apply. This notwithstanding, the maximum number of supervisors belonging to the UPC is two.

More information at the PhD theses section

Permanence

The academic committee of the programme may authorise an extension of up to one year for full-time doctoral candidates who have not applied to deposit their thesis by the end of the three-year period of study, in the terms outlined in the Academic Regulations for Doctoral Studies of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya. In the case of part-time candidates, an extension of two years may be authorised. In both cases, in exceptional circumstances a further one-year extension may be granted by the Doctoral School's Standing Committee, upon the submission of a reasoned application by the academic committee of the doctoral programme.

A doctoral candidate may be dismissed from a doctoral programme for the following reasons:

• The doctoral candidate submitting a justified application to withdraw from the programme.
• The maximum period of study and of extensions thereof ending.
• The doctoral candidate not having enrolled every academic year (unless he or she has been authorised to temporarily withdraw).
• The doctoral candidate failing two consecutive assessments.
• The doctoral candidate having disciplinary proceedings filed against him or her that rule that he or she must be dismissed from the UPC.

Dismissal from the programme implies that doctoral candidates cannot continue studying at the UPC and the closing of their academic record. This notwithstanding, they may apply to the academic committee of the programme for readmission and the committee must reevaluate them in accordance with the criteria established in the regulations.

International Mention

The doctoral degree certificate may include International Doctorate mention. In this case, the doctoral candidate must meet the following requirements:

a) During the period of study leading to the award of the doctoral degree, the doctoral candidate must have spent at least three months at a respected higher education institution or research centre outside Spain to complete courses or do research work. The stays and activities carried out must be endorsed by the thesis supervisor and authorised by the academic committee of the programme. The candidate must provide a certifying document issued by the person responsible for the research group of the body or bodies where the stay or activity was completed. This information will be added to the doctoral student’s activity report.
b) Part of the thesis (at least the summary and conclusions) must be written and presented in one of the languages commonly used for science communication in the relevant field of knowledge, which must not be an official language of Spain. This rule does not apply to stays and reports in Spanish or to experts from Spanish-speaking countries.
c) At least two PhD-holding experts belonging to a higher education institution or research centre outside Spain must have issued officially certified reports on the thesis.
d) The thesis examination committee must have included at least one PhD-holding expert from a higher education or research institution outside Spain who was not responsible for the candidate’s stay abroad (point a) above).
e) The thesis defence must have taken place on UPC premises or, in the case of joint programmes, at the location specified in the collaboration agreement.

List of authorized thesis for defense

• BAÑOS GONZÁLEZ, VÍCTOR HUGO: Contributions to IEEE 802.11-based long range communications
  
  Author: BAÑOS GONZÁLEZ, VÍCTOR HUGO
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 15/09/2020
  Reading date: 18/11/2020
  Reading time: 16:00
  Reading place: UTGCNTIC- ETSETB Defensa per videoconferència (COVID-19) https://meet.google.com/zof-cbfs-yjb
  Thesis director: LOPEZ AGUILERA, MARIA ELENA | GARCIA VILLEGAS, EDUARD
  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: BELLALTA JIMENEZ, BORIS
       SECRETARI: CASADEMONT SERRA, JORDI
       VOCAL: MÉNDEZ CHAVES, DIEGO
  Thesis abstract: The most essential part of the Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure is the wireless communication system that acts as a bridgefor the delivery of data and control messages between the connected things and the Internet. Since the conception of the IoT, alarge number of promising applications and technologies have been developed, which will change different aspects in our dailylife.However, the existing wireless technologies lack the ability to support a huge amount of data exchange from many battery-drivendevices, spread over a wide area. In order to support the IoT paradigm, IEEE 802.11ah is an Internet of Things enablingtechnology, where the efficient management of thousands of devices is a key function. This is one of the most promising andappealing standards, which aims to bridge the gap between traditional mobile networks and the demands of the IoT.To this aim, IEEE 802.11ah provides the Restricted Access Window (RAW) mechanism, which reduces contention by enablingtransmissions for small groups of stations. Optimal grouping of RAW stations requires an evaluation of many possibleconfigurations.In this thesis, we first discuss the main PHY and MAC layer amendments proposed for IEEE 802.11ah. Furthermore, weinvestigate the operability of IEEE 802.11ah as a backhaul link to connect devices over possibly long distances. Additionally, wecompare the aforementioned standard with previous notable IEEE 802.11 amendments (i.e. IEEE 802.11n and IEEE 802.11ac) interms of throughput (with and without frame aggregation) by utilizing the most robust modulation schemes. The results show animproved performance of IEEE 802.11ah (in terms of power received at long range while experiencing different packet errorrates) as compared to previous IEEE 802.11 standards.Additionally, we expose the capabilities of future IEEE 802.11ah in supporting different IoT applications. In addition, we provide abrief overview of the technology contenders that are competing to cover the IoT communications framework. Numerical resultsare presented showing how the future IEEE 802.11ah specification offers the features required by IoT communications, thusputting forward IEEE 802.11ah as a technology to cater the needs of the Internet of Things paradigm.Finally, we propose an analytical model (named e-model) that provides an evaluation of the RAW configuration performance,allowing a fast adaptation of RAW grouping policies, in accordance to varying channel conditions. We base the e-model in knownsaturation models, which we adapted to include the IEEE 802.11ah¿s PHY and MAC layer modifications and to support differentbit rate and packet sizes. As a proof of concept, we use the proposed model to compare the performance of different groupingstrategies,showing that the e-model is a useful analysis tool in RAW-enabled scenarios. We validate the model with existing IEEE802.11ah implementation for ns-3.
  
• RUIZ DE AZÚA ORTEGA, JUAN ADRIÁN: Contribution to the Development of Autonomous Satellite Communications Networks - The Internet of Satellites
  
  Author: RUIZ DE AZÚA ORTEGA, JUAN ADRIÁN
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Deposit date: 28/09/2020
  Reading date: 09/11/2020
  Reading time: 18:00
  Reading place: ETSETB - Defensa per videoconferència (COVID-19) : meet.google.com/zig-ejrd-dmd
  Thesis director: CALVERAS AUGE, ANA M. | CAMPS CARMONA, ADRIANO JOSE
  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: FIGUEROLA FERNANDEZ, SERGI
       SECRETARI: PARADELLS ASPAS, JOSE
       VOCAL: AGUADO AGELET, FERNANDO
  Thesis abstract: The space is experiencing a revolution due to the em ergence of satellite services to satisfy environmental, socio-econom ic, and geo-political demands. Earth Observation satellite systems have become dependable resources for climate monitoring, modern agriculture, and other applications. The 5G incursion in the aerospace domain has promoted the satellites as promising platforms to achieve global coverage, and cope the limitations of ground facilities. These demands can be summarized in two system requirements: (1) increase of data transfer capacity, and (2) decrease of end-to-end com m unications latency. Distributed Satellite Systems have emerged as an effective solution of m ultiple satellites operating simultaneouslyto satisfycommon requirements. Federated Satellite Systems are serious candidates to exploit the potential of distributed architectures by establishing opportunistic collaborations among satellites to share unallocated resources. These collaborations, called federations, allows to conceive the space as a cloud in which satellites leverage from other resources to improve their performance. The successive investigations have been centered on developing novel federation technologies. However, multiple design aspects are still open fields of study, such as the development of communications capabilities to establish these federations. This dissertation contributes to fill this gap bydefining mechanisms to deploy a network infrastructure for this purpose. A networked environment in which satellites are able to establish sporadically, and opportunisticallyfederations has been discussed. This context is called the Internet of Satellites paradigm, and prometes the temporal deployment of inter-satellite networks, composed of heterogeneous satellites. This feature---with satellite motion--­poses a challenge on the definition of end-to-end communications routes composed of intermediate satellites. Areview of current routing protocols from other satellite networks is conducted to identify the ideal protocol for these dynam ic networks. The outcome remarks the need to combine capabilities from different domains to achieve the desired performance. Among them, the capabilityto predict future inter-satellite links becomes crucial to mitigate the fragmentation of the network. With this prem ise in mind, this dissertation presents a predictive protocol that perform s the estimation of these inter-satellite contacts in a distributed manner. This new satellite capability may support the routing protocol by allowing the estimation of future routes as a sequence of satellite contacts over time. The research presented in this dissertation also tackles other questions that remained unanswered: How can satellites be aware of the available resources offered by other satellites? What are the necessary mechanisms to deploy a federation? A software stack with two protocols to deal with this technology gap has been developed. The Opportunistic Service Availability Dissem ination Protocol allows notifying the services that are available in a satellite, while the Federation Deploym ent Control Protocol form alizes the rules to establish and m anage a federation. The application of these protocols considerably enhancded the capabilityof the satellite system to download data, becom ing thus enablers of future satellite m issions. The achieved perform anee has motivated the developm ent of a dedicated system. 11 has been named Federated Satellite Systems Experiment payload, and includes a communications device to create inter-satellite links. This system has been verified in a stratospheric balloon campaign, and integrated in a CubeSat miss ion. This dissertation discusses the results of the campaign, which emphasize the benefits and viabilityof this implementation. We expect that the contributions of this dissertation mayencourage to keep investigating on this inter-satellite communications for satellite federations.
  

Last update: 24/10/2020 05:09:06.

List of lodged theses

Last update: 24/10/2020 05:08:01.

List of defended theses by year

• ASTUDILLO LEÓN, JUAN PABLO: Contribution to the Traffc Engineering in Wireless Mesh Networks.
  
  Author: ASTUDILLO LEÓN, JUAN PABLO
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/669185
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 09/06/2020
  Thesis director: DE LA CRUZ LLOPIS, LUIS JAVIER
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: GONZÁLEZ SALVADOR, ALBERTO
       SECRETARI: AGUILAR IGARTUA, MONICA
       VOCAL: PARRA ARNAU, JAVIER
  Thesis abstract: Nowadays, we live in a modern society in which people and devices are interconnected anywhere and anytime. Under this premise, both the infrastructure and the services offered have evolved and diversified in a drastic way. In fact, many of these services are transported in decentralized networks. Among them, Wireless mesh networks are decentralized networks that have been widely studied in different research areas such as community networks, public safety and surveillance. Wireless mesh networks have been also studied and evaluated in the Smart Grid scenario. Smart Grids are a new paradigm in which the electricity network is no longer focused only on the generation, distribution and transport of electricity to subscribers. Now, it is a robust network that includes a data communication network. The associated data network is divided in different subnetworks. This thesis is mainly focused on the improvement of the performance of one of those subnetworks, the so-called Smart Grid Neighborhood Area Network. Several applications are transmitted between the users and the control center. In general, upstream communication involves tasks such as meter reading, billing data or electricity consumption, while downstream communication allows the smart grid to take actions in different network situations such as power peaks or emergency situations. In the first part, the work is focused on improving the routing mechanism. To do this, a multipath routing mechanism is proposed, where the traffics that are most important are transmitted over the best communication links. In order to improve even more the benefits obtained, a multichannel scheme is proposed to separate both control traffic and data traffic, and use the less congested channels to transmit the most priority traffic types.Smart Grids offer many services and some of them are very demanding in terms of QoS. Besides, infrastructure failures, attacks and high congestion situations can greatly reduce the network performance. Therefore, the network must be able to offer a minimum QoS to the most priority applications handling some traffic control techniques. With this goal in mind, in this thesis some congestion control mechanisms are also proposed. In the first of these mechanisms, the decision of whether a packet should be retransmitted or not is made in a distributed and independent way by each one of the network nodes, depending on the network conditions that the node itself is observing. This mechanism considers again the existence of traffics with different priorities, so that, less priority traffic has a higher probability of being discarded. Furthermore, an emergency system is coupled to the congestion control mechanism. With this strategy, the NAN is able to take global actions (in a short time) to face anomalous situations.In a Smart grid scenario, the nodes are static and each of them transmits upstream data flows to the data concentrator. Therefore, depending on their geographical location, some nodes may be more favored than others. Besides, some nodes can monopolize the network resources if they are not regulated. For this reason, in this thesis another distributed solution is proposed that runs in each node. The objective here is to provide a fair distribution of network resources regardless of the geographical position and the transmission rate. The last contribution is focused on the application of machine learning techniques to obtain again a better performance of the data networks under study. In this sense, a new congestion control mechanism is proposed, which, like the previous ones, provides different quality of service to data flows with different priorities. For this, a complete framework is proposed, including the generation, preprocessing and evaluation of the data necessary for the training of the machine learning algorithms that will be used. The proposal is also implemented and evaluated in the Smart Grid NANs environment
  

• DARROUDI, SEYED MAHDI: Contributions to Bluetooth Low Energy Mesh Networks
  
  Author: DARROUDI, SEYED MAHDI
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/669722
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 29/09/2020
  Thesis director: GOMEZ MONTENEGRO, CARLOS
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: RUIZ MARTÍNEZ, PEDRO MIGUEL
       SECRETARI: CALVERAS AUGE, ANA M.
       VOCAL: TAVARES CALAFATE, CARLOS
  Thesis abstract: Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has become a popular Internet of Things (IoT) technology. However, it was originally designed toonly support the star topology. This PhD thesis investigates and evaluates different Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) mesh networkapproaches, including existing ones (such as the Bluetooth Mesh standard), and our own solution for IPv6-based BLE meshnetworking (6BLEMesh). The thesis comprises 6 main contributions:1.- A comprehensive survey on existing BLE mesh networking proposals and a taxonomy for BLE mesh network solutions.2.- An energy consumption model for Bluetooth Mesh. The model allows to predict useful performance parameters, such asdevice average current consumption, device lifetime and energy efficiency, considering the impact of the most relevant BluetoothMesh parameters, i.e. PollTimeout and ReceiveWindow, as well as application parameters (e.g. the data interval for a sensorthat periodically reports its readings).3.- A new proposed IPv6-based BLE mesh networking IETF standard (in progress), called 6BLEMesh. After defining thecharacteristics and properties of 6BLEMesh, we evaluated it in terms of connectivity, latency, RTT, and energy consumption.4.- For the connectivity evaluation of 6BLEMesh, we developed an analytical model that takes a set of network and scenariocharacteristics as inputs, and provides two main results: i) the probability of no isolation of a node, and ii) the k-connectivity ofthe considered network. We validated the model by simulation.5.- An implementation, and an experimental evaluation, of 6BLEMesh. We built a three-node testbed consisting of all node types(i.e. 6LN, 6LR and 6LBR). We used three different popular commercial hardware platforms. We evaluated a number ofperformance parameters on the testbed, related with latency and energy consumption. Next, we characterized the currentconsumption patterns of the complete life cycle for different node types in the three-node testbed. We also evaluated the energyperformance of a 6LN on three different platforms. We presented a 6LN current consumption model for different connIntervalsettings. To this end, we experimentally characterized each current consumption state in terms of its duration time and averagecurrent consumption value. We illustrated the impact of connInterval on energy performance.6.- A comparison between Bluetooth Mesh and 6BLEMesh, in terms of protocol stack, protocol encapsulation overhead, end-toendlatency, energy consumption, message transmission count, end-to-end reliability, variable topology robustness and Internetconnectivity. Bluetooth Mesh and 6BLEMesh offer fundamentally different BLE mesh networking solutions. Their performancedepends significantly on their parameter configuration. Nevertheless, the following conclusions can be obtained. Bluetooth Meshexhibits slightly greater protocol encapsulation overhead than 6BLEmesh. Both Bluetooth Mesh and 6BLEMesh offer flexibility toconfigure per-hop latency. For a given latency target, 6BLEMesh offers lower energy consumption. In terms of messagetransmission count, both solutions may offer relatively similar performance for small networks; however, 6BLEMesh scales betterwith network size and density. 6BLEMesh approaches ideal packet delivery probability in the presence of bit errors for mostparameter settings (at the expense of latency increase), whereas Bluetooth Mesh requires path diversity to achieve similarperformance. Bluetooth Mesh does not suffer the connectivity gaps experimented by 6BLEMesh due to topology changes.Finally, 6BLEMesh naturally supports IP-based Internet connectivity, whereas Bluetooth Mesh requires a protocol translationgateway.
  

• ESTRADA JIMÉNEZ, JOSÉ ANTONIO: Privacy in Online Advertising Platforms
  
  Author: ESTRADA JIMÉNEZ, JOSÉ ANTONIO
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/669772
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 02/10/2020
  Thesis director: FORNE MUÑOZ, JORGE | PARRA ARNAU, JAVIER
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: CASTELLÀ ROCA, JORDI
       SECRETARI: DE LA CRUZ LLOPIS, LUIS JAVIER
       VOCAL: RIFÀ, HELENA
  Thesis abstract: Online advertising is consistently considered as the pillar of the "free¿ content on the Web since it is commonly the funding source of websites. Furthermore, the option of delivering personalizad ads has tumed advertising into a really valuable service for users, who receive ads tailored to their interests. Given its success in getting paying customers, online advertising is fueling a billionaire business. The current advertising model builds upon an intricate infrastructure whose main aim is to deliver personalized ads. For this purpose, a wealth of user data is collected, aggregated, processed and traded at an unprecedented rate. However, the intrusiveness and ubiquity of these practices prorrpt serious privacy concems. In view of the inherent corrplexity behind the operation of ad platforms, privacy risks in the online advertising ecosystem could be studied from multiple perspectives. Naturally, most of the efforts unveiling these privacy issues concentrate on a specific entity, technology, behavior or context. However, such a segmented approach rright underestimate the benefits of a wider vision of a systerric problem. A lot of privacy protection echanisms have been proposed from the industry and acaderria. The most popular ones resort to radical strategies that hinder the ad distribution process, thus seriously affecting the online advertising ecosystem. Others involve significantly changing the ecosystem, which unfortunately may not be suitable in these times. Consequently, to encourage the adoption of privacy protection in this context, it is fundamental to pose mechanisms that aim at balancing the trade-off between user privacy and the web business model. First, this thesis deals with the need to have a wide perspective of the privacy risks for users within the online advertising ecosystem and the protection approaches available. We survey the online advertising infrastructure and its supporting technologies, and present a thorough overview of the undertying privacy risks and the solutions that may rritigate them. Through a systematic effort, we analyze the threats and potential privacy attackers in this scenario of online advertising.Then, we conduct a corrprehensive survey of the most relevant privacy mechanisms, and classify and con-pare them on the basis of their privacy guarantees and irrpact on the Web. Subsequently, we study the privacy risks derived from real-time bidding, a key enabling technology of modem online advertising. We experimentally explore the potential abuse of the process of user data sharing, necessary to support the auction-based system in online advertising. Accordingly, we propase a system to regula te the distribution of u ser tracking data to potentially interested entities, depending on their previous behavior.This consists in reducing the nurnber of advertising agencies receiving user data. Doing so may affect the ad platform's revenue, thus the proposed system is designed to maxirrize the revenue while the abuse by advertising agencies is prevented to a large degree. Experimentally, the results of evaluation suggest that this system is able to correct rrisbehaving entities, consequently enhancing user privacy. Finally, we analyze the irrpact of online advertising and tracking from the particular perspective of lberoamerica.We study the third-party and ad tracking triggered within local websites in this heterogeneous region not previously studied. We found out that user location in this context would affect privacy since the intensity of third-party traffic, including advertising related flows of information, varies from country to country when local web traffic is simulated, although the total nurnber of entities behind this traffic seems stable. The type of content served by websites is also a parameter affecting the leve! of third-party tracking:publishers assiciated with news shopping categories generate more third-party traffic and such intensity is exarbated for top-world sit
  

• GALARZA OSIO, MIGUEL ANGEL: Proposal of an Adaptive Infotainment System Depending on Driving Scenario Complexity
  
  Author: GALARZA OSIO, MIGUEL ANGEL
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/668823
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 31/01/2020
  Thesis director: PARADELLS ASPAS, JOSE
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: OLIVER RIERA, MIQUEL
       SECRETARI: CASADEMONT SERRA, JORDI
       VOCAL: OLAVERRI MONREAL, CRISTINA
  Thesis abstract: The PhD research project is framed within the plan of industrial doctorates of the ¿Generalitat de Catalunya¿. During the investigation, most of the work was carried out at the facilities of the vehicle manufacturer SEAT, specifically at the information and entertainment (infotainment) department. In the same way, there was a continuous cooperation with the telematics department of the UPC.The main objective of the project consisted in the design and validation of an adaptive infotainment system dependent on the driving complexity. The system was created with the purpose of increasing driver¿ experience while guaranteeing a proper level of road safety. Given the increasing number of application and services available in current infotainment systems, it becomes necessary to devise a system capable of balancing these two counterparts. The most relevant parameters that can be used for balancing these metrics while driving are: type of services offered, interfaces available for interacting with the services, the complexity of driving and the profile of the driver.The present study can be divided into two main development phases, each phase had as outcome a real physical block that came to be part of the final system. The final system was integrated in a vehicle and validated in real driving conditions.The first phase consisted in the creation of a model capable of estimating the driving complexity based on a set of variables related to driving. The model was built by employing machine learning methods and the dataset necessary to create it was collected from several driving routes carried out by different participants. This phase allowed to create a model capable of estimating, with a satisfactory accuracy, the complexity of the road using easily extractable variables in any modern vehicle. This approach simplify the implementation of this algorithm in current vehicles.The second phase consisted in the classification of a set of principles that allow the design of the adaptive infotainment system based on the complexity of the road. These principles are defined based on previous researches undertaken in the field of usability and user experience of graphical interfaces. According to these of principles, a real adaptive infotainment system with the most commonly used functionalities; navigation, radio and media was designed and integrated in a real vehicle. The developed system was able to adapt the presentation of the content according to the estimation of the driving complexity given by the block developed in phase one. The adaptive system was validated in real driving scenarios by several participants and results showed a high level of acceptance and satisfaction towards this adaptive infotainment.As a starting point for future research, a proof of concept was carried out to integrate new interfaces into a vehicle. The interface used as reference was a Head Mounted screen that offered redundant information in relation to the instrument cluster. Tests with participants served to understand how users perceive the introduction of new technologies and how objective benefits could be blurred by initial biases.
  

• JAIN, AKSHAY: Enhanced Mobility Management Mechanisms for 5G Networks
  
  Author: JAIN, AKSHAY
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/669824
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 01/10/2020
  Thesis director: LOPEZ AGUILERA, MARIA ELENA | DEMIRKOL, ILKER SEYFETTIN
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: BAYHAN, SUZAN
       SECRETARI: CASADEMONT SERRA, JORDI
       VOCAL: FLEGKAS, PARIS
  Thesis abstract: Many mechanisms that served the legacy networks till now, are being identified as being grossly sub-optimal for 5G networks. The reason being, the increased complexity of the 5G networks compared previous legacy systems. One suchclass of mechanisms, important for any wireless standard, is the Mobility Management (MM) mechanisms. MM mechanismsensure the seamless connectivity and continuity of service for a user when it moves away from the geographic location where it initially got attached to the network.In this thesis, we firstly present a detailed state of the art on MM mechanisms. Based on the 5G requirements as well as the initial discussions on Beyond 5G networks, we provision a gap analysis for the current technologies/solutions to satisfy thepresented requirements. We also define the persistent challenges that exist concerning MM mechanisms for 5G and beyond networks. Based on these challenges, we define the potential solutions and a novel framework for the 5G and beyond MM mechanisms. This framework specifies a set of MM mechanisms at the access, core and the extreme edge network(users/devices) level, that will help to satisfy the requirements for the 5G and beyond MM mechanisms.Following this, we present an on demand MM service concept. Such an on-demand feature provisions the necessary reliability, scalability and flexibility to the MM mechanisms. It's objective is to ensure that appropriate resources and mobilitycontexts are defined for users who will have heterogeneous mobility profiles, versatile QoS requirements in a multi-RATnetwork.Next, in this thesis we tackle the problem of core network signaling that occurs during MM in 5G/4G networks. A novel handover signaling mechanism has been developed, which eliminates unnecessary handshakes during the handoverpreparation phase, while allowing the transition to future softwarized network architectures. We also provide a handover failure aware handover preparation phase signaling process. We then utilize operator data and a realistic networkdeployment to perform a comparative analysis of the proposed strategy and the 3GPP handover signaling strategy on a network wide deployment scenario. We show the benefits of our strategy in terms of latency of handover process, and thetransmission and processing cost incurred.Lastly, a novel user association and resource allocation methodology, namely AURA-5G, has been proposed. AURA-5Gaddresses scenarios wherein applications with heterogeneous requirements, i.e., enhanced Mobile Broadband (eMBB) andmassive Machine Type Communications (mMTC), are present simultaneously. Consequently, a joint optimization process for performing the user association and resource allocation while being cognizant of heterogeneous application requirements,has been performed. We capture the peculiarities of this important mobility management process through the various constraints, such as backhaul requirements, dual connectivity options, available access resources, minimum rate requirements, etc., that we have imposed on a Mixed Integer Linear Program (MILP). The objective function of this established MILP problem is to maximize the total network throughput of the eMBB users, while satisfying the minimum requirements ofthe mMTC and eMBB users defined in a given scenario. Through numerical evaluations we show that our approach outperforms the baseline user association scenario significantly. Moreover, we have presented a system fairness analysis,as well as a novel fidelity and computational complexity analysis for the same, which express the utility of our methodology given the myriad network scenarios.
  

• LEMUS CÁRDENAS, LETICIA: Enhancement of vehicular ad hoc networks using machine learning-based prediction methods
  
  Author: LEMUS CÁRDENAS, LETICIA
  Thesis file: (contact the Doctoral School to confirm you have a valid doctoral degree and to get the link to the thesis)
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 22/07/2020
  Thesis director: AGUILAR IGARTUA, MONICA | MEZHER, AHMAD
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: GUERRI CEBOLLADA, JUAN CARLOS
       SECRETARI: DE LA CRUZ LLOPIS, LUIS JAVIER
       VOCAL: VAZQUEZ GALLEGO, FRANCISCO
  Thesis abstract: Society is aware that the ecological predation of the planet is due to human activity. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out actions to reverse this damage. Besides, the trend of population growth in big cities and the uncontrolled volume of traffic cause serious problems such as traffic delays, traffic jams, increased CO2 emissions, and traffic accidents. In this sense, so-called smart cities are motivated to create a greener and safer environment where both efficient mobility and public services seek to mitigate those problems. These initiatives are supported by smart technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and information and communication technology (ICT), that provide the basis for creating and implementing smart city projects. In this context, modern vehicles today are equipped with a variety of sensors that enable them to detect and share information. This detected information can not only be useful for other vehicles but also to collect relevant data related to traffic management. This data can help to generate smart mobility solutions and help to improve city services. Vehicle ad hoc networks (VANET) enable communication between vehicles (V2I) and also between vehicles and the city's fixed infrastructure (V2I). Also, VANET routing protocols minimize the use of fixed infrastructure as they employ multi-hop V2V communication to reach the road side units (RSUs) of the city.This thesis aims to contribute to the design of VANET routing protocols for urban environments. We have started our research work analyzing some important aspects of the hop-by-hop forwarding routing based on the evaluation of node metrics. We have analyzed different weighting strategies to compute a multimetric score to arrange the candidate nodes to be as the next node to forward the packet. As a result, we have proposed a weighted power mean function (W-PMF) to improve the selection of the best forwarding candidate. We have shown that the best way to combine several metrics is by implementing the geometric mean function. Then, we have improved the selection of forwarding nodes by accurately estimating their current position at the moment of forwarding messages, instead of using the position information received in the last beacon.Nowadays, many applications and services are based on big data because valuable information can be extracted when the data is properly processed. In this sense, historical data about vehicular network conditions can provide us useful information to design new routing strategies based on predictions, A large number of simulations under different representative scenarios has been conducted to the collect the routing metrics and the related binary output (successfully delivered or not at destination). A statistical model to each metric has been obtained and used to design a new routing protocol. We have proposed a probability-based multimetric routing protocol (ProMRP), which selects the candidate nodes based on the highest probability to deliver the packet at the destination. Also, the accurate estimation of the node's position has been included to obtain an enhanced version called (EProMRP).The last contribution is focused on the applications of machine learning techniques to enhance routing decisions. To this end, a new data set has been collected from five routing metrics and have used to generate two different machine learning models: (i) a decision tree and an (ii) artificial neural network. Our proposals are called (i) multimetric predictive ML-based routing protocol (MPML) and (ii) multimetric predictive ANN-based routing protocol (MPANN). Different VANET scenarios and different city maps have been considered to evaluate each proposal. We have also assessed the level of flexibility of our proposals to adapt to new network conditions. For this purpose, MPANN (which has shown to be the best proposal) has been tested to different city scenarios, different from the city map used to train the model
  

• ORTIZ GAONA, RAUL MARCELO: Predicción del alcance de propagación de información e influencia en redes sociales online
  
  Author: ORTIZ GAONA, RAUL MARCELO
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/669619
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 16/09/2020
  Thesis director: MELUS MORENO, JOSE LUIS | POSTIGO BOIX, MARCOS
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: AGÜERO CALVO, RAMÓN
       SECRETARI: SERRAT FERNANDEZ, JUAN
       VOCAL: GUIJARRO COLOMA, LUIS ALEJANDRO
  Thesis abstract: Online social networks (OSNs) are increasinglyused by different sectors of societywith the purpose of informing and influencing people. These sectors are: govemments, political parties, non-govemmental organizations, suppliers ofgoods and services, etc. Theywish they could predict the extent ofthe spread of information and the influence theytransmit through these networks. Currently there are many m athem atical models that allow us to predict the scope of these propagations, many ofwhich are based on Linear Threshold Nlodel (L TM) or lndependent Cascad e Model (ICM). In this document we present Lucy Nlodel, a new predictive mathematical model that incorporates several elements that have not been considered or taken into account in the base models orín their derived models, but which are present in real life and affect the extent of propagation of messages on online social networks. These new elements are the following: We distinguish three classes of messages: pure.ly informative messages; messages that are intended to influence appealing to people's emotions and feelings; and messages that are intended to influence by appealing to personal interests and conveniences. We argue that the intensity of the relationship between individua Is (tie-strength) depends on the relevan ce and affinitybetween them . Toe probabilitythat the message is received byan individual is directlyproportional to this relationship intensity. Also, we consider that a message with greater im portance is more likely to spread among people than a message with less importance. Finally, we maintain that individuals are informad or influenced (activated) after exceeding a threshold, which depends on the type and importance ofthe message and the relevance or affinity, as the case may be, between individuals. On the other hand, we determine a way to quantify the affinity between nodes and the strength of the relations hip between nodes, and we link this to the probabilitythat a node receives a message. To validate the results of LM, we performed laboratorytests of LM, L TM, ICM and WCM with a Facebook network tracked of an anonymous user. These results have been comparad with empirical tests ofinformation propagation and influence on the Facebook platform in the network of the same anonymous user. LM represents the message propagation process in a finer way and its results are notab(y closer to the empirical results in comparison with the results that were obtained with the models L TM, ICM and WCM. In order to study the behavior of LM, we carry out additional laboratorytests, modifying its parameters and using a synthetic (artificial) Power-Law network and two real networks (Facebook and YouTube). LM is suitable to be used in different spheres of human activity, for example: 1- lt will allow to know more preciselythe different sectors of society about the impact produced bythe messages that they publish in the OSNs. 2- lt can be incorporated into the maximization models ofinfluence propagation in social networks. 3- lt can be used in models that predict the loss of customers in mobile telephone services. 4. lt can also be used in systems that simulate the spread of informatics virus es in computer networks, cell phone networks and online social networks.
  

• PIOVESAN, NICOLA: Network Resource Allocation Policies with Energy Transfer Capabilities
  
  Author: PIOVESAN, NICOLA
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/669313
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 05/06/2020
  Thesis director: DINI, PAOLO
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: MEO, MICHELA
       SECRETARI: RINCON RIVERA, DAVID
       VOCAL: NEGLIA, GIOVANNI
  Thesis abstract: During the last decades, mobile network operators have witnessed an exponential increase in the traffic demand, mainly due to the high request of services from a huge amount of users. The trend is of a further increase in both the traffic demand and the number of connected devices over the next years. The traffic load is expected to have an annual growth rate of 53% for the mobile network alone, and the upcoming industrial era, which will connect different types of devices to the mobile infrastructure including human and machine type communications, will definitely exacerbate such an increasing trend.The current directions anticipate that future mobile networks will be composed of ultra dense deployments of heterogeneous Base Stations (BSs), where BSs using different transmission powers coexist. Accordingly, the traditional Macro BSs layer will be complemented or replaced with multiple overlapping tiers of small BSs (SBSs), which will allow extending the system capacity. However, the massive use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the dense deployment of network elements is going to increase the level of energy consumed by the telecommunication infrastructure and its carbon footprint on the environment.Current estimations indicates that 10% of the worldwide electricity generation is due to the ICT industry and this value is forecasted to reach 51% by 2030, which imply that 23% of the carbon footprint by human activity will be due to ICT. Environmental sustainability is thus a key requirement for designing next generation mobile networks.Recently, the use of Renewable Energy Sources (RESs) for supplying network elements has attracted the attention of the research community, where the interest is driven by the increased efficiency and the reduced costs of energy harvesters and storage devices, specially when installed to supply SBSs. Such a solution has been demonstrated to be environmentally and economically sustainable in both rural and urban areas. However, RESs will entail a higher management complexity. In fact, environmental energy is inherently erratic and intermittent, which may cause afluctuating energy inflow and produce service outage. A proper control of how the energy is drained and balanced across network elements is therefore necessary for a self-sustainable network design.In this dissertation, we focus on energy harvested through solar panels that is deemed the most appropriate due to the good efficiency of commercial photovoltaic panels as well as the wide availability of the solar source for typical installations. The characteristics of this energy source are analyzed in the first technical part of the dissertation, by considering an approach based on the extraction of features from collected data of solar energy radiation.In the second technical part of the thesis we introduce our proposed scenario. A federation of BSs together with the distributed harvesters and storage devices at the SBS sites form a micro-grid, whose operations are managed by an energy management system in charge of controlling the intermittent and erratic energy budget from the RESs. We consider load control (i.e., enabling sleep mode in the SBSs) as a method to properly manage energy inflow and spending, based on the traffic demand. Moreover, in the third technical part, we introduce the possibility of improving the network energy efficiency by sharing the exceeding energy that may be available at some BS sites within the micro-grid. Finally, a centralized controller based on supervised and reinforcement learning is proposed in the last technical part of the dissertation. The controller is in charge of opportunistically operating the network to achieve efficient utilization of the harvested energy and prevent SBSs blackout.
  

• SANTOYO GONZÁLEZ, ALEJANDRO: Edge Computing infrastructure for 5G networks: a placement optimization solution
  
  Author: SANTOYO GONZÁLEZ, ALEJANDRO
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/669552
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 08/09/2020
  Thesis director: CERVELLO PASTOR, CRISTINA
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: LOPEZ SOLER, JUAN MANUEL
       SECRETARI: RINCON RIVERA, DAVID
       VOCAL: MARÍN FÀBREGAS, EDUARD
  Thesis abstract: This thesis focuses on how to optimize the placement of the Edge Computing infrastructure for upcoming 5G networks. To this aim, the core contributions of this research are twofold: 1) a novel heuristic called Hybrid Simulated Annealing to tackle the NP-hard nature of the problem and, 2) a framework called EdgeON providing a practical tool for real-life deployment optimization.In more detail, Edge Computing has grown into a key solution to 5G latency, reliability and scalability requirements. By bringing computing, storage and networking resources to the edge of the network, delay-sensitive applications, location-aware systems and upcoming real-time services leverage the benefits of a reduced physical and logical path between the end-user and the data or service host.Nevertheless, the edge node placement problem raises critical concerns regarding deployment and operational expenditures (i.e., mainly due to the number of nodes to be deployed), current backhaul network capabilities and non-technical placement limitations. Common approaches to the placement of edge nodes are based on: Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), where the processing capabilities are deployed at the Radio Access Network nodes and Facility Location Problem variations, where a simplistic cost function is used to determine where to optimally place the infrastructure. However, these methods typically lack the flexibility to be used for edge node placement under the strict technical requirements identified for 5G networks. They fail to place resources at the network edge for 5G ultra-dense networking environments in a network-aware manner.This doctoral thesis focuses on rigorously defining the Edge Node Placement Problem (ENPP) for 5G use cases and proposes a novel framework called EdgeON aiming at reducing the overall expenses when deploying and operating an Edge Computing network, taking into account the usage and characteristics of the in-place backhaul network and the strict requirements of a 5G-EC ecosystem. The developed framework implements several placement and optimization strategies thoroughly assessing its suitability to solve the network-aware ENPP. The core of the framework is an in-house developed heuristic called Hybrid Simulated Annealing (HSA), seeking to address the high complexity of the ENPP while avoiding the non-convergent behavior of other traditional heuristics (i.e., when applied to similar problems).The findings of this work validate our approach to solve the network-aware ENPP, the effectiveness of the heuristic proposed and the overall applicability of EdgeON. Thorough performance evaluations were conducted on the core placement solutions implemented revealing the superiority of HSA when compared to widely used heuristics and common edge placement approaches (i.e., a MEC-based strategy). Furthermore, the practicality of EdgeON was tested through two main case studies placing services and virtual network functions over the previously optimally placed edge nodes.Overall, our proposal is an easy-to-use, effective and fully extensible tool that can be used by operators seeking to optimize the placement of computing, storage and networking infrastructure at the users¿ vicinity. Therefore, our main contributions not only set strong foundations towards a cost-effective deployment and operation of an Edge Computing network, but directly impact the feasibility of upcoming 5G services/use cases and the extensive existing research regarding the placement of services and even network service chains at the edge.
  

• SUCIU, IOANA CRISTINA: Energy Aware Optimization for Low Power Radio Technologies
  
  Author: SUCIU, IOANA CRISTINA
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/668889
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 10/03/2020
  Thesis director: VILAJOSANA GUILLEN, XAVIER
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: OUALHA, NOUHA
       SECRETARI: GOMEZ MONTENEGRO, CARLOS
       VOCAL: LOPEZ VICARIO, JOSE
  Thesis abstract: The explosive growth of IoT is pushing the market towards cheap, very low power devices with a strong focus on miniaturization, for applications such as in-body sensors, personal health monitoring and microrobots. Proposing procedures for energy efficiency in IoT is a difficult task, as it is a rapidly growing market comprised of many and very diverse product categories using technologies that are not stable, evolving at a high pace. The research in this field proposes solutions that go from physical layer optimization up to the network layer, and the sensor network designer has to select the techniques that are best for its application specific architecture and radio technology used. This work is focused on exploring new techniques for enhancing the energy efficiency and user experience of IoT networks. We divide the proposed techniques in frame and chip level optimization techniques, respectively. While the frame level techniques are meant to improve the performance of existing radio technologies, the chip level techniques aim at replacing them with crystal-free architectures. The identified frame level techniques are the use of preamble authentication and packet fragmentation, advisable for Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs), a technology that offers the lowest energy consumption per provided service, but is vulnerable in front of energy exhaustion attacks and does not perform well in dense networks. The use of authenticated preambles between the sensors and gateways becomes a defence mechanism against the battery draining intended by attackers. We show experimentally that this approach is able to reduce with 91% the effect of an exhaustion attack, increasing the device's lifetime from less than 0.24 years to 2.6 years. The experiments were conducted using Loadsensing sensor nodes, commercially used for critical infrastructure control and monitoring. Even if exemplified on LoRaWAN, the use of preamble authentication is extensible to any wireless protocol. The use of packet fragmentation despite the packet fits the frame, is shown to reduce the probability of collisions while the number of users in the duty-cycle restricted network increases. Using custom-made Matlab simulations, important goodput improvement was obtained with fragmentation, with higher impact in slower and denser networks. Using NS3 simulations, we showed that combining packet fragmentation with group NACK can increase the network reliability, while reducing the energy consumed for retransmissions, at the cost of adding small headers to each fragment. It is a strategy that proves to be effective in dense duty-cycle restricted networks only, where the headers overhead is negligible compared to the network traffic. As a chip level technique, we consider using radios for communication that do not use external frequency references such as crystal oscillators. This would enable having all sensor's elements on a single piece of silicon, rendering it even ten times more energy efficient due to the compactness of the chip. The immediate consequence is the loss of communication accuracy and ability to easily switch communication channels. In this sense, we propose a sequence of frequency synchronization algorithms and phases that have to be respected by a crystal-free device so that it can be able to join a network by finding the beacon channel, synthesize all communication channels and then maintain their accuracy against temperature change. The proposed algorithms need no additional network overhead, as they are using the existing network signaling. The evaluation is made in simulations and experimentally on a prototype implementation of an IEEE802.15.4 crystal-free radio. While in simulations we are able to change to another communication channel with very good frequency accuracy, the results obtained experimentally show an initial accuracy slightly above 40ppm, which will be later corrected by the chip to be below 40 ppm.
  

• TEMESGENE, DAGNACHEW AZENE: Traffic Control for Energy Harvesting Virtual Small Cells via Reinforcement Learning
  
  Author: TEMESGENE, DAGNACHEW AZENE
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/669329
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 21/07/2020
  Thesis director: DINI, PAOLO
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: GÓMEZ I CERDÀ, VICENTE
       SECRETARI: HERNANDEZ SERRANO, JUAN BAUTISTA
       VOCAL: DE DOMENICO, ANTONIO
  Thesis abstract: Due to the rapid growth of mobile data traffic, future mobile networks are expected to support at least 1000 times more capacity than 4G systems. This trend leads to an increasing energy demand from mobile networks which raises both economic and environmental concerns. Energy costs are becoming an important part of OPEX by Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). As a result, the shift towards energy-oriented design and operation of 5G and beyond systems has been emphasized by academia, industries as well as standard bodies. In particular, Radio Access Network (RAN) is the majorenergy consuming part of cellular networks. To increase the RAN efficiency, Cloud Radio Access Network (CRAN) has been proposed to enable centralized cloud processing of baseband functions while Base Stations (BSs) are reduced to simpleRadio Remote Heads (RRHs). The connection between the RRHs and central cloud is provided by high capacity and very low latency fronthaul. Flexible functional splits between local BS sites and a central cloud are then proposed to relax the CRANfronthaul requirements via partial processing of baseband functions at the local BS sites. Moreover, Network Function Virtualization (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN) enable flexibility in placement and control of network functions.Relying on SDN/NFV with flexible functional splits, network functions of small BSs can be virtualized and placed at different sites of the network. These small BSs are known as virtual Small Cells (vSCs). More recently, Multi-access Edge Computing(MEC) has been introduced where BSs can leverage cloud computing capabilities and offer computational resources on demand basis.On the other hand, Energy Harvesting (EH) is a promising technology ensuring both cost effectiveness and carbon footprint reduction. However, EH comes with challenges mainly due to intermittent and unreliable energy sources. In EH Base Stations (EHBSs), it is important to intelligently manage the harvested energy as well as to ensure energy storage provision.Consequently, MEC enabled EHBSs can open a new frontier in energy-aware processing and sharing of processing units according to flexible functional split options. The goal of this PhD thesis is to propose energy-aware control algorithms in EHpowered vSCs for efficient utilization of harvested energy and lowering the grid energy consumption of RAN, which is the most power consuming part of the network. We leverage on virtualization and MEC technologies for dynamic provision ofcomputational resources according to functional split options employed by the vSCs.After describing the state-of-the-art, the first part of the thesis focuses on offline optimization for efficient harvested energy utilization via dynamic functional split control in vSCs powered by EH. For this purpose, dynamic programming is applied todetermine the performance bound and comparison is drawn against static configurations. The second part of the thesis focuses on online control methods where reinforcement learning based controllers are designed and evaluated. In particular, more focus is given towards the design of multi-agent reinforcement learning to overcome the limitations of centralized approaches due to complexity and scalability. Both tabular and deep reinforcement learning algorithms are tailored in adistributed architecture with emphasis on enabling coordination among the agents. Policy comparison among the online controllers and against the offline bound as well as energy and cost saving benefits are also analyzed.
  

• TOMÀS BULIART, JOAN: Contribution to the construction of fingerprinting and watermarking schemes to protect mobile agents and multimedia content
  
  Author: TOMÀS BULIART, JOAN
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/668890
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 04/03/2020
  Thesis director: FERNANDEZ MUÑOZ, MARCEL
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: SEBÉ FREIXAS, FRANCESC
       SECRETARI: RICO NOVELLA, FRANCISCO JOSE
       VOCAL: HINAREJOS CAMPOS, Mª FRANCISCA
  Thesis abstract: The main characteristic of fingerprinting codes is the need of high error-correction capacity due to the fact that they are designed to avoid collusion attacks which will damage many symbols from the codewords. Moreover, the use of fingerprinting schemes depends on the watermarking system that is used to embed the codeword into the content and how it honors the marking assumption. In this sense, even though fingerprinting codes were mainly used to protect multimedia content, using them on software protection systems seems an option to be considered.This thesis, studies how to use codes which have iterative-decoding algorithms, mainly turbo-codes, to solve the fingerprinting problem. Initially, it studies the effectiveness of current approaches based on concatenating tradicioanal fingerprinting schemes with convolutional codes and turbo-codes. It is shown that these kind of constructions ends upgenerating a high number of false positives. Even though this thesis contains some proposals to improve these schemes, the direct use of turbo-codes without using any concatenation with a fingerprinting code as inner code has also beenconsidered. It is shown that the performance of turbo-codes using the appropiate constituent codes is a valid alternative for environments with hundreds of users and 2 or 3 traitors. As constituent codes, we have chosen low-rate convolutional codes with maximum free distance.As for how to use fingerprinting codes with watermarking schemes, we have studied the option of using watermarking systems based on informed coding and informed embedding. It has been discovered that, due to different encodingsavailable for the same symbol, its applicability to embed fingerprints is very limited. On this sense, some modifications to these systems have been proposed in order to properly adapt them to fingerprinting applications. Moreover the behavior andimpact over a video produced as a collusion of 2 users by the YouTube¿s s ervice has been s tudied. We have also studied the optimal parameters for viable tracking of users who have used YouTube and conspired to redistribute copies generatedby a collusion attack.Finally, we have studied how to implement fingerprinting schemes and software watermarking to fix the problem of malicious hosts on mobile agents platforms. In this regard, four different alternatives have been proposed to protect theagent depending on whether you want only detect the attack or avoid it in real time. Two of these proposals are focused on the protection of intrusion detection systems based on mobile agents. Moreover, each of these solutions has severalimplications in terms of infrastructure and complexity.
  

• TRINH, HOANG DUY: Data Analytics for Mobile Traffic in 5G Networks using Machine Learning Techniques
  
  Author: TRINH, HOANG DUY
  Thesis link: http://hdl.handle.net/10803/669204
  Programme: DOCTORAL DEGREE IN NETWORK ENGINEERING
  Department: Department of Network Engineering (ENTEL)
  Mode: Normal
  Reading date: 10/06/2020
  Thesis director: DINI, PAOLO | GIUPPONI, LORENZA
  

  Committee:
       PRESIDENT: FIORE, MARCO
       SECRETARI: GARCÍA LOZANO, MARIO
       VOCAL: FURNO, ANGELO
  Thesis abstract: This thesis collects the research works I pursued as Ph.D. candidate at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC). Most of the work has been accomplished at the Mobile Network Department Centre Tecnologic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC). The main topic of my research is the study of mobile network traffic through the analysis of operative networks dataset using machine learning techniques. Understanding first the actual network deployments is fundamental for next-generation network (5G) for improving the performance and Quality of Service (QoS) of the users. The work starts from the collection of a novel type of dataset, using an over-the-air monitoring tool, that allows to extract the control information from the radio-link channel, without harming the users¿ identities. The subsequent analysis comprehends a statistical characterization of the traffic and the derivation of prediction models for the network traffic. A wide group of algorithms are implemented and compared, in order to identify the highest performances. Moreover, the thesis addresses a set of applications in the context mobile networks that are prerogatives in the future mobile networks. This includes the detection of urban anomalies, the user classification based on the demanded network services, the design of a proactive wake-up scheme for efficient-energy devices.
  

Last update: 24/10/2020 05:07:30.

Research groups

• BAMPLA-Design and Evaluation of Broadband Networks and Services
• GRXCA-Research Group on Cellular and Ad-hoc Networks
• ISG-Information Security Group
• MAPS-Management, Pricing and Services in Next Generation Networks
• SISCOM-Smart Services for Information Systems and Communication Networks
• WNG-Wireless Networks Group

Teachers

• Aguilar Igartua, Mónica
• Agusti Torra, Anna
• Alcober Segura, Jesus
• Barcelo Arroyo, Francisco
• Calveras Auge, Anna
• Casademont Serra, Jordi
• Cervello Pastor, Cristina
• Cotrina Navau, Josep
• Cruz Llopis, Luis Javier de la
• Demirkol, Ilker Seyfettin
• Domingo Aladren, Maria del Carmen
• Esparza Martin, Oscar
• Fernandez Muñoz, Marcel
• Forne Muñoz, Jordi
• Garcia Villegas, Eduard
• Gomez Montenegro, Carles
• Guasch Murillo, Daniel
• Hernandez Serrano, Juan Bautista
• Hesselbach Serra, Xavier
• Lopez Aguilera, Maria Elena
• Martin Escalona, Israel
• Mata Diaz, Jorge
• Melus Moreno, Jose Luis
• Muñoz Tapia, Jose Luis
• Pallares Segarra, Esteve
• Paradells Aspas, Jose
• Pegueroles Valles, Josep
• Postigo Boix, Marcos
• Remondo Bueno, David
• Rico Novella, Francisco Jose
• Rincon Rivera, David
• Sallent Ribes, Sebastian
• Serrat Fernandez, Juan
• Soriano Ibañez, Miquel
• Vidal Ferre, Rafael
• Zola, Enrica Valeria