Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SmartRay (Smart Large Scale Radio Technology for the Tactile Internet)
Período documentado: 2015-06-01 hasta 2015-10-31
Mobile network operators must provide exponentially increasing capacity, whilst delivering carrier grade reliability, and efficiency without significantly increasing CAPEX and OPEX. Airrays has developed game changing radio technology for the 4th and 5th generation mobile communication networks that meets these requirements. By using software-controlled beams, Airrays radio units direct signal energy from a cellular base station to exactly where it is needed, e.g. to individual users or hotspots. Compared to state-of-the-art, the technology provides up to 10-fold increased capacity, 10-fold reduced energy consumption, and 10-fold increased reliability, as well as reduced deployment and operational cost of up to 50%.
During the SmartRay project an extended business plan is compiled, where in particular the following points are addressed:
Market analysis: Based on own research and feedback from the community, we confirm the initial assumption of a broader market size of about 2 million outdoor macro base stations and about 10 million small cells shipped in 2020, which can be addressed by Airrays’ technology.
Go-to-market strategy: Airrays identifies two market segments of interest and establishes concrete strategies to enter these markets either via a niche application in the first segment or via direct cost savings followed by provision of additional features in the second segment. For both segments a lead customer from different parts of the ecosystem is needed. Potential lead customers are identified.
Customers: Airrays has performed a case study with a prospective customer. The results show potential capacity increase of 10x compared to a single macro cell.
Freedom-to-operate: Airrays has extensively investigated existing IPR and identified several patents which claims directly relate to Airrays technology. Further investigations have shown that Airrays does not infringe those claims due to its unique product architecture. Airrays has further filed own IPR in order to protect its solutions. Airrays has further verified that key hardware components are readily available. For each component, more than one supplier is identified. The situation where Airrays becomes dependent on a single supplier is avoided.
Component measurement campaigns have led to the selection of key components for the product prototype. We have shown that all regulatory requirements, in particular ACLR and EVM, can be fulfilled.
Market analysis: Based on own research and feedback from the community, we confirm the initial assumption of a broader market size of about 2 million outdoor macro base stations and about 10 million small cells shipped in 2020, which can be addressed by Airrays’ technology.
Go-to-market strategy: Airrays identifies two market segments of interest and establishes concrete strategies to enter these markets either via a niche application in the first segment or via direct cost savings followed by provision of additional features in the second segment. For both segments a lead customer from different parts of the ecosystem is needed. Potential lead customers are identified.
Customers: Airrays has performed a case study with a prospective customer. The results show potential capacity increase of 10x compared to a single macro cell.
Freedom-to-operate: Airrays has extensively investigated existing IPR and identified several patents which claims directly relate to Airrays technology. Further investigations have shown that Airrays does not infringe those claims due to its unique product architecture. Airrays has further filed own IPR in order to protect its solutions. Airrays has further verified that key hardware components are readily available. For each component, more than one supplier is identified. The situation where Airrays becomes dependent on a single supplier is avoided.
Component measurement campaigns have led to the selection of key components for the product prototype. We have shown that all regulatory requirements, in particular ACLR and EVM, can be fulfilled.
As one major result of SmartRay Phase 1, Airrays has closed a Series A funding round. In a next step Airrays will apply for SME Instrument Phase 2 funding.