Project description
Catching the millimetre wave for an exhilarating ride to the future
In just over 40 years, wireless mobile communications technologies have evolved from the first generation (1G) of mobile networks launched in Tokyo in 1979 to the fifth generation (5G) rolling out around the world. The next generation is not far behind. Connection of an ever-increasing number of devices at the edge includes many that will handle mission-critical services including self-driving cars and remotely operated surgical equipment. Transmitting exponentially increasing amounts of data reliably and with lower energy consumption to fuel this evolution calls for a rethink of device-level design, network design and their interconnectedness. The EU-funded DELIGHT project will develop a holistic, common and sustainable approach to address this exciting challenge.
Objective
The evolution from 5G to the next-generation wireless system will call for a more radical change than any occurred among the previous generations: at the network level, flexible device-centric architectures will alleviate the need for centralized coordination; at the device level, operating frequencies will massively migrate to mmWave bands to exploit the large amount of available bandwidth. The project's core idea is that the design of a flexible network architecture and the implementation of low-complexity, energy-efficient mmWave hardware are interconnected physical-layer research problems. The proposed project thus represents the first attempt towards the joint network- and device-level design and optimization of beyond-5G wireless systems. Its ultimate goal is to provide a unified view of the types of network and hardware that are necessary to deliver tailored services for current and emerging wireless applications under a common and sustainable physical infrastructure. More specifically, it has the following main objectives: i) develop new theoretical knowledge on application-specific device coordination and novel distributed resource allocation schemes to support the coexistence of network- and device-centric mechanisms; ii) provide new analytical insights into the performance-complexity tradeoff in beam-space processing and low-resolution ADCs/DACs for mmWave communications; iii) analyze the interplay between network- and device-level design parameters for a given service/application. Relevant emerging wireless frameworks, such as cell-free massive MIMO and D2D-aided multicasting, will be considered. The proposed research involves advanced mathematical skills and interconnects expertise from communication/information theory, signal processing, and (distributed) optimization theory. Given the largely unexplored research field, the proposed project brings tremendous opportunities to break new intellectual grounds and make concrete contributions to society.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsignal processing
- natural sciencesmathematicsapplied mathematics
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringinformation engineeringtelecommunicationsradio technology
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EFCoordinator
90014 Oulu
Finland