System level performance of cellular networks utilizing ASA/LSA mechanisms

Flexible and efficient spectrum usage in cellular communication systems is a key to meet the service demand of forthcoming 4G and 5G networks by 2020. Recent wide-band power measurements in an urban environment show that spectrum below 6 GHz is still under-utilized. Licensed shared access (LSA) is one technique which can be deployed to make use of these valuable resources. In this paper we highlight cell-planning aspects for the implementation of licensed shared access (LSA) in LTE cellular networks. Different cellular deployments are evaluated by means of system-level simulations. Numerical results show that transmit power, antenna type and orientation, as well as antenna downtilt should be carefully evaluated during the planning of spectrum sharing deployments using LSA in cellular wireless

Cognitive repeaters for flexible mobile data traffic offloading

We investigate the performance of cognitive amplify-and-forward (AF) repeaters in a dense urban environment. The benefit of repeaters is twofold. First, repeaters can compensate penetration losses and serve as wireless backhauling technology to bring high data rates into shielded environments. Second, a cognitive repeater can utilize very flexible different frequency bands and adopt its wireless link to the current frequency reuse plan. In this paper, we propose a new cognitive repeater concept which utilizes multiband signal offloading. Therefore, a cognitive repeater is implemented as a real-time hardware prototype in an amplify-and-forward (AF) relay and deployed in a real LTE-A testbed. The system performance is evaluated by various measurement trials within shielded indoor hotspot environments. It is shown, that cognitive repeaters can take advantage of the signal shielding to the outside and beneficially improve system performance for indoor user hotspots

A Tactile Internet demonstration: 1ms ultra low delay for wireless communications towards 5G

Communication technologies of the Tactile Internet have to achieve a combination of extremely low latency under high reliability and security constraints. The targeted applications are in the fields of industry automation and transport systems, healthcare, education and gaming. 5G addresses tactile use cases under the term mission-critical machine type communication. We demonstrate a first implementation of a wireless broadband communication system utilizing 20MHz bandwidth which can achieve a round-trip delay below 1 ms. Delay measurements were performed between two endpoints over the air. The system is based on a flexible Software Defined Radio (SDR) toolkit with PHY and MAC signal processing algorithms implemented on a multi-core DSP platform. The demonstration shows a live end-to-end transmission of real data packets while at the same time evaluating latency probes. In addition, we show the general feasibility of real-time implementation of ultra-low delay signal processing on SDRs

An advanced hardware platform to verify 5G wireless communication concepts

Verification of first 5G concepts of a new air interface with real hardware prototypes is challenging. In this paper, we highlight a flexible software-defined radio (SDR) platform which can be used to implement novel 5G communication concepts. The proposed software and hardware architecture was previously used to implement early LTE-Advanced features, e.g. flexible multiband carrier-aggregation (CA). Furthermore, the prototype was used for transmission experiments of new multi carrier waveforms. The proposed setup allows early proof-of-concepts (PoC) by extending hardware-in-the-loop (HILO) experiments to small laboratory experiments and finally real outdoor test trials of a novel 5G air interface and concepts

Wireless Communication for Factory Automation: An opportunity for LTE and 5G systems

The evolution of wireless communication from 4G toward 5G is driven by application demands and business models envisioned for 2020 and beyond. This requires network support for novel use cases in addition to classical mobile broadband services. Wireless factory automation is an application area with highly demanding communication requirements. We classify these requirements and identify the opportunities for the current LTE air interface for factory automation applications. Moreover, we give an outlook on the relevant design considerations to be addressed by 5G communication systems

Channel measurement campaigns for wireless industrial automation

Um vernetzte und dennoch flexible Herstellungsprozesse zu ermöglichen, wird die Industrie der Zukunft voll von der Digitalisierung durchdrungen sein. In diesem Zusammenhang bieten insbesondere drahtlose Technologien Vorteile für die industrielle Automatisierungstechnik. Jedoch stellt die hohe Dichte an metallischen Objekten und die sich hieraus ergebende Mehrwegeausbreitung des Sendesignals mit Schwundkanälen eine große Herausforderung für den verlässlichen Einsatz von drahtlosen Übertragungssystemen im industriellen Umfeld dar. Um die Gegebenheiten der Signalausbreitung in industriellen Umgebungen zu erfassen, werden in diesem Beitrag die Ergebnisse verschiedener Kanalmesskampagnen präsentiert. Die Messkampagnen wurden durch die deutsche Forschungsinitiative „Zuverlässige drahtlose Kommunikation in der Industrie“ gefördert und decken drahtlose Kommunikation im optischen Spektrum sowie im Spektrum unterhalb von 6 GHz ab. Es werden statistische Analysen verschiedener Einflussgrößen des drahtlosen Kanals durchgeführt. Abschließend diskutieren wir die Bedeutung der Ergebnisse für die Entwicklung industrieller drahtloser Kanalmodelle