Lorenzo Iacobelli

Real-time multimedia communications in medical emergency - the CONCERTO project solution

The management of medical emergency, in particular cardiac emergency, requests prompt intervention and the possibility to communicate in real time from the emergency area / ambulance to the hospital as much diagnostic information as possible about the patient. This would enable a prompt emergency diagnosis and operation and the possibility to prepare the appropriate actions in the suitable hospital department. To address this scenario, the CONCERTO European project proposed a wireless communication system based on a novel cross-layer architecture, including the integration of building blocks for medical media content fusion, delivery and access. This paper describes the proposed system architecture, outlining the developed components and mechanisms, and the evaluation of the proposed system, carried out in a hospital with the support of medical staff. The technical results and the feedback received highlight the impact of the CONCERTO approach in the healthcare domain, in particular in enabling a prompt and reliable diagnosis in challenging medical emergency scenarios.

An architecture for m-health services: The CONCERTO project solution

The provisioning of e-health and specifically m-health services requires the usage of advanced and reliable communication techniques to offer acceptable Quality of Experience (QoE) for doctors in the transfer of biomedical data between involved parties (i.e. flawless, or almost flawless, and prompt enough delivery) using wired or wireless access networks. To overcome the restrictions of conventional communication systems and to address the challenges imposed by wireless/mobile multimedia transfer and adaptation for healthcare applications, the CONCERTO project proposes a cross-layer optimized architecture with all the needed critical building blocks integrated for medical media content fusion, delivery and access, even on the move in emergency contexts. This paper describes the proposed reference system architecture, presenting the developed components and mechanisms in a comprehensive way, depicting and clarifying the overall picture and highlighting the impact of the CONCERTO approach in the healthcare domain. The evaluation of the proposed system is carried out both via simulation analysis and, more importantly, via validation involving real medical staff.

URA-MAC a new strategy for D2D communications

This paper presents a new resource allocation protocol for D2D communications within LTE-based networks. The proposed scheme is a cluster based approach: the base station is implied only during the connection phase to assign initial resource allocation values to D2D users. Thereby, the base station is less solicited, and D2D communications can be scheduled by nodes themselves, following channel access rules provided by the base station. The main advantages of the protocol are a high spectral reuse level and the increase of the cell overall throughput without significant QoS degradation for regular services. Moreover, the low signalling level at the base station makes the protocol suitable to be applied to out of coverage network extension, each D2D device being eligible to play the role of the base station.

Network Coded MIMO Aided Cooperative Communications in the Ambulance-and-emergency Area

In this contribution, a novel network coding (NC) aided multi-input multi-output (MIMO) scheme is proposed for providing reliable transmission from an ambulance assisting in an emergency situation by cooperating with relaying devices at an emergency scene. Our system is constituted by an Irregular Convolutional Coded Unity Rate Coded Space Time Trellis Coded M-ary Phase Shift Keying (IrCC-URC-STTC-MPSK) scheme invoked for exploiting the benefits of MIMO systems. The system is designed with the aid of Extrinsic Information Transfer (EXIT) charts for approaching the corresponding channel capacity in fast fading environments. The proposed scheme exhibits substantial benefits over conventional MIMO systems in hostile wireless channels.

Radio Environment Map based architecture and protocols for mobile ad hoc networks

In emergency scenarios, when multiple rescue and security actors have to quickly deploy their networks in the same area, interference among networks and lack of frequency resources could strongly impact networks activities and be at the origin of less efficient emergency operations. More generally, to allow the coexistence of mobile autonomous ad hoc networks that share the same frequency resources is a crucial problem to solve, that can be very challenging due to interference they might generate to each other. The introduction of Radio Environment Map (REM) concept can be a helpful mean to face this problem. In this paper we propose an adaptation of the REM concept to the ad hoc constraints. We elaborate a REM-based system architecture and we develop a protocol that enables the deployment and the coexistence of several ad hoc networks that share a limited amount of frequency resources in the same area. The need to optimize the use of frequency resources by reducing signalling load, coupled with the objective to keep networks autonomous, led us to the elaboration of a two-level REM based architecture. In addition to a Global REM (G-REM), to which all networks can have access in order to report and obtain data, each network has a Local REM (L-REM), that pilots nodes with measurement capabilities (MCDs), collecting and processing information and interfacing (when necessary) with G-REM. A protocol that permits to construct and to feed the L-REM as well as to pilot the measurement activities of the nodes is developed in the paper. The proposed protocol takes also into account the problem of coordination of resource allocation activities in each network through a Radio Resource Manager (RRM), integrating in the defined signalling messages both RRM and L-REM operations.

Dynamic frequency allocation in ad hoc networks

This paper presents a new frequency allocation scheme for ad hoc networks. Unlike other proposals, the scheme allocates frequencies to groups of nodes, for their intra-group communication needs, in order to guarantee a high level of availability of the needed frequency resources. This scheme uses a distributed decision process with interference measurements and a simple collaboration protocol between groups. Performance figures concerning the optimality of the obtained solution and the convergence time are given. The paper also presents a work that has been done to simulate this allocation scheme in a realistic environment with a mobility scenario on a 3D terrain model. Finally some ideas for future work are proposed.

ACCENT5: A vision for D2D communications within 5G networks

The paper presents the studies that have been led toward the integration of device-to-device (D2D) communications within LTE networks in the frame of the project ACCENT5 (Advanced Waveforms, MAC Design and Dynamic Radio Resource Allocation for Device-to-Device in 5G Wireless Networks) supported by the French National Research Agency. The solutions presented in this paper cover several aspects of D2D communications; they are the result of a close cooperation between four partners: Thales Communications and Security, CNAM, TeamCast and CentraleSupélec. Physical Layer aspects have been investigated, especially concerning waveforms envisioned for D2D communications within 5G networks. Also, a new MAC protocol has been designed to address the issues raised by the integration of D2D transmissions within LTE cells. The solution coming out of the study guarantees a minimum QoS for both types of users (D2D users and regular users) and aims at reusing spectrum while offloading the burden on the base station.