Wireless IP

- Towards extreme spectral efficiency in wideband packet data transmission for mobile users in 4G systems

Senior Researchers:

Mikael Sternad, UU (Project coordinator) , Arne Svensson, CTH, Mats Viberg, CTH,
Anders Ahlén, UU, Tony Ottosson, CTH, Anna Brunström, Karlstad University,
Tommy Svensson, CTH.
(CVs)

PhD Students:

Daniel Aronsson, UU, Ming Chen, CTH,
Stefan Alfredsson, KAU, Annika Klockar, KAU.

Academic external partners and Research collaborators:

Saverio Mascolo, Politecnico di Bari, Torbjörn Ekman UniK and U. of Trondheim, Norway,
Krister Norlund, Ericsson AB, Sorour Falahati, Ericsson AB.

Industrial Partners:

Ericsson Research, Kista, Ericsson, Göteborg.

We have participated within the EU IST Integrated Project
Wireless World Initiative New Radio (WINNER)
and the follow-on Celtic framework project WINNER+.

Our work within the SSF Wireless IP project and the EU WINNER projects has now (2009) conluded, see the summary below. Our project group continues in 2010 with a focus on multipoint wireless transmission, with support by a Strategic research grant from The Swedish Research Council and the EU FP7 Integrated Project Artist4G.

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Summary:

The Wireless IP project focused on 4G wireless systems. It was a collaborative research effort involving researchers from Uppsala University, Chalmers University of Technology and Karlstad University, funded by the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research (SSF) Information Technology program. Industrial partners were Ericsson Research and Ericsson in Göteborg. Uppsala University acted as lead partner. The objectives were to develop and to study algorithms and system design for future wireless packet data transmission beyond 3G. In particular, the objective of the program has been to develop and explore a new type of radio system based on adaptive transmission.

Wireless IP was initiated as a multi-university research project within the SSF PCC program in 2000. It became a SSF IT program funded by 10 MSEK from mid-2002 to mid-2005, after which the program received a 2.5 -year extension funded by 5 MSEK from mid 2006 to the end of 2008.

During 2002-2003, we performed an intense design effort, which resulted in the design and evaluation of a downlink for an adaptive OFDM system. The work discussed and offered answers to the following questions:

Can a balanced adaptive OFDM-based downlink be designed without too much overhead due to guard-bands and control signaling? What multiuser scheduling gains may be attained in such systems?
What spectral efficiency may be expected by using adaptive OFDM-based downlinks in a multicellular system?
What are the most promising ways to integrate multi-antenna transmission with adaptive transmission, so that reinforcing advantages are created?
What are the effects of realistic prediction errors on the attainable performance if the terminals move at vehicular velocities, and the link adaptation design takes the prediction uncertainty into account?

In mid-2004, the results obtained were very promising. The Wireless IP constellation was at this point invited to continue the system design effort in collaboration with the main European effort aiming at new radio systems beyond 3G, the EU WINNER projects. These projects, with 40 industrial and academic partners, have defined a flexible wireless broadband system concept. They have been a crucial venue for pre-competitive research and consensus building for 4G (IMT-Advanced) wireless systems. We have taken leading roles within these projects, e.g. on MAC layer design and multiple access techniques. The fundamental research results of the Wireless IP project have in various ways been integrated into the WINNER system concept, spanning channel adaptive predictive scheduling, advanced link adaptation, the use of orthogonal OFDM signaling for adaptive transmission and the use of interference avoidance between base stations. The WINNER concept lead, in its turn, to standardization in the form of the 3GPP LTE standard and its ongoing development ``LTE-advanced''. Adaptive OFDM systems are now destined to become the dominant wireless broadband technology of the future.

Our work has been published in two book chapters and 17 Journal papers, of which three are in a Special Issue on adaptive transmission by the Proceedings of the IEEE. It has led to 48 conference publications, many of which are jointly co-authored with industrial and academic partners, as well as contributions in numerous WINNER project reports. The project has resulted in five Ph.D. Thesis and five Licentiate Theses, with two additional Ph.D. Theses to be defended in the spring of 2010.

We are 2008-2010 involved in the Celtic project Winner+.

Selected Publications:

News feature on the SSF homepage (in Swedish), (November 2010).

Wireless IP project Final Report to SSF (pdf, October 2009).

Proceedings of the IEEE, Dec. 2007, Special Issue on Adaptive Transmission:
Invited Paper on design issues for systems beyond 3G, with case studies from Wireless IP and WINNER research.
Invited Paper (pdf) surveying link adaptation for known and predicted channels
Invited paper (pdf) on efficient feedback of channel quality information.

A cross-layer perspective on transport protocol performance in wireless networks (pdf),
PhD thesis by Stefan Alfredsson, May 2012.

Channel estimation and prediction for MIMO OFDM systems,
PhD thesis by Daniel Aronsson, March 2011.

Prediction and predictability of fading broadband channels,
PhD thesis by Torbjörn Ekman, October 2002.

Revenue maximization in resource allocation,
PhD thesis by Nilo Casimiro Ericsson, October 2004.

Resource allocation under uncertainty,
PhD thesis by Mathias Johansson, October 2004.

Proposed OFDM downlink, presented in four papers at IEEE VTC-Fall 2003:
Paper 1 on optimizing the adaptive modulation and feedback information rates.
Paper 2 on the adaptive downlink system and efficient frequency reuse.
Paper 3 on channel estimation and prediction.
Paper 4 on the impact of prediction errors on the rate adaptation.

IEEE VTC00-fall, on combining hybrid-II ARQ with predictive scheduling.

Feature in Forskning och Framsteg no 2 2003, on Bart's thesis on Turbo coding.

Four posters summarizing our research at the SITI workshop, Stockholm, June 2005.
Poster 1; Poster 2; Poster 3; Poster 4.

All Wireless IP publications

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Project Activities and Meetings:

1. Göteborg October 26 1999
2. Lund, November 29 1999: meeting and project presentation at PCC Workshop
3. Uppsala, December 16, 1999

4. Karlstad February 8 2000: discussions/seminars at Ericsson Infotech
5. Lund, April 18 2000
6. Uppsala June 19-20 2000: with PCC Board, seminar by Torbjörn Ekman
7. Ängelholm, October 9-10 2000: with Mobile Wireless Access PCC project.
8. Göteborg December 12 2000

9. Uppsala, February 6 2001: meeting with seminar by Stefan Parkvall, Ericsson
10. Nynäshamn, April 2-4 2001: project presentaitons at NRS/PCC Workshop
11. Karlstad, May 30 2001
12. Helsingfors, June 11 2001 (at ICC)
13. Göteborg, August 23 2001
14. Uppsala, October 23 2001 meeting with
seminar by Saverio Mascolo and seminar by Lars-Åke Larzon, Luleå

15. Uppsala, Jan 22-23, 2002.
16. Göteborg, March 1, 2002.
17. Karlstad, April 12, 2002.
18. Uppsala, June 13, 2002: meeting with seminar by Mats Vännström.
19. Oslo, September 12-13 2002. With present. of BEATS project by Bengt Holter.
20. Göteborg, Nov. 21-22, 2002.

21. Uppsala, Feb. 11-12 2003. Seminar by Gunnar Hagsköld.
22. Göteborg, April 28 2003.
23. Loen, Norway, June 4-6 2003. (Joint workshop with BEATS project).
Program (.doc). Presentations (ppt,pdf).
24. Karlstad, September 2, 2003.
25. Göteborg, Oct. 27-28 2003.
26. Uppsala, Jan. 19, 2004.
27. Johannesberg, March 2-3, 2004.
28. Karlstad, May 12, 2004.
29. WIP-BEATS/CUBAN Second Workshop, Visby, Aug. 24-26, 2004.
Program, Slides.
30. Uppsala, October 25, 2004. Visit by SSF IT Board.
31. Göteborg, Dec. 16 2004.
32. Karlstad, March 17 2005.
33. WIP-BEATS/CUBAN Third Workshop, Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia, May 23-25 2005.
Program, Slides.
34. Göteborg, November 1, 2005.
35. Göteborg, November 6, 2006.
36. Uppsala, June 13, 2007.
37. Uppsala, May 29, 2008.
38. Göteborg, Aug. 28, 2009.
39. Uppsala, February 17-18, 2010: Startup of follow-on project Dynamic Multipoint Wireless Transmission, a project focused on Coordinated Multipoin Transmission, funded by the Swedish Research Council.
40. Uppsala, June 3-4, 2010: Startup of follow-on project Dynamic Multipoint Wireless Transmission