NeTS: Small: Designing Agile and Scalable Self-Healing Functionalities for Ultra Dense Future Cellular Networks

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Cellular networks are subject to cell outages of several types. Complete outages are often caused by equipment malfunctions; partial outages or degraded performances are often caused by parameter mis-configurations. Outage rates are proportional to cell density and base station complexity. Both of these factors have been consistently on rise from 1G to 4G. Current semi-automated approaches to cell outage management have proven inadequate and highly inefficient even for today's network, and are surely unfeasible for future cellular networks marked by ultra-dense cell deployment and mounting complexity. If no intervening measures are taken, cell outage management may become a primary challenge for future cellular networks, such as 5G. To remedy this, this project will develop an Advance Cell Outage Management (ACOM) framework for fully automating cell outage detection and compensation in future ultra-dense, heterogeneous cellular networks. ACOM will be built by developing and integrating three novel solutions: 1) Autonomous Macro Cell Outage Detection and root cause analysis (MOD); 2) Autonomous Small Cell Outage Detection and root cause analysis (SOD); and 3) Autonomous Heterogeneous Cell Outage Compensation (HOC). In ACOM, the outage detected and diagnosed by MOD and SOD will be exploited by the optimization process in HOC to transform future ultra-dense, heterogeneous cellular deployments into fully self-healing systems. Key distinct features of ACOM will include agility, stability and flexibility to accommodate varying user densities, cell sizes, and radio channel conditions, and ultra-dense deployments of small cells. The proposed plan lies at the nexus of profiling, anomaly detection, prediction, sparse matrix completions, multidimensional scaling, and dynamics handling. It employs machine learning, optimization, and game theory. Project outcomes will be validated using data from real network data while leveraging a full scale outdoor 5G testbed. If successful, this project is certain to make strong impact on all aspects of evolving digital society that count on reliability of cellular networks. Another key impact of this project is that it offers strong workforce training in a highly sought-after multi-disciplinary skill set needed to conduct proposed research, while ensuring participation of women and other underrepresented groups, and K-12 outreach. The project will also leverage collaboration with national and international stake holders in the cellular ecosystem to maximize its impact on standardization.