Grant: Collaborative Research and Development Grants

The general objective of this proposal is the development of reduced-complexity radio resource management (RRM) and transmitter/receiver signal processing techniques for future multifunctional wireless communication networks, and its key application target is the next generation of cellular radio systems and networks, also known as the 5th generation (5G) cellular network, commercial deployment of which is expected to begin within the next four years. The current vision of 5G cellular, widely shared and supported by practically all stakeholders, includes three primary usage scenarios: enhanced mobile broadband, ultra-reliable and low latency communications (at relatively low mobility and providing much stronger security), and low-energy low-bit-rate massive machine-type communications (wide-area Internet-of-Things). The focus of the proposed project is on solutions enabling the first usage scenario, enhanced mobile broadband, which is expected to provide enhanced area capacity (up to about 1 Tb/s/km2) and user data rates above 100 Mb/s for 95% of users within the network's coverage area.These are very challenging network performance targets that will require very innovative enabling technological approaches. This project will investigate some of the most promising of them, as follows: (1) dynamic user-centric clustering for dense coordinated multiple-antenna heterogeneous cellular networks (HetNets); (2) cost-efficiently implementable signal processing and RRM techniques for large-antenna-array (massive) MIMO (multiple-input multiple-output) systems, robust to implementation imperfections; (3) synergy of MIMO HetNets with massive MIMO transmission/reception.* The proposed project's tasks are spread over three years and the new knowledge and expertise acquired in its course are expected to contribute in a significant and timely way to the successful standardization, development and deployment of 5G cellular networks. Its results will be of high interest and value to our collaborative industrial partner, TELUS Communications, but will also be very beneficial to the entire Canadian telecommunication industry, which has traditionally been a very important segment of the Canadian economy. *