TERRANOVA System Concept envisions unprecedented performance excellence, not only by targeting data rates in the Tbps regime, but also by inherently supporting novel usage scenarios and applications, which combine ultra-high data rates with agility, reliability and almost-zero response time. The use of wireless THz links as backhaul extension of the optical fibre is considered an important building block to bridge the ‘divide’ between rural areas and major cities and ensure high-speed internet access everywhere, in the era beyond 5G. Moreover, the increasing number of mobile and fixed end users will require hundreds of Gbps in the communication to or between cell towers (backhaul) as well as between remote radio heads located at the cell towers and centralized baseband units (fronthaul). In all these beyond 5G usage scenarios, THz communications are expected to play a decisive role and TERRANOVA project aspires to contribute to the definition of the system concept/architecture and fundamental analysis framework, the design and development of enabling technologies, as well as the evaluation and validation of the proposed innovations.
The TERRANOVA workplan is organised around 3 main objectives.
1. To design Tbps capable THz devices and interfaces, involving the challenges of HF-frontend and antenna interface, baseband digital signal processing, Tbps analog baseband for wireless and appropriate beamforming.
2. To design and develop THz wireless access and backhaul networks, involving the challenges of super-wideband channel, molecular absorption loss and distance-dependent bandwidth.
3. To design an end-to-end optimised THz system architecture, involving the challenges of hybrid system concept and architecture definition, baseband DSP for the combined optical-wireless Tbit transmission links, and optical RF-frontend for optical to THz interfacing.
