Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

Wireless cellular communications has become an inseparable part of our lives. Since late 2010, the 4th generation LTE (Long-Term Evolution) wireless networks are being deployed in various parts of the world. Deployments of the enhanced version of the 4G networks, referred to as LTE-Advanced, are expected to start in the coming years. As LTE/LTE-A moves from the standardization phase to the deployment phase, it is time for the research community to articulate on the enabling technologies for the beyond-4G wireless networks. Carleton University and RIM have engaged in a collaborative research project on a particular technology which is expected to play an important role in beyond-4G networks: terminal relaying. As the transmission rates increase more and more, the received bit energy becomes less and less for a given received signal power level, as energy is equal to power over rate. In other words, at ultra-high rates, only a small path-loss can be tolerated. Since it is infeasible to deploy base stations everywhere just to reduce the path-loss, relays have been envisioned as an enabling technology. The first relay-enabled cellular standard is LTE-A; however, the relays in LTE-A are fixed relays to be deployed by the operators at strategic locations (such as lamp posts and traffic lights). Since only few fixed relays could be deployed for each base station, the returns are expected to be modest accordingly. On the other hand, at any given time, there will be a very large number of wireless terminals in the coverage region of any base station which may opportunistically act as relays helping other wireless terminals. This collaborative research project aims at investigating and developing terminal relay technologies in layers 1, 2, and 3, of the protocol stack, for beyond-4G wireless networks.