Extracting and Exploiting Inherent Sparsity for Efficient IoT Support in 5G: Challenges and Potential Solutions

Abstract

Besides enabling an enhanced mobile broadband, next generation of mobile networks (5G) are envisioned for the support of massive connectivity of heterogeneous Internet of Things (IoT)s. These IoTs are envisioned for a large number of use-cases including smart cities, environment monitoring, smart vehicles, etc. Unfortunately, most IoTs have very limited computing and storage capabilities and need cloud services. Hence, connecting these devices through 5G systems requires huge spectrum resources in addition to handling the massive connectivity and improved security. This article discusses the challenges facing the support of IoTs through 5G systems. The focus is devoted to discussing physical layer limitations in terms of spectrum resources and radio access channel connectivity. We show how sparsity can be exploited for addressing these challenges especially in terms of enabling wideband spectrum management and handling the connectivity by exploiting device-to-device communications and edge-cloud. Moreover,we identify major open problems and research directions that need to be explored towards enabling the support of massive heterogeneous IoTs through 5G systems. I. INTRODUCTIONThe foreseen success of the Internet of Things (IoT) and its applications is the result of three major trends. First, fifth-generation (5G) systems have promises for meeting stringent QoS requirements that legacy systems fail to meet. Examples of such requirements are high data rates, low energy consumption, low latency, high capacity, and improved security. These expected improvements make 5G an ideal candidate for ensuring required connectivity and services for massive and heterogenous IoT devices [1]. The second trend is the emergence of cloud computing services, which are believed to play a vital role in making IoT a success by enabling diverse IoT services and applications that were not possible before. Bringing computing and storage resources closer to the IoT devices by means of edge computing has great promises for lowering energy consumption by releasing the devices from the burden of having to deal with some or most of the computation and energy needed for task execution [2]. The third trend is the adoption of device-to-device (D2D) communications envisioned for public safety with the potential for enabling more decentralized network management and local traffic offloading [3]. D2D offers 5G real-time assurances and better spectrum and resource allocation efficiency [3]. These (technological) trends have jointly led to a common belief that the success of IoT applications is rather a possible reality.

Internet of Things (IoT) for Next-Generation Smart Systems: A Review of Current Challenges, Future Trends and Prospects for Emerging 5G-IoT Scenarios

“…Furthermore, IoT devices are limited in energy and computation resources. These IoT devices' characteristics make their access to 5G systems different from classical cellular devices [106]. Identifying the right system parameter configuration for the specific IoT use case is a big challenge [107].…”

A Framed Slotted ALOHA-Based MAC for Eliminating Vain Wireless Power Transfer in Wireless Powered IoT Networks

“…The ratio of downlink slots to uplink slots is predetermined by a system operator considering traffic in a system. Since most traffic in the IoT is uplink traffic [38], a mere one downlink slot is included in a frame herein. The downlink slot is used as a broadcast slot.…”

A cross-layer cooperative jamming scheme for social internet of things

“…As one of the core researches of 5G wireless communications, enhanced mobile broadband provides convenience for numerous applications [1] . People are increasingly using multimedia services, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, real-time broadcasting, telemedicine, and distance education to publish various data [2][3][4] .…”