Abstract: A computer-implemented method executed on a processor for employing an epoch-based approach to estimating interference in an unlicensed spectrum is presented. The method includes enabling communication between a long-term evolution (LTE) evolved node B (eNodeB) and a plurality of clients, detecting and measuring the interference in all existing non-overlapping channels, via the LTE eNodeB, caused by one or more hidden clients of the plurality of clients, collecting interference statistics from all of the plurality of clients across all different channels, and leveraging interference-awareness resulting in channel access performance improvement at a macro-time scale and a micro-time scale.

Abstract: Systems and methods for standards compatible Mobile Edge Computing (MEC), including splitting Serving gateways (SGWs) and Packet Data Network gateways (PDN-GWs) to provision sufficient resources to deploy data-plane entity instances locally at a Radio Access Network (RAN) edge with one or more cloudlets. One or more local controller nodes is deployed in one or more operator clouds, a dedicated bearer is leveraged to route traffic from the one or more cloudlets through the split SGWs and PDN-GWs, and the dedicated bearer is configured with a traffic flow template (TFT) including an Internet Protocol (IP) address of the one or more cloudlets. Efficient access to one or more MEC applications at the RAN edge is provided to one or more user devices using the dedicated bearer.

Abstract: Systems and a method are provided for use with a shopping cart in a store. A system includes Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags, including item RFID tags associated with items for sale and reference RFID tags associated with various aisles in the store, for providing RFID data. The system further includes a RFID reader, operatively coupled to the shopping cart, and configured to the read RFID data from the item RFID tags and the reference RFID tags, extract features from the RFID data, identify any of the items having feature values associated therewith greater than a threshold amount as inside-cart items to be processed during an automatic checkout, and perform the automatic checkout on only the inside-cart items.

Abstract: Methods and systems of asynchronous access and synchronous transmission include transmitting an initial reservation packet using a first protocol to prevent other devices that use the first protocol from transmitting during a reserved duration. A carrier using a second protocol is activated. Information is transmitted using a second protocol during the reserved duration. During a last subframe of the reserved duration, an additional reservation packet is transmitted using the first protocol to extend the reserved duration. The transmission of the additional reservation packet takes place while the carrier using the second protocol is still active.

Abstract: A system is provided for speculative scheduling that includes a base station having a processor. The processor computes an overall schedule for a set of clients. The overall schedule is formed from a set of speculative schedules, is configured to maximize unlicensed spectrum usage, and is computed by (a) determining a speculative schedule for each resource block from a set of resource blocks in a given sub-frame based on statistics determined for the clients individually and jointly, and (b) selecting, for formation into the overall schedule, (i) a particular resource block and (ii) the speculative schedule for the particular resource block, that yield the maximum incremental utility relative to already determined speculative schedules for other resource blocks in the set, based on criteria including uplink access statistics. The processor executes the overall schedule responsive to a completion of the speculative schedule determination for each resource block in the given sub-frame.

Abstract: A system, method, and computer program product are provided for blue-printing interference for mobile access in an unlicensed spectrum of a synchronous scheduled cellular access system. The system includes a cellular base station having a processor. The processor constructs and executes an intelligent measurement schedule of clients for uplink transmissions to obtain access measurements for the uplink transmissions. The intelligent measurement schedule is constructed for scalable access measurement overhead. The access measurements indicate interference dependencies between the clients. The processor estimates an interference topology and statistics of the interference topology, from the access measurements to form an interference blueprint. The processor adjusts the intelligent measurement schedule to overschedule the clients for the uplink transmissions to reduce spectrum utilization loss while minimizing client transmission collisions, based on the interference blueprint.

Abstract: A method for detecting RFID tags attached to items positioned at a radio frequency identification (RFID) self-service checkout station is presented. The method includes creating one or more virtual shields at the RFID self-service checkout station, the one or more virtual shields defining checkout bins, associating RFID readers to the checkout bins, and enabling an RFID reader associated with the checkout bins to differentiate between RFID tags attached to items positioned inside a checkout bin and RFID tags attached to items positioned outside the checkout bin by at least determining a signal strength of each RFID tag detected by the RFID reader and estimating, based on an outcome of the signal strength of each RFID tag, a distance between each RFID reader and each RFID tag.

Abstract: In a wireless communications system including a first base station and a second base station, a wireless communications method implemented in the first base station supporting coordinated multi-point transmission and reception (CoMP) is disclosed. The wireless communications method comprises, for a given user equipment (UE) identification (ID) and a given channel state information (CSI) process, receiving from the second base station a plurality of CSI reports each of which comprises a rank indication (RI) and a channel quality indicator (CQI), wherein the second base station receives from one or more user equipments (UEs) RI and CQI information. Other methods, systems, and apparatuses also are disclosed.

Abstract: Systems and methods for detecting occupancy of at least one parking space by a vehicle are described. Detecting occupancy of at least one parking space includes at least one tag device fixed to a respective one of the at least one parking space. A first reader device is configured to interrogated the at least one tag device and detect a reply signal from the at least one tag device. A processor is configured to analyze the reply signal from the tag device including analyzing a received signal strength indication and a differential phase change of the reply signal to determine the presence of a vehicle in the parking space due to interference of the received signal by a signal blocking body.

Abstract: Systems and methods for detecting occupancy of at least one parking space by a vehicle are described. Detecting occupancy of at least one parking space includes at least one tag device fixed to a respective one of the at least one parking space. A first reader device is configured to interrogated the at least one tag device and detect a reply signal from the at least one tag device. A processor is configured to analyze the reply signal from the tag device including analyzing a received signal strength indication and a differential phase change of the reply signal to determine the presence of a vehicle in the parking space due to interference of the received signal by a signal blocking body.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method executed in a wireless communication system for establishing communication links in a millimeter wave network is presented. The method includes determining active communication links between a plurality of transmitters and a plurality of receivers operated by a plurality of users and formulating a quality of service (QoS) proportional fairness (PF) network utility as a constrained submodular set function maximization problem. The method further includes performing an optimization framework by optimizing, based on the active communication links, user association for fixed transmit beam patterns and optimizing, based on the active communication links, the fixed transmit beam patterns and corresponding beam attributes for a fixed set of user associations.

Abstract: Methods and systems for assigning users to nodes include assigning user devices to respective macro nodes in a wireless network. Each of the user devices is assigned to a respective pico node in the wireless network. Each respective pico node is associated with the same macro node that the respective user device is assigned to. Resource allocation fractions are assigned to all pico nodes and all macro nodes in the wireless network based on the assignment of each of the plurality of user devices respective macro nodes and pico nodes.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method is provided for downlink scheduling in a MU-MIMO telecommunication system. The method includes identifying for each of multiple virtual users which collectively form a ground set of virtual users, a respective transmit precoder and receive beamformer combination that maximizes a difference between two submodular set functions applied over the ground set of virtual users, from among a plurality of combinations formed from a respective one of a plurality of transmit precoders and a respective one of a plurality of receive beamformers. The method includes transmitting data from at least some multiple virtual users, based on a downlink transmission schedule determined from the respective transmit precoder and receive beamformer combination identified for the at least some multiple virtual users. The ground set is formed from respective combinations of multiple actual users and the plurality of receive beamformers.

Abstract: A method implemented in a base station used in a wireless communications system where different antenna arrays are employed for transmissions to different co-scheduled users in a cell is disclosed. The method includes configuring multiple channel state information (CSI) processes for a user equipment (UE), and configuring, for the UE, a plurality of non-zero power (NZP) CSI reference signal (RS) resources, each of which is associated with an antenna array. Other apparatuses, systems, and methods also are disclosed.

Abstract: Systems and methods for managing network resources, including managing a generated virtualized data plane network using a central controller. Virtual machine (VM) resources are assigned to two or more different network functions at a local data center. Traffic is dynamically optimized based on at least one of aggregate traffic demands and quality of service (QoS) goals, and resource allocations and inter-data center (DC) bandwidth resources are determined for VMs for a plurality of services. VMs for each middlebox function and a routing plane for each service are configured based on the determined resource allocation, and flows are routed based on the resource allocation and one or more configured network paths using an overlay-routing framework.

Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe a battery-free touch sensing user interface (UI) for Internet of Things (IoT) and other smart spaces employing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) readers and tags that we call RIO. With RIO, any surface may be a touch-aware surface by attaching RFID tag(s) thereto. RIO advantageously supports custom-designed RFID tags and therefore facilitates customized UIs to be easily deployed in a real-world environment. RIO employs impedance tracking that results from a human finger—or other appendage—touching a surface of an RFID tag, thereby changing a characteristic impedance of the RFID tag antenna. This change manifests as a change in the phase of the RFID backscattered signal and is advantageously used by RIO to track fine-grained touch movement over the RFID tag. Disclosed further are multi-tag environments in which RIO operates and demonstrations including continuous tracking of finger movement during a swipe to within 3 mm of its actual position.

Abstract: A method implemented in a base station for conveying scheduling information in an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) multi-user (MU)-multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system is disclosed. The method includes transmitting to a first user equipment (UE) the scheduling information including first scheduling information of the first UE and at least a portion of second scheduling information of at least one second UE, wherein the scheduling information includes a resource block (RB) assigned to the first UE, the number of streams, and an indication of one or more dedicated reference symbol (RS) layers assigned to the first UE. Other methods, systems, and apparatuses also are disclosed.

Abstract: A method implemented in a base station used in a wireless communications system is disclosed. The method comprises receiving, from a user equipment, rank indication (RI), a first precoding matrix indicator (PMI), and a second PMI (codebook index i2), wherein values 0-15 are assigned to the second PMI IPMI2 for RI=1 and values 0-3 are assigned to the second PMI IPMI2 for each of RI=2, RI=3, and RI=4, and wherein codebook index i2 comprises IPMI2 for RI=1. Other methods, apparatuses, and systems also are disclosed.

Abstract: In a wireless communications system including a first transmission point and a second transmission point, a wireless communications method implemented in the first transmission point supporting coordinated multi-point transmission and reception (CoMP) is disclosed. The wireless communications method comprises transmitting to the second transmission point one or more CoMP hypothesis sets, and transmitting to the second transmission point a benefit metric corresponding to each CoMP hypothesis set, wherein the benefit metric can be a negative value. Other methods, systems, and apparatuses also are disclosed.

Abstract: Systems and methods for improving Long Term Evolution (LTE)-WiFi coexistence in a network, including configuring one or more LTE nodes for asynchronous access and synchronous transmission to bridge LTE and WiFi access modes. A channel is reserved for LTE transmission in the one or more LTE nodes, and a supplementary WiFi module is provided in the one or more LTE nodes for sensing the channel for occupancy and for broadcasting a reservation signal on the channel prior to the LTE transmission. Contention window sizes are scaled linearly by increasing the contention window sizes proportionally to a subframe collision rate to maintain throughput fairness to the WiFi, and synchronous transmission from the one or more LTE nodes to one or more User Devices (UEs) is performed by activating the unlicensed carrier for a reserved time period.