The technical work was organised in: WP3 – Scenario refinement and system design, WP4 – Autonomous resource management, WP5 – Smart Medium Access, WP6 – Testbed and real time evaluation.
WP3 – Scenario refinement and system design delivered, D3.1 ‘Value chain analysis and system design’, and D3.2 ‘Speed-5G enhanced functional and system architecture, scenarios and performance evaluation metrics’.
The outcomes include the definitions of four use cases: (i) Massive IoT (indoor/outdoor); (ii) Broadband wireless (indoor/outdoor); (iii) Reliable communications (indoor/outdoor); (iv) High-speed mobility (e.g. vehicles on highways; high-speed trains). A value chain analysis and analysis of the impact of Speed-5G on the network/system design were also pursued. WP3 delivered the Speed-5G design principles and KPIs (aligned with the 3GPP and ITU defined 5G KPIs) for evaluating the final system.
WP4 – Autonomous resource management delivered, D4.1 ‘Metric Definition and Preliminary Strategies and Algorithms for Resource Management’, D4.2 ‘Resource Management Framework and Modelling’, D4.3 ‘Final definition of the RM solution options and recommendations’, and D4.3 ‘Final definition of the RM solution options and recommendations’.
The outcome, a RRM framework is based on: the 5G KPIs, the cRRM/dRRM (distributed) architecture, and the need to support RRM algorithms from different vendors. Six RRM algorithms have been developed, of which a sub-set was selected for integration into the proposed RRM framework in WP6 demonstrator platforms. A set of sixteen RRM algorithms was studied and a theoretical performance analysis was undertaken, a visualization software tool has been created.
WP5 – Smart Medium Access delivered, D5.1 ‘MAC approaches with FBMC and simulation results’, D5.2 ‘MAC approaches with FBMC (final)’, and D5.3 ‘Real time protocol implementation’.
WP5 specified and evaluated the Speed-5G MAC layer implementing the eDSA approach. This supports aggregation and Radio Access Network (RAN) split at the MAC layer. The eDSA framework relies on a Higher-MAC (HMAC) and Lower-MAC (LMAC) layer. LMAC handles resource scheduling and interfacing with the physical layer (PHY). The HMAC coordinates the operation of the RAT-specific MAC protocols at the LMAC, inter-RAT scheduling, and managing of the configuration of LMAC entities. The framework, two MAC versions (Dynamic Channel Selection (DCS) MAC and Filter-Bank Multi-carrier (FBMC) MAC) and various protocols have been defined, evaluated and demonstrated. They are documented in D5.1 D5.2 and D6.3.
WP6 – Testbed and real time evaluation delivered, D6.1 ‘Testbed architecture and setup’, D6.2 ‘Hybrid simulations with hardware in the loop’, and D6.3 ‘Testbed deployment and trials’.
The demonstrations, configurations and associated test cases were identified and reported in D6.1. The intermediate or ‘individual proof-of-concepts’ (PoCs 1-5), served to validate specific solutions and project innovations as proposed by each partner. These PoCs have been validated individually and then combined for the final project testbed platform. All PoCs are documented in D6.2 and D6.3 videos of some PoCs are available.
Exploitation and dissemination of the results
Main outcomes, including RRM/MAC framework, MAC-layers, RRM and MAC algorithms have been published in 78 conference and journal publications. The framework definition and PoCs have been presented to the regulators of UK, FR, CH, to the CEPT PT1 meeting (March 2017), to the Radio Equipment Directive Compliance Association (REDCA) in May 2018, and as input to 3GPP and ETSI standardisation. During a Workshop in March 2018, the results and demonstrators were presented to more than 50 external attendees at the BT headquarters in London. Finally, outcomes from WP5 have been included in a product line by the project partner Intracom.
