{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,12]],"date-time":"2025-10-12T03:37:40Z","timestamp":1760240260229,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":35,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,23]],"date-time":"2019-04-23T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1555977600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JSAN"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Ultra-Dense Network (UDN) deployment is considered a key element to achieve the requested capacity in future fifth-generation (5G) mobile networks. Backhaul networks in UDNs are formed by heterogeneous links with multi-hop connections and must handle massive traffic. Backhauling in future 5G networks may represent the capacity bottleneck. Therefore, there is the need for efficient and flexible routing schemes able to handle the dynamism of the traffic load in capacity-limited networks. Toward this goal, the emerging Software-Defined Network (SDN) paradigm provides an efficient solution, transferring the routing operation from the data plane switches to a central controller, thus achieving more flexibility, efficiency, and faster convergence time in comparison to conventional networks. This paper proposes and investigates an SDN-approach for an efficient routing in a capacity-limited backhaul network that carries data and control traffic of a heterogeneous UDN. The routing algorithm is centralized in the SDN controller and two different types of traffic flow are considered: data and control plane coordination traffic. The goal is to reduce or even to avoid the amount of traffic that the backhaul network is not able to support, distributing in a fair way the eventual lack of bandwidth among different access points. Simulation results show that with the considered approach the performance significantly improves, especially when there is an excess of traffic load in the network. Moreover, thanks to the SDN-based design, the network can reconfigure the traffic routing depending on the changing conditions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/jsan8020023","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,24]],"date-time":"2019-04-24T03:14:28Z","timestamp":1556075668000},"page":"23","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["SDN-Based Routing for Backhauling in Ultra-Dense Networks"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"8","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7075-3556","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Dania","family":"Marabissi","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department Information Engineering, University of Florence, 50139 Firenze FI, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-5934-3321","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Romano","family":"Fantacci","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department Information Engineering, University of Florence, 50139 Firenze FI, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Linda","family":"Simoncini","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department Information Engineering, University of Florence, 50139 Firenze FI, Italy"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,23]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1617","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2016.2532458","article-title":"Next Generation 5G Wireless Networks: A Comprehensive Survey","volume":"18","author":"Agiwal","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"72","DOI":"10.1109\/MWC.2016.7422408","article-title":"5G Ultra-Dense Cellular Networks","volume":"23","author":"Ge","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Wirel. Commun."},{"key":"ref_3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"8230","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2015.2510029","article-title":"An Optimized CoMP Transmission for a Heterogeneous Network Using eICIC Approach","volume":"65","author":"Marabissi","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol."},{"key":"ref_4","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"14","DOI":"10.1109\/JPROC.2014.2371999","article-title":"Software-Defined Networking: A Comprehensive Survey","volume":"103","author":"Kreutz","year":"2015","journal-title":"Proc. IEEE"},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3220","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2018.2836315","article-title":"Will SDN Be Part of 5G?","volume":"20","author":"Zaidi","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_6","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1567","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2017.2690823","article-title":"SDN\/NFV-Based Mobile Packet Core Network Architectures: A Survey","volume":"19","author":"Nguyen","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"38","DOI":"10.1109\/MWC.2017.1600181WC","article-title":"5G-Crosshaul: An SDN\/NFV Integrated Fronthaul\/Backhaul Transport Network Architecture","volume":"24","author":"Li","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Wirel. Commun."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"19099","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2017.2744672","article-title":"Wireless Network Virtualization With SDN and C-RAN for 5G Networks: Requirements, Opportunities, and Challenges","volume":"5","author":"Kitindi","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"150","DOI":"10.1109\/MCOM.2015.7010528","article-title":"Software-defined networking in cellular radio access networks: Potential and challenges","volume":"53","author":"Arslan","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Mag."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1743","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2016.2556011","article-title":"5G Backhaul Challenges and Emerging Research Directions: A Survey","volume":"4","author":"Jaber","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Access"},{"key":"ref_11","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Saif, D., Arsiwala, F., and Khanna, I. (2018, January 9\u201311). Software Defined Networking in Next Generation Mobile Backhauls: A Survey. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE 5G World Forum (5GWF), Silicon Valley, CA, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/5GWF.2018.8517068"},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"14","DOI":"10.1109\/MCOM.2016.1600541CM","article-title":"A Cloud to the Ground: The New Frontier of Intelligent and Autonomous Networks of Things","volume":"54","author":"Alippi","year":"2016","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Mag."},{"key":"ref_13","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Jain, A., Lopez-Aguilera, E., and Demirkol, I. (2018, January 3\u20136). Enhanced Handover Signaling through Integrated MME-SDN Controller Solution. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE 87th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC Spring), Porto, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1109\/VTCSpring.2018.8417719"},{"key":"ref_14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Chen, C., Lin, Y., Yen, L., Chan, M., and Tseng, C. (2016, January 3\u20136). Mobility management for low-latency handover in SDN-based enterprise networks. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference, Doha, Qatar.","DOI":"10.1109\/WCNC.2016.7565105"},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Prados-Garzon, J., Adamuz-Hinojosa, O., Ameigeiras, P., Ramos-Munoz, J.J., Andres-Maldonado, P., and Lopez-Soler, J.M. (2016, January 4\u20138). Handover implementation in a 5G SDN-based mobile network architecture. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE 27th Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor, and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC), Valencia, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/PIMRC.2016.7794936"},{"key":"ref_16","unstructured":"Chartsias, P.K., Amiras, A., Plevrakis, I., Samaras, I., Katsaros, K., Kritharidis, D., Trouva, E., Angelopoulos, I., Kourtis, A., and Siddiqui, M.S. (2017, January 12\u201315). SDN\/NFV-based end to end network slicing for 5G multi-tenant networks. Proceedings of the 2017 European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC), Oulu, Finland."},{"key":"ref_17","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"80","DOI":"10.1109\/MCOM.2017.1600935","article-title":"Network Slicing for 5G with SDN\/NFV: Concepts, Architectures, and Challenges","volume":"55","author":"Ameigeiras","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Mag."},{"key":"ref_18","first-page":"1","article-title":"Cooperative Base Station Caching and X2 Link Traffic Offloading System for Video Streaming over SDN-enabled 5G Networks","volume":"99","author":"Park","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Mob. Comput."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Liu, Y., Point, J.C., Katsaros, K.V., Glykantzis, V., Siddiqui, M.S., and Escalona, E. (2017, January 12\u201315). SDN\/NFV based caching solution for future mobile network (5G). Proceedings of the 2017 European Conference on Networks and Communications (EuCNC), Oulu, Finland.","DOI":"10.1109\/EuCNC.2017.7980644"},{"key":"ref_20","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"64","DOI":"10.1109\/MCOM.2017.1600119","article-title":"Orchestration of RAN and Transport Networks for 5G: An SDN Approach","volume":"55","author":"Rostami","year":"2017","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Mag."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"388","DOI":"10.1109\/COMST.2017.2749760","article-title":"Unicast QoS Routing Algorithms for SDN: A Comprehensive Survey and Performance Evaluation","volume":"20","author":"Guck","year":"2018","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Surv. Tutor."},{"key":"ref_22","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gopi, D., Cheng, S., and Huck, R. (2017, January 21\u201323). Comparative analysis of SDN and conventional networks using routing protocols. Proceedings of the 2017 International Conference on Computer, Information and Telecommunication Systems (CITS), Dalian, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/CITS.2017.8035305"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Guo, Y., Wang, Z., Yin, X., Shi, X., and Wu, J. (August, January 31). Optimize Routing in Hybrid SDN Network with Changing Traffic. Proceedings of the 2017 26th International Conference on Computer Communication and Networks (ICCCN), Vancouver, BC, Canada.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICCCN.2017.8038397"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Ramdhani, M.F., Hertiana, S.N., and Dirgantara, B. (2016, January 25\u201327). Multipath routing with load balancing and admission control in Software-Defined Networking (SDN). Proceedings of the 2016 4th International Conference on Information and Communication Technology (ICoICT), Bandung, Indonesia.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICoICT.2016.7571949"},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Tomovic, S., and Radusinovic, I. (2016, January 6\u201310). Fast and efficient bandwidth-delay constrained routing algorithm for SDN networks. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE NetSoft Conference and Workshops (NetSoft), Seoul, Korea.","DOI":"10.1109\/NETSOFT.2016.7502426"},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Yao, Y., Tian, H., Nie, G., Wu, H., and Jin, J. (2018, January 9\u201312). Multi-path Routing Based QoS-aware Fairness Backhaul-Access Scheduling in mmWave UDN. Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE 29th Annual International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC), Bologna, Italy.","DOI":"10.1109\/PIMRC.2018.8580734"},{"key":"ref_27","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Liu, H., Hao, S., and Li, J. (2017, January 15\u201317). Routing and Heuristic Scheduling Algorithm for Millimeter Wave Wireless Backhaul Networks. Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE 2nd Information Technology, Networking, Electronic and Automation Control Conference (ITNEC), Chengdu, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/ITNEC.2017.8284993"},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Sepp\u00e4nen, K., Kilpi, J., Paananen, J., Suihko, T., Wainio, P., and Kapanen, J. (2016, January 23\u201327). Multipath routing for mmWave WMN backhaul. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Communications Workshops (ICC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICCW.2016.7503795"},{"key":"ref_29","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Zola, E., Kassler, A.J., and Kim, W. (2017, January 19\u201322). Joint User Association and Energy Aware Routing for Green Small Cell mmWave Backhaul Networks. Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), San Francisco, CA, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/WCNC.2017.7925706"},{"key":"ref_30","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Pateromichelakis, E., Shariat, M., Quddus, A.U., and Tafazolli, R. (2015, January 8\u201312). Joint routing and scheduling in dense small cell networks using 60 GHz backhaul. Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE International Conference on Communication Workshop (ICCW), London, UK.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICCW.2015.7247592"},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Al-Sadi, A.M., Al-Sherbaz, A., Xue, J., and Turner, S. (2016, January 9\u201310). Routing algorithm optimization for software defined network WAN. Proceedings of the 2016 Al-Sadeq International Conference on Multidisciplinary in IT and Communication Science and Applications (AIC-MITCSA), Baghdad, Iraq.","DOI":"10.1109\/AIC-MITCSA.2016.7759945"},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2316","DOI":"10.1109\/LCOMM.2013.110413.132178","article-title":"Anycast Backpressure Routing: Scalable Mobile Backhaul for Dense Small Cell Deployments","volume":"17","author":"Baranda","year":"2013","journal-title":"IEEE Commun. Lett."},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"133","DOI":"10.1007\/s11265-017-1223-0","article-title":"AI Based Network and Radio Resource Management in 5G HetNets","volume":"89","author":"Bartoli","year":"2017","journal-title":"J. Signal Process. Syst."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1056","DOI":"10.1109\/TVT.2018.2883294","article-title":"Low-Complexity Distributed Cell-Specific Bias Calculation for Load Balancing in UDNs","volume":"68","author":"Marabissi","year":"2019","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"269","DOI":"10.1007\/BF01386390","article-title":"A note on two problem in connexion with graphs","volume":"1","author":"Dijkstra","year":"1959","journal-title":"Numer. Math."}],"container-title":["Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2224-2708\/8\/2\/23\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T12:46:34Z","timestamp":1760186794000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/2224-2708\/8\/2\/23"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,23]]},"references-count":35,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,6]]}},"alternative-id":["jsan8020023"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/jsan8020023","relation":{},"ISSN":["2224-2708"],"issn-type":[{"type":"electronic","value":"2224-2708"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2019,4,23]]}}}