Smart Large Scale Radio Technology for the Tactile Internet

Project Information

SmartRay

Grant agreement ID: 674292

DOI

10.3030/674292

Project closed

EC signature date 5 May 2015

Start date 1 June 2015

End date 31 October 2015

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies - Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

Xilinx Dresden GMBH
Germany

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SmartRay (Smart Large Scale Radio Technology for the Tactile Internet)

Reporting period: 2015-06-01 to 2015-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

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%.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

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.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

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.

Integrated array radio unit front view

Integrated array radio unit exploded view