Self Configurable Air Interface

Acronym:    SURFACE
Code:    IST-027187-STREP
Funder:    European Commission
Start date:    2006 January 1st
End date:    2008 December 31st
Keywords:    MIMO Systems, Self-configuration, Air-Interfaces, 4th Generation Systems
Web site:    http://www.ist-surface.org

Partners:    Dune S.R.L., Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Nokia Corporation, Telefónica I+D, Universitá di Roma and University of Aalborg
SPCOM Participants:    Eduard Calvo Page, Luis García Ordóñez, Alba Pagès Zamora and Javier Rodríguez Fonollosa
SPCOM Responsible:    Javier Rodríguez Fonollosa

Summary

The project aims at studying and evaluating the performance of a novel generalised air interface capable of self-reconfiguring in order to satisfy global network QoS (Quality of Service) requirements, based on channel and traffic knowledge. It considers Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) technologies as an option and develops a general framework that includes as specific cases standardised access technologies like DS-CDMA (Direct Sequence Code Division Multiple Access), MC-CDMA (Multi-Carrier Code Division Multiple Access) and OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) to develop a physical layer, completely reconfigurable to match the global instantaneous, but imperfect, channel state, mobility, traffic information and terminal capabilities. The project is organised into System Requirements, Research, Technological Development and Dissemination and Assessment activities and its expected duration is 36 months. The System Requirement objectives include the specification of global QoS requirements of the services to be supported and the definition of the strategy for channel state information estimation and prediction. The Research objectives entail optimisation of the air-interface in single-user, multi-user and multi-cellular environments. The Technological Development activities involve the development of appropriate transmission and reception architectures and will be evaluated by means of link and system level simulations. An Air-Interface emulator will be developed showing the impact of the optimized physical layer on the end-to-end QoS. These activities will also identify a roadmap for utilisation of the SURFACE concept. The Dissemination and Internal Assessment activities will propagate project results in conferences, workshops and by a constant updating of the project web page. Finally, these activities incorporate internal verification instruments in order to guarantee project progress towards envisioned objectives.

Journal publications

[1] I. Kovács, L. G. Ordóñez, Miguel Navarro, E. Calvo Page and J. R. Fonollosa, "Towards a Reconfigurable MIMO Downlink Air Interface and Radio Resource Management: The SURFACE Concept", IEEE Communications Magazine, Radio Communications Series, Vol. 48, No. 6, June 2010, pp. 22 - 29.

[2] L. G. Ordóñez, D. P. Palomar, A. Pagès Zamora and J. R. Fonollosa, "Minimum BER Linear MIMO Transceivers with Adaptive Number of Substreams", IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, Vol. 57, No. 6, June 2009, pp. 2336 - 2353.

[3] L. G. Ordóñez, A. Pagès Zamora and J. R. Fonollosa, "Diversity and Multiplexing Tradeoff of Multiple Beamforming in MIMO Channels", IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, July 2008, pp. 2959 - 2975.

[4] L. G. Ordóñez, D. P. Palomar, A. Pagès Zamora and J. R. Fonollosa, "High SNR Analytical Performance of Spatial Multiplexing MIMO Systems with CSI", IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, November 2007.

Conference publications

[1] E. Calvo Page, D. P. Palomar, J. R. Fonollosa and J. Vidal, "The Computation of the Capacity Region of the Discrete Degraded BC is a Nonconvex DC Problem", IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, July 2008, pp. 1 - 5.

[2] E. Calvo Page, I. Kovács, L. G. Ordóñez and J. R. Fonollosa, "A Reconfigurable Downlink Air Interface: Design, Simulation Methodology, and Performance Evaluation", ICT Summit on Mobile and Wireless Communications, June 2008, pp. 1 - 8.

[3] L. G. Ordóñez, D. P. Palomar and J. R. Fonollosa, "Ordered Eigenvalues of a General Class of Hermitian Random Matrices and Performance Analysis of MIMO Systems", IEEE International Conference on Communications, May 2008, pp. 1 - 5.

[4] L. G. Ordóñez, A. Pagès Zamora and J. R. Fonollosa, "On the Design of Minimum BER Linear MIMO Transceivers with Perfect or Partial Channel State Information", IST Summit on Mobile and Wireless Communications, July 2007, pp. 1 - 5.

[5] E. Calvo Page, D. P. Palomar, J. R. Fonollosa and J. Vidal, "The Computation of the Capacity Region of the Discrete MAC is a Rank-One Non-Convex Optimization Problem", IEEE International Symposium on Information Theory, June 2007.

[6] E. Calvo Page, J. Vidal and J. R. Fonollosa, "Resource Allocation in Multihop Ofdma Broadcast Networks", IEEE International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances for Wireless Communications, June 2007.

[7] E. Calvo Page and J. R. Fonollosa, "Efficient Resource Allocation for Orthogonal Transmission in Broadcast Channels", IEEE International Workshop on Signal Processing Advances for Wireless Communications, June 2007.

[8] L. G. Ordóñez, D. P. Palomar, A. Pagès Zamora and J. R. Fonollosa, "On Equal Constellation Minimum BER Linear MIMO Transceivers", IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, April 2007.

[9] E. Calvo Page and J. R. Fonollosa, "Near-optimal joint power and rate allocation for OFDMA broadcast channels", IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing, April 2007.