61^st international Symposium ELMAR-2019

5G Technology is currently the general hype within the modern and future Communications field. But we also know very well, that 5G will not be the final stage of Telecommunications, the user and telecom clients will need higher data rates soon. Also in most of the countries 5G is not available in big parts of rural areas, and so far not all possible frequency slots (within the 5G relevant RF-spectrum) are used. Only in and around cities 5G is mostly well installed and established and available for users. Still the GBit/s data rates in 5G Technology will not be available in all regions within the next 10 years, but the user and clients will need TBit/s soon (already available with fibre cables and optical data transmission). Within this contribution Optical Wireless Communication (OWC), well known as Free Space Optics (FSO) also in combination (as hybrid transmission methods) with other telecommunication technologies (including WLAN and satellite communications) and applications for 5G are presented. Modular communication systems are considered, which allows worldwide access to the Internet or other networks by combining satellite communications, FSO, Wireless LAN, Local Multipoint Distribution System (LMDS) and DVB-T (terrestrial digital video broadcast). Current and future applications of OWC and hybrid solutions also on deep space missions and for autonomous driving systems (for cars, ships and planes) in combination with 5G networks are shown in this talk. Optical Wave Propagation is also important for Sensing and Detection Technologies for Future Applications.

The contribution also deals with possible fields of applications for optical wireless (discussed and compared to 5G and RF) in conjunction with automated driving. The scope considers requirements (including infrastructural view and law), differences of Optical and RF-Wave Propagation and promising combinations of optical techniques with conventional wireless technologies. Optical wireless has a huge potential to cover the expected high data rate demands (wished and awaited for 5G). A welcome side effect (of combining OWC and RF) is the relief of the crowded RF bands. It turned out that hybrid systems are currently the most promising approach as each technology has its own specific drawbacks (by different weather influences) and the combination provides the advantages without the disadvantages.

Also the visible light communication (VLC) offers a sophisticated concept of optical communications, and headlamps and taillights of vehicles could also be used for communication purposes as well as serving exact position data in locations, where no satellite position system is in reach (e.g. tunnels, narrow house-canyons in cities). Optical Communication can also be implemented inside the vehicle. A reduction of vehicle weight and the complete lack of electromagnetic disturbances are interesting properties. All those examples demonstrate optical wireless as an important part for modern data transmission and as future innovation optical technologies for automated driving and future sensor networks. Current and future applications of OWC and hybrid solutions in combination with 5G networks will become more and more important and will be supplemented for autonomous driving systems (for cars, ships and planes) by combining Optical- and RF-waves (also for sensing and detecting targets, obstacles and neighbour-systems).

Erich Leitgeb was born in 1964 in Fürstenfeld (Styria, Austria) and received his master degree at the University of Technology Graz in 1994. From 1982 to 1984 he attended the military service, including a training to an officer for Communications in the Austrian army, and he is still active as an expert in military communications (current military rank Lieutenant-Colonel). In 1994 he started research work in Optical Communications at the Department of Communications and Wave Propagation (TU Graz). In February 1999 he received his PhD-degree with honours. Since January 2000 he is project leader of international research projects in the field of optical communications and he established and leads the research group for Optical Communications at TU Graz and joined international projects (like COST 270, the EU project SatNEx and SatNEx 2, COST 291, COST IC0802, IC1101 and currently MP1401, CA15127 and CA16220) and ESA projects in different functions.

End of 2003 he submitted his research work for the Associate Professor. Since 2011, he is Professor for Optical Communications and Wireless Applications at the Institute of Microwave and Photonic Engineering at TU Graz. He is giving lectures in Optical Communications Engineering, Antennas and Wave Propagation and Microwaves.

Erich Leitgeb had research stays at the Institute of Telecommuni¬cations (FER) at the University of Zagreb (Croatia), at the University of Ljubljana and the Jožef Stefan Institute (IJS) in Ljubljana (Slovenia), and later within international projects at Northumbria University (UK), TU Brno and TU Ostrava (Czech. Republic) and TU Poznan (Poland). He gave guest lectures in “Optical Wireless” in the frame of ERASMUS / SOCRATES lecture mobility at University of Patras (2008 and 2009) and at University of Zagreb (2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013). He is a Visiting Professor at the Northumbria University in Newcastle (UK) and he is a Member of IEEE, SPIE (the International Society for Optics and Photonics), OSA (Optical Society of America) and WCA (Wireless Communications Association). Since the EuCAP 2012, he is representative of “Optical Wireless” at EurAAP and since 2011 Austrian delegate of URSI Commission B (Fields and Waves).

Since 2003 he is reviewer for IEEE and SPIE conferences and journals and he acts as member of Technical Committees and Chairpersons on these conferences. Since 2007 he prepared international IEEE conferences (like CSNDSP 2008, ConTEL 2011, NOC 2013, ICTON 2014, ConTEL 2015, CoBCom 2016, CoBCom 2018 and currently ConTEL 2019) as local organizer in Graz.

Erich Leitgeb is author and co-author of 5 book-chapters, around 40 Journal publications, 140 reviewed Conference papers, around 40 Invited Talks and more than 60 international scientific reports. For further information see the TUG-Online system under https://online.tugraz.at/tug_online/webnav.ini.

The share of video traffic in total IP traffic is now around 60%, and it is estimated that by 2021, it will have exceeded 80%. Video streaming is herein the most widely used video service. In such conditions, Video Quality Assessment (VQA) is of the utmost importance to network and service providers, which, with the appropriate resource allocation, must provide high Quality of Experience (QoE) to prevent users churn. The goal of the VQA metrics is to estimate which video quality the human viewer would perceive. It is not an easy task since a Human Visual System (HVS) is very complex and the perceived quality of a video depends on HVS contrast as well as frequency sensitivity, masking effects, foveation vision mechanism and temporal effects. Some of the metrics are based on the HVS model and they try to incorporate some known HVS mechanisms in a computational efficient manner. Other metrics are based on the extraction and analysis of certain features or artifacts in a video. The final quality grade is obtained by pooling of the quality parameter calculated from these features and/or artifact.

HTTP based adaptive video streaming (HAS) is widely used for video on demand services (YouTube, Netflix, etc.) but also for the real-time applications. It ensures adaptation of the video transmission to the changing network conditions. The adaptation of the encoding bitrates to the network throughout is not only done by changing the quantization parameters, but also by changing the spatial and temporal resolution of the video. Furthermore, due to shortcomings of the bitrate adaptation algorithms used by HAS, stalling events as well as too frequent changes of the quality levels may occur. In such conditions, estimating the video quality is even more challenging. This speech will provide an insight in the current state of the usage of VQA metrics in the QoE modelling for HAS as well as elaborate on ongoing challenges in this field.

Snježana Rimac-Drlje received her B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, in 1987, 1994, 2000, respectively. From 1987, she has been affiliated to the Department of Communications, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Computer Science and Information Technology Osijek (FERIT), University of Osijek, where she has reached a rank of a full professor with tenure. She introduced several courses at undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels in the field of communications and multimedia. She is currently a Vice-Dean for International Cooperation as well as a Head of the Chair of Multimedia Systems and Digital Television at FERIT. She has actively participated in several Croatian as well as European research projects focused on video compression and quality evaluation, video transmission, wireless communications as well as radio wave propagation. Some of the latest contributions include her work on metrics for video quality assessment and development of video streaming adaptation algorithms. Dr. Snježana Rimac-Drlje is an author and a co-author of over 80 published scientific papers in addition to several research and expert studies within her research field. She is a member of editorial boards of two scientific journals, namely Technical Gazette and International Journal of Electrical and Computer Engineering Systems. She is a senior member of IEEE, reviewer for IEEE conferences and journals as well as a member of technical committees and chairpersons on these conferences. She was a technical program co-chair for IEEE conferences Smart Systems and Technologies (2016-2018) and a general co-chair for EURASIP and IEEE conference IWSSIP 2019, Osijek, Croatia. She is a member of the Croatian Academy of Engineering and a member of the Croatian Standards Institute Technical Committee.

The fifth generation cellular network technology or 5G will enable industrial transformation by supporting the new types of applications connecting devices and objects (the Internet of Things). It will enable software virtualization that allows innovative business models across multiple sectors (e.g. transport, health, manufacturing, logistics, energy, media and entertainment). It is believed that the economy and jobs will be strongly stimulated by 5G deployment, and therefore the governments and private investors are focused on this technology.

Although expectations are rising (to the hype), engineers understand that the fifth generation will take much longer than earlier generations to full deployment. 5G brings communication improvements regarding data rates and minimal response time (latency). There are three 5G business models identified, each having different communications needs: Enhanced or extreme mobile broadband – eMBB, Massive machine type communication – mMTC and Critical machine type communication – cMTC.

This speech will give an insight in the current state of play of 5G deployment. It will investigate the usage of new frequency bands and how it reflects on the challenges regarding network construction, network densification and health concerns. Finalization of the standardisation in 2019 will be emphasised as the first step before serious implementation. Security issues raised from 5G business models will be discussed, with focus on how main security concerns will be addressed.

Miran Gosta M. Sc. E.E. was born in 1980 in Zagreb. He graduated in 2003 and got his master’s degree in Postgraduate Scientific Study in 2006 at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing in Zagreb, Department of Radio communications and Professional Electronics. He is author and co-author of 12 scientific papers with an international review and numerous professional papers. Since 2003 he has been employed at the Croatian Institute for Telecommunications, HAKOM's legal predecessor. He held positions as Project Engineer in the Radio and TV department, Head of Television Department, Project Leader, and Senior Expert for Broadcasting Planning, participating in all major national and European projects. Currently he is the executive director of Croatian Regulatory Authority for Network Industries (HAKOM).