Project Structure
A brief overview of the work packages is provided below:
WP1 – Scenarios, Test Cases, Requirements and Techno-economic Feasibility Assessment will refine the 5G scenarios that have been defined in the METIS project, taking into account recent activities by bodies such as ITU-R or NGMN, and in discussion with other 5G-PPP phase 1 projects. Furthermore, WP 1 will extract and generate from the refined scenarios a low number of precise 5G test cases that are suitable for usage in 5G standardization, and define corresponding KPIs and requirements. Finally, WP 1 will perform a qualitative and quantitative techno-economic feasibility assessment to determine whether the refined 5G scenarios and test cases can be feasibly addressed by different 5G RAN design concepts developed in METIS-II.
WP2 – Overall RAN Design and Performance will provide the overall 5G RAN design based on the input from WPs 3-6, by integrating the separate control and user plane elements as well as the key innovation pillars developed in these WPs, and complementing these by infrastructure enablers for the overall system concept. It will further provide a framework for the performance assessment of 5G concepts in consolidation with other 5G-PPP projects. WP 2 is also responsible for the orchestration of the discussion among WPs 3-6, for instance on fundamental design aspects related to 5G RAN design, such as a split of control and user plane in certain communication and deployment scenarios.
WP3 – Spectrum will investigate spectrum aspects, both from a regulative perspective in terms of spectrum requirements and how to best prepare and support the regulatory work for 5G, as well as from a technical perspective in terms of novel spectrum sharing techniques, in particular in the context of novel air interfaces and higher frequency bands.
WP4 – Air Interface Harmonisation and User Plane Design will look into air interface harmonization and user plane design. More precisely, it will initially analyse the various air interface proposals that have so far been made for 5G, and determine which set of these would be best suitable to respond to the overall requirements space in 5G. It will then strive for the harmonisation of the user plane of the selected air interfaces for the purpose of reduced infrastructure and device complexity and a lean standard, to the extent that does not sacrifice individual air interface performance too much. Ultimately, WP 4 will provide the overall user plane design by determining on which protocol layer different air interfaces or different transmission forms are ideally integrated, and specifying all protocol stack details.
WP5 – Synchronous Control Functions and Resource Abstraction Framework and
WP6 – Asynchronous Control Functions and Overall Control Plane Design will be concerned with the control plane design for 5G. Here, it is envisioned that control plane functionality operating in a synchronous fashion (requiring frame/slot/sub-frame or any time-domain level synchronization between a group of functions) is to be covered in WP 5 (for instance related to scheduling, power control, etc.), while functionality operating in an asynchronous fashion (not requiring frame/slot/sub-frame or any time-domain level sync.) is to be covered in WP 6 (e.g. related to mobility, system access etc.). According to the baseline architecture concept from METIS, the synchronous functions should be typically placed closer to the air interface while the asynchronous functions can be flexibly allocated, depending on end-to-end delay requirements. However, it has to be pointed out that a key question to be clarified during the project is in fact which functionality will need to operate in which manner, and hence the division line between WPs 5 and 6 is kept flexible on purpose. While WP 5 will put a particular emphasis on a holistic 5G resource management concept, WP 6 will focus on a holistic mobility and connectivity framework. When it comes to architectural aspects, WP 5 will propose a resource abstraction model for the interface between the distributed and the centralized control functions, common to the multiple air interfaces. WP 6 will take this abstraction model into account to design some of the asynchronous functions as part of the overall control plane design.
WP7- Dissemination, Standardization, Regulation, Collaboration and Visualization will ensure that the concepts developed in METIS-II are disseminated well, and that the impact on standardization and regulatory bodies is maximized. To achieve this, WP 7 will organize dissemination events such as e.g. open workshops. WP 7 will further ensure a strong collaboration with other projects in 5G-PPP phase 1, for instance in the form of various workshops that are planned (see Section 3.1.1). Finally, WP 7 will develop and make available to other projects an open source visualisation platform to showcase 5G use cases as well as holistic RAN design concepts to address these.
WP8 – Management provides the project management.
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