Limiting Energy Consumption by Decreasing Packets Retransmissions in 5G Network

Hindawi Mobile Information Systems Volume 2017, Article ID 4291091, 9 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/4291091 Research Article Limiting Energy Consumption by Decreasing Packets Retransmissions in 5G Network Aukasz Apiecionek Institute of Technology, Kazimierz Wielki University, Bydgoszcz, Poland Correspondence should be addressed to Łukasz Apiecionek; Received 6 October 2016; Revised 22 December 2016; Accepted 12 January 2017; Published 15 February 2017 Academic Editor: Konstantinos Demestichas Copyright © 2017 Łukasz Apiecionek. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This article presents the potential of using Multipath Transmission Control Protocol for limiting the energy consumption in 5G network. The number of errors occurring during packet transmissions and in effect the number of retransmissions affect the consumption of energy by the devices in the network. The paper analyzes the potential energy savings from implementing an algorithm for detecting problems and predicting the future retransmissions. Although this is the main object of the paper, it must be emphasized that the proposed method also allows increasing the speed of transmission and improving the security of the data and it is easy to implement in 5G networks. 1. Introduction A general opinion on the 5G network is that this technology could not be used in the near future, mostly due to the fact that the business segment remains unprepared for its implementation. Lots of GSM/3G/LTE operators have invested much in their infrastructure and what they now focus on is the return on this investment. In a technical aspect, 5G networks are defined by the following parameters [1, 2]: (i) 1 millisecond end-to-end round trip delay (latency). (ii) 1000x bandwidth per unit area. (iii) 10–100x number of connected devices. (iv) (Perception of) 99.999% availability. (v) (Perception of) 100% coverage. (vi) 90% reduction in network energy usage. (vii) Up to ten-year battery life for low power, machinetype devices. Only a network meeting these provisions can be called a 5G network. An additional parameter is a new radio interface [1, 3–5]. The ability to work with more than one radio transmitter/receiver, called MIMO (multiple-input, multipleoutput) [1–3, 6, 7], is also very important. Moreover, it is often postulated that 5G network should be able to coexist with the old network. It should use Ethernet protocols and treat the old network as a backup [1]. It is essential for critical infrastructures, where the reliability of the network is a top priority [8]. One of the existing technologies which can be taken into account for cross-layer optimization for 5G network communications and which is able to use MIMO as well as the existing infrastructure, is MultiPath Transmission Control Protocol (MPTCP in short). MPTCP technology allows using all the existing links to provide one stable and fast connection between two points of communication. The fact of using more than one connection in 5G network is something which does not neglect the MPTCP technology but can lead to limiting the energy consumption, which can be achieved by reducing the amount of retransmissions. No less important than the reliability of 5G network is its speed. In order to eliminate the problems with delays in MPTCP, fuzzy logic can be applied, especially Ordered Fuzzy Numbers (OFN in short, called in some papers Kosinski’s Fuzzy Numbers), for predicting problems in the network [9, 10]. This will allow predicting errors in the network and deciding on using a different link. Current State of Research. MPTCP is not widely used today. The best known user of this technology is Apple company, which has implemented it in its IPad and IPhone devices. 2 Mobile Information Systems 1 2 3 Source port 4 SYN Destination port SYN + ACK Sequence number (4 octets) ACK Acknowledgment number (if ACK set) Data offset Reserved Host A N S URG, ACK, SYN, FIN, . . . Figure 2: Three-way handshake. Window size Network A Urgent pointer (if URG is set) Checksum Host B Options ··· Network B Figure 1: TCP header. Figure 3: 𝑁 different TCP connections are represented as one logical data. Most research on this solution focuses on the ability to maintain a stable connection between two points by the use of different links [11, 12], while the issues concerning Ordered Fuzzy Numbers are mostly investigated by the coworkers of professor Kosı́nski [9, 10]. However, by far no research has been performed on the usability of OFN as a means for predicting the increase in bit error rate in TCP (Transmission Control Protocol) transmission, which could allow for decreasing the number of retransmissions of packets. This paper aims to analyze this new practical application of OFN solution combined with MPTCP technology for limiting the consumption of energy during the transmission of data. The following section of the paper describes MPTCP technology in regard to its features and implementation status. Section 3 describes OFN and their applicability in 5G network along with the MPTCP technology, for the purpose of limiting the energy consumption. The recapitulation of the paper covers conclusions and final remarks. 2. Multipath TCP Prior to presenting the MPTCP technology, it is necessary to first introduce the concept of TCP [13], which is used for transferring data between the processes running on different machines. TCP can send data in two directions between two hosts. A unique identifier of the TCP connection is two pairs of values (one for each side of the connection)—IP and port number. By using checksums and sequence numbers, TCP provides a complete and orderly data exchange for higher layer applications. The header presented in Figure 1 contains all necessary details to establish a connection. Before the application starts transmitting the information, it is necessary to exchange the initialization data, as presented in Figure 2. Host A sends a segment with set SYN flag, and then host B confirms receiving the packet and sends back SYN and ACK flag. Finally, host A sends an empty segment, with only ACK flag [13]. TCP connections cannot move from one IP address to another. When a PC switches from Ethernet to Wi-Fi, it is assigned a different IP address. Thus, all the existing TCP connections must be shut down and reestablished. MPTCP is a set of extensions to the specification of TCP which allows the client to establish multiple connections Application Application Socket Transport Multipath TCP Network TCP1 TCP2 ··· TCPn Datalink Physical Figure 4: MPTCP in the stack. using different network cards with the same destination host. This way fault-tolerant and efficient data connections are maintained between the hosts that are compatible with the existing network infrastru (...truncated)