WINNER+ - Wireless World Initiative New Radio +

Introduction

Mobile and wireless communication has seen tremendous growth in the last years. Yet, many future services will require systems that support higher throughput values per user with lower latency than in current systems. Therefore, more efficient radio access technologies will be needed that support ubiquitous communication at an affordable cost-benefit ratio.

The WINNER+ project addresses these challenges from a technical, standardization and regulatory perspective. Based on the system concept, which was developed in the WINNER I and II projects within the EU FP6 research program, this project will develop, optimize and evaluate IMT-Advanced-compliant technologies by integrating innovative and cost-effective additional concepts and functions and by providing an evolutionary path towards further improved performance of IMT-Advanced.

The main advancement of WINNER+ will be an IMT-Advanced-qualified system concept, including the latest advancements in radio and radio network technologies. The highly adaptive, multi-carrier-based WINNER+ radio interface is designed so that system deployment is possible in very different environments (ranging from wide area deployments to indoor deployments) and cell sizes, also presenting significant differences in end-user terminal mobility. Novel technology components, such as advanced radio resource management (ARRM), spectrum technologies (including spectrum sharing and flexible spectrum use), advanced antenna systems (AAS), coordinated multi-point methods (CoMP) and relaying technologies, have been included in the WINNER+ system concept.

The Main Focus of the Project

The project focuses on developing and evaluating innovative concepts and technologies for systems beyond 3G LTE. The innovations are optimized and evaluated by simulations within the overall WINNER+ concept. Beyond that, parts of this concept are expected to be incorporated into candidate IMT-Advanced technology proposals. The objectives of the project can be summarized as follows:

  • Research, system integration and evaluation of innovations in areas with a high potential of exploitation in IMT-Advanced
  • Harmonization of innovations in the pre-standardization phase
  • Contribution to standard organizations of technology elements suitable to IMT-Advanced
  • Participation in the evaluation of selected technology proposals
  • Utilization of a strong ITU-R Channel by using the WINNER brand
  • Evaluation and demonstration of selected key technologies

Project Structure

The research work in WINNER+ is organized under five work packages (WP). The objective of WP1 (Innovations) is to propose and describe innovations of the system concept. The main topics considered in WP1 are ARRM, spectrum technologies, Peer-to-Peer communication, Network Coding, AAS and CoMP Systems. WP2 (System concept design) is developing a WINNER+ system concept, consolidating the innovation from WP1 and the corresponding evaluation results from WP4.

The main objectives of WP3 (IMT-Advanced and spectrum) are to contribute to CEPT and ITU-R in the minimum requirements, evaluation criteria and key characteristics of IMT-Advanced as well as preferred utilization of the spectrum for IMT. The main focus of WP4 (Performance Assessment) is to provide end-to-end performance assessments of the WINNER+ and IMT-Advanced candidate systems, using both dedicated WINNER+ assessment methodology and the evaluation criteria of ITU-R.

WP5 (Trials) focuses on validation of the developed concept with hardware prototypes. The work consists of implementing selected functionality of the concept on a software-defined radio (SDR) platform, measuring and analyzing system performance in both laboratory and real environments, and analyzing upper layer system performance. Radio channel modeling is carried out to fine-tune, update and validate the radio channel models for IMT-Advanced and to provide the needed models for laboratory emulation to be used as part of the system validation.

Intermediate Results of the Project

WINNER+ project has been running since April 2008 and the planned completion date is June 2010. Some of the main intermediate results of the project are presented in the following:

  • First and second set of key innovative concepts on advanced radio resource management, spectrum technologies, advanced multi-antenna schemes and coordinated multi-point methods have been developed.
  • The preliminary WINNER+ system concept has been defined including the first set of innovative concepts.
  • The actual evaluation work for the candidate technology proposals for IMT-Advanced has been started.
  • Part of the calibration process, i.e., IMT-Advanced channel model calibration, has been performed for system level evaluation purposes.
  • Interim hardware-based evaluation results have been provided.
  • Numerous journal and conference papers have been published in the framework of WINNER+.

Project partners

The Winner+ consortium comprises almost 30 partners including manufacturers, operators, R&D centers and universities. This is a strong consortium containing the major players in the European mobile communication industry and academia.

For more information:

D.Sc. (Tech.) Antti Tölli, Project Manager
email: antti.tollimailee.oulu.fi
gsm: +358-44-500 0180

Prof. Matti Latva-aho, Principal Researcher
matti.latva-ahomailee.oulu.fi
gsm: +358-40-588 9655