mmMAGIC, one of the newest consortia to be co-funded by the European Commission's 5G PPP programme, said it plans to develop new technologies that can operate in frequency bands between 6 GHz and 100 GHz and accelerate the standardisation of millimeter wave technologies for 5G as part of a two-year research programme.
Led by South Korea-based equipment manufacturer Samsung and also backed by Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, Huawei, Intel and Nokia as well as European operators Orange and Telefonica, the consortium stressed that while the use of such extremely high frequencies for mobile communications is challenging, it is necessary to support 5G's "extreme mobile broadband service".
5G services are expected to require very high (up to 10 Gbps) data rates and, in some scenarios, very low end-to-end latencies (less than 5 ms).
Chang Yeong Kim, executive vice president and head of digital multimedia and communications R&D at Samsung Electronics noted that novel and innovative approaches to mobile communications using higher frequency bands above 6 GHz "are crucial to realise the envisaged 5G services with diverse and challenging requirements."
The mmMAGIC project aims to develop and design new concepts for mobile radio access technology (RAT) for deployment in the 6 GHz to 100 GHz range, including novel waveform, frame structure and numerology, novel adaptive and cooperative beam-forming and tracking techniques to address the specific challenges of millimetre wave mobile propagation. This new RAT is envisaged as a key component in the overall 5G multi-RAT ecosystem, which is expected to integrate 5G and LTE radio interfaces.
The project, which is designed to put Europe in the vanguard of 5G R&D and standardisation work, is also backed by research institutes including Fraunhofer HHI, CEA LETI and IMDEA Networks; universities in Aalto, Bristol, Chalmers and Dresden; measurement equipment vendors such as Keysight Technologies, Rohde & Schwarz; and the company Qamcom.
mmMAGIC is led and coordinated by Samsung. Ericsson acts as technical manager while Intel, Fraunhofer HHI, Nokia, Huawei and Samsung will each lead one of the five technical work packages of the project. The project was officially launched on July 1 and will last for two years. However, the consortium decided to jump-start its research three months ahead of the official EC launch in order to deliver its first results by the end of July.
mmMAGIC is one of 19 research projects co-funded by the 5G-PPP. More recent programmes also include the Fantastic-5G project that aims to define a flexible air interface for 5G wireless networks; and METIS-II, which seeks to define the required mobile and wireless communications enablers.
For more:
- see this mmMAGIC release
Related articles:
Huawei talks up contribution to EU's 5G-PPP research programmes
Alcatel-Lucent leads EC-funded industry research into sub-6 GHz 5G air interface
Nokia Networks leads new 5G RAN and core network research consortium
SK Telecom, Nokia Networks open 5G R&D centre in South Korea
ITU outlines 5G roadmap towards 'IMT-2020'