Presentation of the SHARING vision at the 1st FP7 SEMAFOUR interim workshop, September 25 2014, Braunschweig/Germany (in conjunction with the ITG/VDE Future Networks2014 Conference).

Title: Self-OrganizedHeterogeneous Radio Access for Future Wireless Networks: SHARING vision

Abstract — Considered as a major economic driver, wireless broadband industry is facing increasing challenges due to the vast growth in data traffic demand together with the scarcity and high cost of (radio) resources. This challenge sets strong requirements on coverage, capacity and cost improvements of mobile networks in the horizon of 5 to 10 years. Therefore, it is vital to define highly spectral-, energy- and cost-efficient mobile broadband systems to satisfy these impending requirements. In parallel, considering emerging services and new spectrum regimes, offloading solutions also need to be strongly improved as an important leverage to avoid the saturation of future mobile networks. This paper presents the vision of the Celtic-Plus project SHARING (Self-organizedHeterogeneous Advanced RadIo Networks Generation) whose aim is to address these challenges. To this end, SHARING focuses on Heterogeneous Networks (HetNets), including innovative concepts such as advanced relaying and Device-to-Device (D2D) communications. HetNets is a concept which has been introduced as a promising solution to the foreseen massive traffic overload over the horizon of2020. Consisting of a wide area coverage layer of high-powered macro cells together with a layer of short range, low-powered small cells (micro/pico/femtocells and Wi-Fi access points), HetNets push for densification of the cellular networks towards smaller and smaller cells whilst offloading part of the traffic overload burden from macro cells:

1-towards micro and pico cells inoutdoor environments

2-towards femto cells and Wi-Fi hotspots in indoor(residential, corporate etc.) environments (indoor small cells also enhance indoor coverage).

Calling for a substantial increase in the number of networknodes, this densification necessitates the development of automated operationand management solutions to avoid the related increase in costs. Therefore,self-organization of operation and management tasks is an inevitable componentof the HetNet solution for future radio access networks. Combined with thebreakthroughs in radio link spectral efficiency (transmitter cooperation,advanced receivers, link-level interference management techniques) and maturesolutions such as D2D communications (allowing higher data rates, power savingand better resource utilization due to shorter radio path), self-organizedHetNets constitutes the most promising and viable solution to face theforthcoming capacity crunch.