Project summary

The project aims at providing a ubiquitous wireless solution to reach bit rates higher than 100Mbps with peak throughputs higher than 1Gbps, based on Reconfigurable OFDMA Cooperative Networks enabled by agile spectrum use (ROCKET). While increasing peak rates is a natural must-do for new standards, we believe in ROCKET that providing homogeneous high rate coverage is equally important as it guarantees a constant user experience over the whole served area and is the key enabler to a higher average spectral efficiency of the system. Those goals are inline with the IMT-Advanced requirements described in [ITU-R M1645] and match the requirements of the IEEE 802.16 Task Group m (TGm) for Advanced Air Interface. The project addresses two questions which are at the core of future IMT-advanced system design:

How to increase the bandwidth and make the whole system benefit from it?
How to increase system spectral efficiency and provide ubiquitous high-rate coverage?

Those aspects are addressed by devising methods for improved opportunistic spectrum usage, advanced multi-user cooperative transmission and ultra-efficient MAC design. Providing inputs to standardization bodies, generating IPR and conceiving architectures for some of the algorithms on a hardware platform are the ways the project plans to have actual impact. The lifespan of the project is January 2008 to December 2009.

The core of the work plan follows a methodology based on three fundamental aspects: technical development, evaluation and proof of concept, and impact. These are organised through Workpackages.