No abstract

At the awakening of the new 5G network as the network of services, issues related to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) will become one of the key aspects for the cost-effective establishment of the 5G infrastructure. The new 5G services will meet the rigorous demand for bandwidth through the implementation of a large number of densely located base stations operating in the millimeter-wave range. Introduction of new emission sources, working in parallel with already existing 2G/3G/4G mobile technologies, raises concerns about exceeding the admissible EMF exposure limits. This paper analyzes issues and challenges related to EMF measurements in 5G technology, which are crucial for the assessment of EMF compliance with regulatory limits. We point out that the existing methodologies, dedicated to EMF measurements in 2G, 3G, and 4G networks, are not suitable for 5G. The reason is the use of new techniques, such as massive MIMO and precise beamforming together with higher frequency bands so that the existing measurement methods can lead to significantly overestimated results when they will be applied to 5G networks. Such results, in conjunction with the restrictive legislation on the EMF limits that apply in some countries, may have the negative impact on 5G network deployment, making it difficult to achieve the intended 5G network capabilities. We also propose an alternative method of EMF exposure assessment that is based on calculations and simulations and allows obtaining an accurate estimation of the EMF distribution in the 5G environment.INDEX TERMS 5G mobile communication, electromagnetic fields, EMF measurements.

One of the most important lifestyle risk factors for many chronic conditions in the older age, low physical activity has shown to have significant impact on the sustainability of national welfare in many developed countries. Technology-based assisted living solutions can effectively be used to enable older adults to optimise their health-related quality of life, as well as to promote an active and healthy longevity. This paper describes vINCI—an interdisciplinary research project to actively support assisted living for older adults via state-of-the-art assistive technologies—which seamlessly deploys an ambient intelligence environment to integrate wearable devices, networking, software, and personalised services. It entails clinical validation and feedback at home and residential care facilities via a cloud microservices platform. Underpinned by blockchain technologies, multiple wearable devices, apps, and cameras securely capture the anonymised facets of different life events, whilst machine learning models create individualised user profiles to analyse any decrease in the perceived health-related quality of life typically associated with old age. Two controlled pilots are being conducted with 80 participants at older adult facilities in Romania and Cyprus. By incorporating clinical validation and feedback from specialised practitioners, the vINCI technologies enable older adults not only to self-evaluate their physical activity level, but also to change their behaviours and lifestyle in the long-term.

In this paper, we present the framework to provision end-to-end QoS in heterogeneous multi-domain networks that was implemented in EuQoS system and tested in Pan-European research network.

The efficient provision of multiple services via emerging mobile networking architectures will play a crucial role, towards the realization of the smart city concept. Several of the most demanding (from the required bandwidth point of view) scenarios in smart cities are related with media streaming, which is a key component in smart applications, like Smart Entertainment, Smart Tourism and Smart Surveillance, etc. Such applications are associated with the request of exploiting considerable amount of data, which is difficult to achieve especially in dense urban environments. In this context, this article presents a new solution for HTTP-compliant adaptive media streaming, dedicated to future 5G mobile networking systems. It aims at increasing bandwidth availability for media streaming, through the use of multiple radio access technologies and direct connections established between devices, if they are in proximity of each-other. The proposed solution considers the scenario, in which a high quality media stream is received by multi-path transmission in the Radio Access Network. The transmission exploits collaboration of neighboring devices, which can use direct device-to-device links. Thus, proxy nodes can be inserted between a given media receiver and access network. Towards ensuring optimized resource allocation at both levels: base-station-to-device and device-to-device, this paper introduces the modules required for collaboration streaming inside Radio Access Networks. The efficiency of the presented system is enhanced through the use of adaptive streaming technology with multiple description coding, well suited to multi-path delivery.