A decade back, emergency voice communication was the only target to support the patient in an ambulance. It is now evolved from emergency voice communication to vital signal monitoring and operating the machines from the remote place. This evolution requires support from technology to meet the high data rates along with reliability for the specified applications. The millimeter-wave (mmWave) communication support high data rate requirements of vehicular communication. However, in the case of mmWave, the radio signals vary fast. It poses the implementation challenge to the mmWave system in this scenario. The other implementations challenges of mmWave are high path loss, severe blockage and frequent beam updates which inhibit seamless connectivity (reliability) to vehicular nodes. However, the reliability is always a prime concern for any vehicular communication system. This paper addresses these challenges by implementing a novel energy-efficient strategy based on RSUs deployment and radio access technology (RAT). The strategy is to deploy RSUs on either side of the road and use an optimal combination of mmWave and microwave RAT. The essential analysis of such a hybrid system involves the evaluation of parameters based on the analytic model. Hence, this paper analytically obtains the expression for seamless coverage and connectivity. The analysis is also extended to rate and energy efficiency calculations. The analysis is supported by probabilistic models-based simulations that agree closely with computation results. The results claim that the proposed model leads to improved performance in terms of coverage and rate while maintaining the cost and energy efficiency within the limits.

Internet-of-Things (IoT) networks are witnessing a rapid proliferation of connected devices and mobile terminals each day. The wireless information flow between these massive battery-powered devices has a huge energy burden and will lead to an energy crisis in the near future; thus, there is an urgent search for sustainable energy networks. To offer a sustainable energy solution in order to meet the energy demands of these massive IoT networks, this paper presents a dynamic practical model that enables the efficient management of power resources. Two user-scheduling algorithms, namely, minimum distance scheduling (MDS) and maximum channel gain scheduling (MCS), are proposed; when these algorithms were used alongside a power optimization, they led to improved network efficiency. Further, the network’s performance was measured with parametric variations in the number of access points (APs); the deployment of APs and AP configuration is carried out for different precoding schemes. The impact of spatial correlation and the access to perfect channel state information (CSI) on the spectral efficiency of the system was also evaluated. In the end, the study compares the performance of different power-allocation methods and suggests that the power allocated to a particular user node by an AP can be controlled using the proposed algorithms. It is observed that, as compared to the MDS algorithm, the MCS algorithm results in better spectral efficiency for all the users with fractional power allocation. In addition, each AP assigns a maximum power of 141.7 mW to a user with strong channel conditions with the AP, and a minimum power of 3.1882 mW to the user with the worst channel conditions using centralized PMMSE precoding.

The network connectivity while traveling in a vehicle is an important issue, which needs to be addressed by mobile vehicular networks. This paper proposes a novel scheme to improve the connectivity of mobile vehicular networks. In particular, the paper proposes a medium access control (MAC) layer hybrid mmWave and microwave scheme for vehicular networks, and leverage their capabilities to improve the vehicle’s connectivity. The novel computational model is derived to evaluate the connectivity for the proposed scheme. The model is used for performance analysis of vehicles moving on a multi-lane highway road and getting connectivity with road-side-units (RSUs) deployed along the roads. Our analysis considers that reference VN has perfect channel state information. It is assumed that the RSU radiates ubiquitously on the road surface using microwave radio access technology (RAT), while it radiates directionally towards reference VN using mmWave RAT. For mathematical analysis, the directionality in mmWave RAT is well approximated by a sectored antenna model. The analysis for the proposed scheme is compared with the existing mmWave network and packet data convergence protocol (PDCP) layer hybrid scheme. The analysis claims that the proposed hybrid scheme significantly improves the connectivity performance in mobile vehicular networks over the existing schemes. The computation results are validated with the simulation results. Also, the paper offers parametric analysis for connectivity probability with vehicle speed and slot duration to enable its practical implementation in 5G/6G technologies.

An electrically tunable, textile-based metamaterial (MTM) is presented in this work. The proposed MTM unit cell consists of a decagonal-shaped split-ring resonator and a slotted ground plane integrated with RF varactor diodes. The characteristics of the proposed MTM were first studied independently using a single unit cell, prior to different array combinations consisting of 1 × 2, 2 × 1, and 2 × 2 unit cells. Experimental validation was conducted for the fabricated 2 × 2 unit cell array format. The proposed tunable MTM array exhibits tunable left-handed characteristics for both simulation and measurement from 2.71 to 5.51 GHz and provides a tunable transmission coefficient of the MTM. Besides the left-handed properties within the frequency of interest (from 1 to 15 GHz), the proposed MTM also exhibits negative permittivity and permeability from 8.54 to 10.82 GHz and from 10.6 to 13.78 GHz, respectively. The proposed tunable MTM could operate in a dynamic mode using a feedback system for different microwave wearable applications.