5G System Technological Enhancements Provided by Fiber Wireless Deployments

Project Information

5G STEP FWD

Grant agreement ID: 722429

DOI

10.3030/722429

Project closed

EC signature date 17 May 2017

Start date 1 June 2017

End date 31 March 2022

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 3 797 921,67

EU contribution

€ 3 797 921,67

Coordinated by

IQUADRAT INFORMATICA SL
Spain

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - 5G STEP FWD (5G System Technological Enhancements Provided by Fiber Wireless Deployments)

Reporting period: 2019-06-01 to 2022-03-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The 5G STEPFWD projects proposed a new network architecture at both the edge and fronthaul/midhaul domains that utilized the Ultra Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (UDWDM) technique in order to support a high number of small cells at the access domain; this was realised through the application of an UDWDM Passive Optical Network (PON). Thus, the small-cells were connected to the PONs through fiber links between two Optical Line Terminals (OLTs), and/or by point-to-point fiber links, and/or small-scale fiber protection rings among locally adjacent Optical Network Units (ONUs).
The 5G STEPFWD project defined a set of objectives that referred to the optical, wireless, and optical-wireless domains of the network, which were presented as follows:

At the wireless domain, 5G STEP-FWD aimed to:
1. assess fundamental trade-offs between spectrum and infrastructure sharing, in multi-network operator environment;
2. develop a disruptive device- or user-centric cellular concept, which allowed smart overlaid peer-to-peer communications;
3. introduce novel base station switching off schemes for mmWave-based HetNets with renewable energy capabilities;
4. re-think the concept of antenna design for mmWave hyper dense network, by configuring it in a flexible and adaptive manner.

At the optimal domain, 5G STEP-FWD aimed to:
1. develop efficient optical transceivers that were compatible with the UDWDM technology;
2. investigate PON configurations that were UDWDM-compatible, targeting to minimize the cost, maximizing the ONU population and satisfying QoS;
3. develop innovative wavelength/bandwidth allocation techniques applicable to ring-based architectures that interconnect multiple PONs.

At the optical-wireless domain, 5G STEP-FWD aimed to:
1. propose a novel converged mmWave-UDWDM PON network design that interconnected multiple PONs;
2. propose novel modulation techniques for enabling the transmission of mmWave signals over UDWDM-PONs;
3. design an SDN-based architecture for the efficient utilization of the multi-PON wireless and optical resources.

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 second reporting period, the following main activities were completed:
• Execution of 5G STEPFWD’s School 3, School 4, School 5 and School 5.
• Execution of 5G STEPFWD’s Complementary Course 3, Complementary Course 4 and Complementary Course 5.
• Execution of the second Industrial Study Group
• Second video prepared by the project’s ESRs and disseminated
• Organisation of two 5G STEPFWD workshops, of one Special Session at a conference, and of the 5G STEPFWD final conference.
• Organization of frequent meetings among beneficiaries and the ESRs
• Continuous updates of the project’s website and social media accounts with project’s news, updates, etc.
• Green open access for all scientific publications of the project
• Submission of all relevant deliverables
At the technical level, during the second reported period the ESRs worked on the development of the beyond state-of-the-art approaches, as it was designed during the first reporting period; The new developments are listed in Deliverables D1.3 D1.4 D2.2 D2.3 D3.3 and D3.4 while they are presented in papers published in journals, conference proceedings and book chapters, as detailed in the next section.

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)

The beyond state-of-the-art research contributions of 5G STEPFWD were obtained through the 3 technical WPs (WP1, WP2, WP3):
WP1 “mmWave communications” involving 5 ESRs, aimed at delivering innovative contributions for the modeling, evaluation and optimization of mmWave heterogeneous networks. The beyond state-of-the-art contributions for the second reported period are listed below:
• Novel design of filtennas for the practical application of phased arrays in commercial frequency division duplexing (FDD) millimeter-wave backhauling;
• Novel antenna design based on the concept of Reconfigurable Intelligent Surface (RIS), by developing the first comprehensive analytical formulation of the scattered power from a finite-size RIS;
• Development of a new optimization and analytical approach to maximize different performance metrics in RIS-assisted hyper-dense mmWave wireless networks;
• Analysis of energy efficiency in hyper-dense cellular networks by using real data from a network operator;
• Application of Machine Learning (ML) approaches for the efficient and fast beam management mechanisms in hyper-dense mmWave networks.
WP2 “UDWDM modeling”, involving 4 ESRs, aimed at delivering innovative contributions to the Ultra-Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (UDWDM) PON design and analysis. The beyond state-of-the-art contributions for the second reported period are listed below:
• Novel signal-processing approaches or the transmission of signals trough PONs, by using neural-networks;
• Novel design of Externally Modulated Lasers;
• Novel digital signal processing methodologies for PONs;
• Innovative optimization solutions for the characterization of optical links.
WP3 “Converged network implementation” involving 6 ESRs, aims at delivering novel solutions for the modulation/demodulation, access protocols, resource allocation schemes and testbed experimentation platforms for the analysis and optimization of converged optical-wireless networks. The beyond state-of-the-art contributions for the second reported period are listed below:
• Development of a novel real-time end-to-end network slicing framework for a converged optical-wireless network;
• Development of a novel resource allocation protocol for the seamless communication in the converged optical-wireless network;
• Development of a novel resource allocation protocol for the seamless communication in the converged optical-wireless network;
• Development of strategies for the resource-efficient and end-to-end allocation of compute and connectivity resources in dynamic 5G service provisioning scenarios;
• Design and evaluation of a topology on the converged photonic-wireless network architectures through photonic and electronic integration combining the vast capabilities provided by the photonic UDWDM techniques;
• Evaluation of modulation and demodulation formats through various simulation and experimental setups supporting the transmission of mmWave signals through the converged ultra-dense optical-wireless network.
The scientific outcomes of the three technical WPs have produced the impressive number of 70 publications (25 journal papers, 38 conference papers, 7 book chapters).

5G STEP FWD rollup

5G STEP FWD Leaflet p2

5G STEP FWD Leaflet p3-page2

5G STEP FWD Leaflet p3-page1

5G STEP FWD Leaflet p1