Mobile Networks Working Group Projects
Beyond Cellular Green Generation
This project proposes to overcome existing limits, going beyond the traditional cellular architecture through a complete separation of the signaling network and the data network. The signaling network will provide continuous and full coverage with highly efficient macro base stations so that communication services can be requested at any time by users located in any point of the service area. Portions of the data network will be activated on demand in order to minimize energy cost. Several heterogeneous data networks can be used and managed by the same signaling infrastructure.
The key technical challenges we will tackle during the project are related to: 1) the quantitative analysis of the fundamental advantages of the BCG2 architecture; 2) the design of “context” detection mechanisms for the signaling network able to get information on user position, terminal capabilities, service and energy costs, etc.; 3) the design of resource selection algorithms able to identify the most suitable access point to serve traffic requests and to activate the radio resources; and 4) the definition of the signaling network architecture and functionalities and the design of the interaction mechanisms between the signaling network and the (heterogeneous) data networks.
Flexible Power Model of Future Base Stations
Led by IMEC, this newly approved project proposal discusses the development of an advanced power model which quantifies the power consumption of access base stations and their components for the LSAS and BCG2 network architectures. This power model will be structured hierarchically to facilitate both hands-on and advanced usage transparently. The power model will support high flexibility in operation modes, component configuration, hardware technology and base station architecture, and will embed some realistic transition-time values for reconfiguring the hardware at run-time. The power model flexibility enables profound evaluation of LSAS and BCG2 under different traffic conditions, deployment and network architectures while considering realistic hardware power consumption.
Green Transmission Technologies
This project focuses on the fundamental research into the energy-efficient design of transmission schemes and radio resource management strategies. The key research question to be answered is when and how to trade off what so that the whole network service would remain satisfactory to various users. The project proposes two fundamental tradeoffs that constitute the overall research framework of our project: fundamental tradeoff between spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency, and fundamental tradeoff between service delay and energy consumption.
Large-Scale Antenna Systems
Large-Scale Antenna Systems (LSAS) seeks to improve wireless energy efficiency through a combination of radiated power reduction and increased throughput as bits/Joule = (bits/second)/(Joules/second). LSAS constitutes a game-changing technology: quantitatively because of its potentially huge radiated energy efficiency and spectral efficiency compared with 4G, and qualitatively because it alters the nature of wireless communications.
GreenTouch Members Collaborate on Dramatic New Antenna System
The GreenTouch Mobile Communications Working Group developed, over a period of a year, a Large Scale Antenna System (LSAS), to show that many antennas -- hundreds or thousands -- could be used together to improve the energy efficiency of wireless communications, and that transmitted radio power can be significantly reduced as the number of antenna elements is increased.
View the Large Scale Antenna System (LSAS) materials.
