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Study on IMT-Advanced technology
The ITU-R WP5D (formerly WP8F) named the 4th generation mobile communication system "IMT-Advanced" and is working to complete the standardization by 2011. ETRI has conducted multiple research projects to secure IMT-Advanced standard technology.
Firstly, our research efforts have been toward adaptive wireless access and transmission technology (NeMA : New Mobile Access) supporting the transmission rates that exceed 300 Mbps in the high-speed mobile environment and 600Mbps in fixed or pedestrian environment.
The NeMA core technologies include the advanced MIMO technologies for downlink and uplink in cellular systems to achieve high spectral efficiency and high data rate, the coordinated multi-point transmission and reception (CoMP), which consists of the multi-cell coordinated transmission and the coordinated scheduling among multiple cells, to improve the spectral efficiency of cell edge users, the carrier aggregation to increase user and system capacity, the iterative receivers that realize high speed transmission using multiple antennas, the wireless relay which can extend the cell coverage and improve the cell edge user throughput without wired backhaul link.
The IMT-Advanced Service Platform technology is the LTE-Advanced Mobile Terminal and Base Station technologies for seamlessly providing the user-centric service aiming Convergence, Universal/Ubiquitous Access, Intelligence, etc, which is a direction of the development of the 4th generation mobile communication. For this, ETRI is developing the next generation mobile communication service project named SPRING, Services Platform for Radio Interface of Next Generation, which meets the ITU-R requirements.
SPRING is making progress toward developing the high-speed, large-capacity and low-delay mobile system technologies supporting LTE-Advanced main issues such as enhanced call processing, Carrier Aggregation, CoMP, MU-MIMO, SPS, etc, eMBMS for next generation mobile IPTV service, and eVHO for high quality service mobility between various heterogeneous networks.
Development of SON and Femtocell Technologies for LTE-Advanced System
ETRI is developing Self-Organizing Network (SON) and femtocell technologies for a LTE-Advanced system in terms of a small base station, which can reduce the Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) and Operational Expense (OPEX) of a service provider by an active encounter about user requirements under a radius of a cell with a small area environment such as a home and office, which can cut down the time and maintenance cost on a additional deployment of a cell, and which can service a wireless environment reflecting a upgrade of service quality of users and launching a new market of manufacturers.
A SON technology of a LTE-Advanced femtocell can be organized by initial auto-installation, self-configuration and self-optimization technologies. The initial auto-installation technology performs an initial auto-installation of a base station by creating installation parameters according to an internal configuration of the base station for itself when deploying an additional base station.
The self-configuration technology makes an establishment and registration of an inter-relationship and identification among neighbor base stations, and a connection with its core network. The self-optimization technology carries out a power control of a base station by making full use of information about signal and traffic patterns among neighbor base station, and an optimization of handover parameters. Moreover, it is necessary to apply a mobility technology, a base station selection technology using Closed Subscriber Group (CSG), and an interference mitigation and avoidance technologies.
A femtocell base station is a mobile base station with small size supporting a cheap wired and wireless convergence service by connecting a mobile phone with an internet in an indoor environment such as home and office. Although it is similar to a WiFi Access Point (AP) in a view point of functional aspects, it is different that a primary role of a femtocell base station is to relay a mobile phone call unlike a Wi-Fi AP.
It is an evolved technology in a view point of serving an internet as well as a voice unlike a legacy wired and wireless convergence service such as Onephone and Homezone services. In a long term, a femtocell base station based on LTE-Advanced will become a practical application of integration of a voice and data service in a home and office.
It is also able to recognize an exact location and an indication of coming or going of their families through an individual femtocell access in terms of Location-based Service, and to provide new supplementary services by combining various home LAN technologies.
Bi-directional Groupcast(Mobile IPTV) Technology for Next-Generation Mobile Communications
We are developing differentiated 'Mobile IPTV' technology for mobile telecommunications which is a representative service of broadcasting and telecommunications convergence. 'Mobile IPTV' will be a killer service of IMT-advanced system. For this, our goal is developing core technologies for cellular network based 'Mobile IPTV' and personal IP wireless broadcasting systems.
In the 3GPP LTE/LTE-Advanced Standardization eMBMS technology is being studied to support mobile TV service, moreover it will be enhanced to intelligent mobile broadcast services such as mobile personal broadcasting and group broadcasting services. For pursuing this trend, we are doing on the R&D of mobile IPTV technologies for IMT-Advanced such as fast mobile multicasting technology, personal mobile wireless broadcasting technology and mobile multimedia QoS enhancement technology.
We are also not only trying to acquire intellectual properties but also contributing to the 3GPP international standardization meetings with the results.
