This summer, I got offered an internship that I wasn’t sure would match with my future goals after college. I heard “mobile networks” and assumed that it wouldn’t work out well for me. But, this was an opportunity of a lifetime, and chose to take it. This was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, but it was all worth it in the end.
My research was on a topic called the “Federation of 5G services”, which is a concept where service providers must work together, in certain cases, to meet the needs of the customers. To make this collaboration between providers easier and faster, we found ways to automate this process and improve network performance and security.
Our goal is to test various methods found in recent publications, using software on a testbed, to improve this process in a way that benefits both service providers and customers. The goal is for service providers to use this concept in the future, which makes things easier, faster, and cheaper for everyone involved. We had very limited time to try and meet our goal, but we did as much as we could.
The Research Paper
Before I do anything related to our overall project goal, I was told to write a paper as a way of learning the basics of my research topic. After a few weeks of reading many published papers and writing a simple paper, I was then told to add more information about the latest techniques and ideas used to improve the federation of 5G services process. This was a very difficult topic to research due to it being a new trend in recent years and very few publications discuss it in detail. But whatever I could find, I included it in my paper.
To summarize my paper, I focused on two popular technologies that everyone is talking about: Blockchain (related to cryptocurrency) and Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML). These technologies can be used in the federation process for improvements in performance and security. AI and ML help improve performance, while Blockchain was used to improve security. Once my paper is processed by a publisher, I will include the full paper here. This paper is not fully done yet.
Why? Well, that is because there is always room for improvement and growth. The more information I include in this paper, the more helpful it could be for the readers. Hopefully, this paper will be finished soon and will be published for future researchers to observe.
The Equipment
After finding the best and most recent work on this topic, we now had to set up and configure a few software in the testbed so we can test our findings. A 5G testbed is a group of high-performance devices that work together as a testing platform for 5G components. This allows us to use equipment to make sure the provided concepts and ideas are ready for real-world use. I focused on setting up software that simulates the devices used in a 5G network (Cell tower, user device, etc). The software allows us to run different types of code, send network traffic, and track performance metrics, like hardware usage, network speeds, and other security metrics.
Once it was set up, we were able to test the proposed ideas from recent publications and see which ones matched best with our goals of better performance and security. My paper covers the most effective ideas and describes their advantages and disadvantages. In future summers, more testing needs to be completed, as well as installing more software for more types of tests.
The Poster
With the equipment setup and our tests complete, I now focused on designing a poster that summarizes everything we accomplished. As part of the summer research program, our posters would be displayed for two days in a special poster session. Tech companies, like IBM, executives from my college, and individuals who were interested in the latest research going on all attended this event.
I was able to meet many people who are passionate about all the research going on and who care about our work that could potentially change the future of technology. I hope that the people that I met were able to learn more about this topic from me. Here is a list of what I accomplished within 10-12 weeks:
- Prepared a research paper that will be published soon
- Networked with many professionals in the mobile network and cybersecurity field
- Set up software on a testbed
- Meet with the Department of Defense (DoD)
- Presented my work to tech companies and college executives
I am so thankful for this opportunity and I’ll never forget this experience!
