Telecommunications
FogROS2-PLR: Probabilistic Latency-Reliability For Cloud Robotics
Chen, Kaiyuan, Tian, Nan, Juette, Christian, Qiu, Tianshuang, Ren, Liu, Kubiatowicz, John, Goldberg, Ken
Cloud robotics enables robots to offload computationally intensive tasks to cloud servers for performance, cost, and ease of management. However, the network and cloud computing infrastructure are not designed for reliable timing guarantees, due to fluctuating Quality-of-Service (QoS). In this work, we formulate an impossibility triangle theorem for: Latency reliability, Singleton server, and Commodity hardware. The LSC theorem suggests that providing replicated servers with uncorrelated failures can exponentially reduce the probability of missing a deadline. We present FogROS2-Probabilistic Latency Reliability (PLR) that uses multiple independent network interfaces to send requests to replicated cloud servers and uses the first response back. We design routing mechanisms to discover, connect, and route through non-default network interfaces on robots. FogROS2-PLR optimizes the selection of interfaces to servers to minimize the probability of missing a deadline. We conduct a cloud-connected driving experiment with two 5G service providers, demonstrating FogROS2-PLR effectively provides smooth service quality even if one of the service providers experiences low coverage and base station handover. We use 99 Percentile (P99) latency to evaluate anomalous long-tail latency behavior. In one experiment, FogROS2-PLR improves P99 latency by up to 3.7x compared to using one service provider. We deploy FogROS2-PLR on a physical Stretch 3 robot performing an indoor human-tracking task. Even in a fully covered Wi-Fi and 5G environment, FogROS2-PLR improves the responsiveness of the robot reducing mean latency by 36% and P99 latency by 33%.
Large Language Models for Knowledge-Free Network Management: Feasibility Study and Opportunities
Lee, Hoon, Kim, Mintae, Baek, Seunghwan, Lee, Namyoon, Debbah, Merouane, Lee, Inkyu
Traditional network management algorithms have relied on prior knowledge of system models and networking scenarios. In practice, a universal optimization framework is desirable where a sole optimization module can be readily applied to arbitrary network management tasks without any knowledge of the system. To this end, knowledge-free optimization techniques are necessary whose operations are independent of scenario-specific information including objective functions, system parameters, and network setups. The major challenge of this paradigm-shifting approach is the requirement of a hyperintelligent black-box optimizer that can establish efficient decision-making policies using its internal reasoning capabilities. This article presents a novel knowledge-free network management paradigm with the power of foundation models called large language models (LLMs). Trained on vast amounts of datasets, LLMs can understand important contexts from input prompts containing minimal system information, thereby offering remarkable inference performance even for entirely new tasks. Pretrained LLMs can be potentially leveraged as foundation models for versatile network optimization. By eliminating the dependency on prior knowledge, LLMs can be seamlessly applied for various network management tasks. The viability of this approach is demonstrated for resource management problems using GPT-3.5-Turbo. Numerical results validate that knowledge-free LLM optimizers are able to achieve comparable performance to existing knowledge-based optimization algorithms. H. Lee is with the Department of Electrical Engineering and the Artificial Intelligence Graduate School, Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), Ulsan, 44919, Korea.
SoftBank's Son envisions AI running households in the next few years
SoftBank Group founder Masayoshi Son sketched out one of the most aggressive timelines for the adoption of artificial intelligence yet, envisioning a near future where the technology would run entire households. AI will soon be able to monitor the health of family members, call the doctor when needed, do grocery shopping, make reservations, judge optimal investments and tutor young children, Son said in a speech at an annual forum for enterprise clients on Thursday. He moved up his expectation for when artificial general intelligence -- the long-term goal for developers from OpenAI to Meta Platforms and Alphabet's Google -- would arrive to within the next two to three years.
RelChaNet: Neural Network Feature Selection using Relative Change Scores
There is an ongoing effort to develop feature selection algorithms to improve interpretability, reduce computational resources, and minimize overfitting in predictive models. Neural networks stand out as architectures on which to build feature selection methods, and recently, neuron pruning and regrowth have emerged from the sparse neural network literature as promising new tools. We introduce RelChaNet, a novel and lightweight feature selection algorithm that uses neuron pruning and regrowth in the input layer of a dense neural network. For neuron pruning, a gradient sum metric measures the relative change induced in a network after a feature enters, while neurons are randomly regrown. We also propose an extension that adapts the size of the input layer at runtime. Extensive experiments on nine different datasets show that our approach generally outperforms the current state-of-the-art methods, and in particular improves the average accuracy by 2% on the MNIST dataset. Feature selection is an elemental task in predictive modelling. It can serve to reduce computational resources, improve interpretability by highlighting important features, or improve predictive performance by reducing overfitting (Li et al., 2018). To further these goals has been the driving motivation of large recent efforts to improve existing and develop new feature selection algorithms.
Autonomous Self-Trained Channel State Prediction Method for mmWave Vehicular Communications
Orimogunje, Abidemi, Ninkovic, Vukan, Twahirwa, Evariste, Gashema, Gaspard, Vukobratovic, Dejan
Establishing and maintaining 5G mmWave vehicular connectivity poses a significant challenge due to high user mobility that necessitates frequent triggering of beam switching procedures. Departing from reactive beam switching based on the user device channel state feedback, proactive beam switching prepares in advance for upcoming beam switching decisions by exploiting accurate channel state information (CSI) prediction. In this paper, we develop a framework for autonomous self-trained CSI prediction for mmWave vehicular users where a base station (gNB) collects and labels a dataset that it uses for training recurrent neural network (RNN)-based CSI prediction model. The proposed framework exploits the CSI feedback from vehicular users combined with overhearing the C-V2X cooperative awareness messages (CAMs) they broadcast. We implement and evaluate the proposed framework using deepMIMO dataset generation environment and demonstrate its capability to provide accurate CSI prediction for 5G mmWave vehicular users. CSI prediction model is trained and its capability to provide accurate CSI predictions from various input features are investigated.
Windows 11's 2024 Update: 5 big changes I really like (and more)
The big Windows 11 2024 Update (also known as Windows 11 24H2) is both a brand-new operating system but also one that's been out for several months now. And its best features are really reserved for those who have invested in a next-gen Copilot PC powered by chips from Qualcomm, Intel, and AMD. These seeming contradictions are at the heart of Windows 11 24H2, which begins rolling out today in a "phased" rollout that will last several weeks. But when you get it and what you get with it will all depend on whether you own a Copilot PC. In other words, there's a set of basic features that everyone will receive (including new energy-saving features for laptops and desktops, improved smartphone integration, plus support for Wi-Fi 7 and the upgraded 80Gbps capabilities of USB4), along with more advanced features that are only available to Copilot PC users.
The Morning After: Verizon and PlayStation's network separately hit by outages
It was a messy Monday if you were a Verizon customer or wanted some PS5 gaming in the evening. First, Verizon mobile customers reported outages across the US on Monday. Reports spiked at almost 105,000 at 11:20AM. Issues included the inability to send texts and a lack of cellular service outright. The issue centered on the East Coast and Midwest. The carrier hasn't elaborated on what caused the issue.
Distributed AI Platform for the 6G RAN
Ananthanarayanan, Ganesh, Foukas, Xenofon, Radunovic, Bozidar, Zhang, Yongguang
Cellular Radio Access Networks (RANs) are rapidly evolving towards 6G, driven by the need to reduce costs and introduce new revenue streams for operators and enterprises. In this context, AI emerges as a key enabler in solving complex RAN problems spanning both the management and application domains. Unfortunately, and despite the undeniable promise of AI, several practical challenges still remain, hindering the widespread adoption of AI applications in the RAN space. This article attempts to shed light to these challenges and argues that existing approaches in addressing them are inadequate for realizing the vision of a truly AI-native 6G network. Motivated by this lack of solutions, it proposes a generic distributed AI platform architecture, tailored to the needs of an AI-native RAN and discusses its alignment with ongoing standardization efforts.
ByteDance will reportedly use Huawei chips to train a new AI model
As first reported by Reuters, ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, is planning to train and develop an AI model using chips from fellow Chinese company Huawei. Three anonymous sources approached Reuters with this information; a fourth source couldn't confirm that ByteDance was using Huawei chips but did say that a new AI model was in development. Previously, ByteDance's AI projects used NVIDIA's H20 AI chips, which were designed for the Chinese market and avoided the trade restrictions the US government placed in 2022. Chinese customers were only allowed to purchase select models of AI chips, which was an attempt to slow down Chinese technological advancement. ByteDance has ordered 100,000 Ascend 910B chips from Huawei this year but only received 30,000 of them.
Multi-Scale Convolutional LSTM with Transfer Learning for Anomaly Detection in Cellular Networks
Noonari, Nooruddin, Corujo, Daniel, Aguiar, Rui L., Ferrao, Francisco J.
The rapid growth in mobile broadband usage and increasing subscribers have made it crucial to ensure reliable network performance. As mobile networks grow more complex, especially during peak hours, manual collection of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is time-consuming due to the vast data involved. Detecting network failures and identifying unusual behavior during busy periods is vital to assess network health. Researchers have applied Deep Learning (DL) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques to understand network behavior by predicting throughput, analyzing call records, and detecting outages. However, these methods often require significant computational power, large labeled datasets, and are typically specialized, making retraining for new scenarios costly and time-intensive. This study introduces a novel approach Multi-Scale Convolutional LSTM with Transfer Learning (TL) to detect anomalies in cellular networks. The model is initially trained from scratch using a publicly available dataset to learn typical network behavior. Transfer Learning is then employed to fine-tune the model by applying learned weights to different datasets. We compare the performance of the model trained from scratch with that of the fine-tuned model using TL. To address class imbalance and gain deeper insights, Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) and the Synthetic Minority Over-sampling Technique (SMOTE) are applied. Results demonstrate that the model trained from scratch achieves 99% accuracy after 100 epochs, while the fine-tuned model reaches 95% accuracy on a different dataset after just 20 epochs.