ORCA Workshop

Orchestration and reconfiguration of networked software defined radios

The ORCA project (https://www.orca-project.eu/), a H2020 Research and Innovation Action (RIA) addressing the topic ‘Future Connectivity Systems’. ORCA offers experimentation facilities to promote wireless innovation especially focusing on SDR. The ultimate goal of the ORCA project is to enable wireless experimenters to unlock the potential of re configurable radio technology, by setting up complex experiments that require control of multiple novel technologies or cooperation between multiple networked SDR platforms within 5G or beyond 5G performance constraints on latency or throughput, well before new radio technologies become available on the market in commercial off-the-shelf products. The ORCA project further aims to bridge  Software-Defined Radio (SDR) with Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technology, enabling the creation of parallel on demand wireless network slices, each slice optimized for a specific set of requirements.

This workshop will present some advanced SDR capabilities and how these capabilities can be used by wireless innovators from academia and industry to increase spectrum efficiency and end-to-end performance in verticals that have to cope with extreme and diverging communication needs.

Workshop program:

  • General overview of the ORCA project (Sofie Pollin, KU Leuven)
    • ORCA offers mature, real-time and versatile SDR platforms to promote wireless innovation and end-to-ent networking experiments coping with extreme (ultra-low latency, ultra-high throughput, ultra-high reliability) and diverging (low AND high data rate, time-critical AND non-time critical) communication needs. ORCA SDR platforms are capable to compose, reconfigure and reprogram wireless devices at runtime.The overall ORCA objective is to bridge Software-Defined Radio (SDR) with Software-Defined Networking (SDN) technology, enabling the creation of parallel on demand wireless network slices optimized for a specific set of requirements. ORCA also opens novel frequency bands, by proposing
      SDR technology at mmWave frequencies.
  • Multi-Layer Prototyping with Software Defined Radio (Ben Coffin, National Instruments)
    • Software defined radios provide the flexibility needed to prototype real-world multi-RAT technologies. At it’s core, a software defined radio is comprised of an analog RF front end paired with a multi-processor subsystem which may contain general purpose processors, FPGA’s or DSP circuitry. By utilizing a single design environment with LabVIEW Communications, the ability to target multiple processor architectures becomes simplified and the necessary steps to develop real world prototypes decreases. By leveraging FPGA IP and open-source network simulation tools, a single software defined radio can be used to prototype LTE and WLAN networks in real-time.
  • Low latency communication in industry 4.0 (Seyed Ali Hassani, KU Leuven)
    • We present a reliable network for robot remote control in which a cross-layer PHY-MAC architecture is exploited to establish a low-latency and time-critical data transmission. Three reverse pendulum robots share the spectrum to communicate their sen- sory data to a processing unit which can instantly generate and transmit appropriate commands to maintain the robots’ balance. To this end, we upgrade CLAWS (Cross-Layer Adaptable Wireless System) with a two-layer MAC platform which accelerates and facilities interrupt handling. To grant the network operational reliability, we coupled the FPGA-based IEEE 802.15.4 PHY in the CLAWS architecture with a set of hardware blocks that play the role of the low-level MAC. CLAWS also ooffers a run-time programmable module in which we deploy the high-level functionalities of the MAC protocol. Jointly with the implemented bi-layer MAC structure, we show how the CLAWS’ exibility allows either standard compliant or ad-hoc network prototyping to establish a reliable cloud-based robot remote control.
  • Using Deep Learning and Radio Virtualisation for Ecient Spectrum Sharing among Coexisting Networks (Wei Liu,  imec – Ghent University & Joao Santos, CONNECT Centre for Future Networks, Trinity College Dublin)
    • This work leverages recent advances in machine learning for radio environment monitoring with context awareness, and uses the obtained information for creating radio slices that can optimally coexist with ongoing traffic in a given spectrum band. We instantiate radio slices as virtualised radios built on a software-defined radio platform. Then, we describe a proof-of-concept experiment that validates and demonstrates the proposed solution.
  • Next Generation of Advanced Wireless Networking Testbeds – invited speaker (Ivan Seskar – Rutgers University)
    • Wireless network testbeds are important for realistic, at-scale experimental evaluation of new radio technologies, protocols and network architectures. With a somewhat belated reality check on 5G, larger tests and demonstration sites have become even more important in the validation of next generation wireless platforms. In order to address at least some of the challenges of advancing fundamental wireless research, the US National Science Foundation, in collaboration with the 28-member industry consortium, has formed a public-private partnership to support creation of four city-scale experimental platforms. This talk will introduce the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program as well as the first two selected target deployments. It will also cover in some more detail the COSMOS (“Cloud enhanced Open Software defined MObile wireless testbed for city-Scale deployment”) platform that is being deployed in New York City with the technical focus on ultra-high-bandwidth and low-latency wireless communications, with tightly coupled edge computing with emphasis on the millimeter-wave radio communications and dynamic optical switching
  • Discussion: what is expected from wireless platforms and facilities in view of experimental validation of wireless innovations involving new radio technologies?

 

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission deadline

19 August 2018

 

Conference dates

18-19 September

 

SUBMISSION

2 page abstracts should be submitted through EAI ‘Confy‘ system, and have to comply with the Springer format (see Author’s kit section).

How do I submit a paper in Confy?

  1. Go to Confy website
  2. Login or sign up as new user
  3. Scroll the list of conferences open for submission
  4. Select CROWNCOM 2018 and navigate to the ORCA Workshop track
  5. Click the ‘submit a paper’ link and follow the instructions

Submission guidelines

Abstracts should be in English. Demonstration abstracts should be up to 2 pages in length.  The abstract submissions must follow the SPRINGER formatting guidelines (see Author’s kit section). Read the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement.

Publication

2 page workshop abstracts will be included in the CROWNCOM proceedings, but will not be indexed in SpringerLink Digital Library.