The radio resource management of the heterogeneous network using the developed mm-wave and photonic technologies together with legacy 3G/4G wireless is to be demonstrated in RAPID at a later time in the second and third periods of the project execution. Developed hardware is to be tested in life-cycle assessments within different real life networks scenarios including a public stadium, an operator’s fiber-optic and wireless network, as well as in train, airport scenarios. First early field trials using novel technologies developed within RAPID were already carried out within this first phase of the project execution and are reported in WP5.
In summary, the focus on the Y2 activities were to further detail the system architectures for the planned field trials in Y3 and to develop a detailed implementation plan for the two major field trials in Europe and in Japan. For the system architectures, advanced concepts were adapted to enable the field trials e.g. the usage of mobile IP to interconnect e.g. the legacy 3G/4G transceiver with the RAPID5G 60 GHz transceiver technology for the European and Japanese field trials. Another major activity has been in the development of the RAPID5G transceiver technologies and here especially the development of new low-cost SiGe 60 GHz transceiver and novel 60 GHz antennas offering beam steering and even multibeam functionality. The antennas were successfully fabricated and experimentally tested and the consortium even managed to integrat the antennas to reach prototype level which will allow the implementation of the antennas in the field trials. In addition, several preliminary test were conducted to eliminate or at least reduce risks for the field trials in Y3. As an example, a CRoF 60 GHz transmitter developed by UDE and SIKLU has been successfully implemented in a distributed antenna system developed by CORNING.
As expected and mainly thanks to the technological developments the dissemination activities have been intensified significantly. Another key action item from the management point of view was to further deepen EU-Japan collaborations. In this period intense collaboration took place including the joint development and characterization of novel multibeam antennas were successfully done and have already let to joint journal submission. In addition, the collaboration between the RAPID partners has already created scientific and technological results of high impact, e.g. the demonstration of world-record spectral efficient 60 GHz wireless communication at OFC 2016 and at other events. Also, a plan to enable collaboration with other EC and Japanese projects has been implemented and furthermore direct collaboration with other European and Japanese projects has let to joint inter-project publications. Another achievement is that the joint proposal between RAPID5G and the STRAUSS projects to organize an IEEE Summer Topical conference on “Photonic for 5G and beyond” in 2017 has been accepted.
