Network Systems
With the increasingly pervasive nature of mobile communications in everyday life, more challenging demands are being placed on the underpinning wireless systems. Higher data rates to support high definition content or quantities of VoIP calls are required, while also maintaining connectivity regardless of location or user mobility. Furthermore, users expect seamless transition between different access technologies. Wireless Access research at FLE is developing new technologies to support wide area systems (such as WiMax) through to local body area networking. In order to improve the system wide efficiency of wireless network deployments, network dimensioning and planning tools have been developed.
Research Themes
WiMax Research and Development
Collaborative Research
WiMax Research and Development
The WiMAX technology is currently viewed as a leading candidate for providing the 4th generation broadband wireless services, at very high Quality of Service (QoS) levels comparable with digital subscriber lines (DSL). Mobile WiMAX is the latest enhancement of the IEEE 802.16 standard, which allows broadband wireless access even for highly mobile users. Using link and system level simulators, FLE develops novel technologies to contribute to the standardisation process, and to enhance the performance of WiMax equipment.
Coverage of reuse 1 and reuse 3 regions in fractional frequency reuse
Network Provisioning
To determine the best approach for network deployment of that technology, a dedicated team within FLE focuses on determining the emerging wireless technology details from a standards perspective and tracking the wireless market demands on that innovative technology. Of particular interest is the WiMAx system. WiMAX has different flavours like fixed, nomadic and mobile, with a large number of optional and mandatory features to enhance coverage and capacity, which makes it crucial to evaluate a number of what-if scenarios to understand its potential. The tools have also been applied to 3G /3.5G technologies such as WCDMA and HSPA.
The tracking of emerging technology and exploitation of its capabilities are primarily captured in the in-house network dimensioning tool called DoORs (Dimensioning of Over all Radio access system). The tool is designed to:
- Store and retrieve equipment specification
- Handle phased roll-out for multiple clutter categories
- Support a range of operating frequencies, multiple propagation models and complex algorithms for interference margin evaluation
- Support single and multiple antenna configurations
The input and output to the tool and its multiple flavours are shown with the figure below:
Wireless Sensor Networks
Personal and body area networks are being increasingly deployed to provide new services, such a medical monitoring. The nature of these networks places emphasis on power efficiency and mobility. As part of the EU E-sense project FLE has developed a mobility management system and related protocols, particularly to support group mobility. Optimised solutions for sleep/wake algorithms have also been designed.
