Virtual distributed testbed for optimisation and coexistence of heterogeneous systems

The renown beyond 3G scenario depicts a diverse wireless networking world of "network-of-wireless-networks" accommodating a variety of radio technologies and mobile service requirements in a seamless manner. The achievement of this vision raises significant research challenges in view of system coexistence, system scale, interoperability, and evaluation tool design to provide a framework for cost-effective assessment of optimisation algorithms within a heterogeneous system environment. The UNITE (virtual distributed testbed for optimisation and coexistence of heterogeneous systems) platform aims to address the aforementioned research challenges by implementing an efficient, accurate and scalable virtual distributed testbed to support cross-system, and cross-layer optimization of heterogeneous systems in a unified manner. Through the use of the virtual testbed, cross-layer and cross-system interactions between next generation wireless systems and protocols can be investigated, without neglecting important real-system details