ESR 10

Dayrene Frómeta

Project: Integration of VLC and mm-wave technologies

Host: IMDEA Networks (Spain)

PhD: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain)

Supervisor: Dr. D. Giustiniano

I was born in Havana, Cuba, where I had a very happy and calm childhood. As a child, I was always interested in creating things with my own hands, thus I learned to sew, crochet, origami, etc., which are my hobbies today. I also enjoy cooking, dancing, knowing new countries and cultures, making new friends, and spending time with my friends and family.

I decided to study telecommunications engineering motivated by its impact on all spheres of society, and I received my Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering degree from the Technological University of Havana José Antonio Echeverría in 2015. Once graduated, I stayed as a lecturer in the Department of Telematics at the same university, teaching Computer Networks and researching on Software Defined Networks (SDN). After two years as a lecturer, I went to the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) to pursue a Master’s Degree in Communication Systems, which I obtained in March of this year (2020). My master’s thesis was focused on improving the performance of the recently emerged Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) by applying Reinforcement Learning (RL) techniques. By doing this interesting and challenging research, I realize my passion for researching on state-of-the-art technologies in the field of wireless communications systems. Thus, by the end of my master’s program, I decided to continue my studies, and I started looking for open PhD positions in accordance with my profile and interests. That is how I found the IMDEA Networks Institute and the ENLIGHT’EM project.

I think the ENLIGHT’EM project will be a unique opportunity not only to improve my abilities as a researcher but also to acquire cutting-edge skills and the know-how to contribute to the development of VLC systems for the Internet of Things (IoT), preparing me for both research and industrial positions in that field.  My short-term goals are to obtain high-quality results from my research on the integration of the VLC and mm-wave technologies, and also to disseminate these results in international well-known conferences and journals. Also, I hope to be able to do cooperative research so that my results can complement the research work of other ESRs and vice-versa.

My project in ENLIGHT’EM will be focused on the integration of VLC access and mm-wave backhauling. It proposes the use of mm-wave radios as a backhaul solution for VLC, trying to solve the limitations of the wired technologies currently used to this end. In that regard, mm-wave will not only guarantee the network re-configurability and the high data rates required by backhaul links but also will allow very small antenna sizes, enabling the integration of both VLC and mm-wave technologies in a single light bulb.

The main objective of this project is to design and implement a customized prototype board that integrates VLC for the access network and mm-wave for backhauling. The designed board will be based on the OpenVLC platform, extending it with an mm-wave radio chipset for backhauling. Then, low-complexity algorithmic solutions to provide low end-to-end latency and high throughput communications will be designed, considering different scenarios where vertical and horizontal handovers could be required. Finally, the implemented prototype board, as well as the proposed low-complexity algorithms, will be experimentally validated under representative test scenarios.

Since limited research has been carried out in this area, it is envisioned that the implemented board will provide the research community with one of the first platforms for quick and flexible testing of new protocols and applications for networks that integrate VLC for access and mm-wave for backhauling.

Frometa Fonseca, Dayrene; Mir, Sarmad; Iglesias de Frutos, Sergio; Genoves Guzman, Borja;  Giustiniano, Domenico (February 2024)
"Modulating LiFi for dual operation in the visible and infrared spectra"
Elsevier Computer Communications, 2024. Volume 216.

Frometa Fonseca, Dayrene; Genoves Guzman, Borja; Martena, Giovanni Luca; Bian, Rui; Haas, Harald; Giustiniano, Domenico (December 2023)
"A prediction-model-assisted reinforcement learning algorithm for handover decision-making in hybrid LiFi and WiFi networks"
Journal of Optical Communications and Networking, 2023.

Frómeta, Dayrene., Genoves Guzman, Borja, Giustiniano, Domenico, Widmer, Joerg (October 2023)
"A System Architecture for Battery-free IoT Networks"
The 31st IEEE International Conference on Network Protocols (IEEE ICNP 2023) , Reykjavik, Iceland, 10-13 October 2023

Frometa Dayrene; Mir, Sarmad, Genovés, Borja; Varshney, Ambuj; Giustiniano, Domenico (October 2023)
Demo: “Rethinking LiFi for Low-Power and Long Range RF Backscatter”
The 29th Annual International Conference On Mobile Computing And Networking (ACM MobiCom) 2-6 Oct 2023, Madrid, Spain

Martena, Giovanni Luca; Sperga, Janis; Frometa, Dayrene; Bian, Rui; Genovés, Borja; Sufyan Islim, Mohamed; Kosman, John; Haas, Harald (May 2023)
“A Simulation Tool for Interference Analysis in MIMO Wavelength Division LiFi Indoor Networks”
IEEE ICC 2023 Workshop on Industrial Private 5G-and-beyond Wireless Network (CFP), Rome, Italy, 28 May – 1 June

Genovés, Borja; Mir, Sarmad; Frometa, Dayrene; Galisteo, Ander; Wang, Qing; Giustiniano, Domenico; (May 2023)
“Prototyping Visible Light Communication for the Internet of Things Using OpenVLC”
IEEE Communications Magazine ( Volume: 61, Issue: 5, May 2023)

Genovés, Borja; Talavante, Javier; Frometa, Dayrene; Mir, Sarmad; Giustiniano, Domenico; Obraczka, Katia (May 2023) Accepted for publication
“Towards sustainable greenhouses using battery-free LiFi-enabled Internet of Things”
IEEE Communications Magazine, ( Volume: 61, Issue: 5, May 2023)

Frometá, Dayrene; Mir, Sarmad; Genovés, Borja; Giustiniano, Domenico (January 2023)
“Visible Light or Infrared? Modulating LiFi for Dual Operation in the Visible and Infrared Spectra”
IEEE Wireless On-demand Network Systems and Services, Madonna di Campiglio, Italy, 30 January- 1 February