Leading Research Institutes In Europe And The US Are Teaming Up To Enable Reliable 5G mmWave Vehicular Communications

In an international scientific research cooperation, the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), Technische Universität Wien (TU Wien), Brno University of Technology and the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering are creating new techniques to understand wireless signal propagation between vehicles. The research goals are wireless communication links with high-speed transmission capabilities for users in future autonomous transport applications like interconnected cars, trains and buses.

Vienna, 21/03/2018 (AIT) - 5G, the fifth generation of mobile networks, will be a real technological revolution and is subject of intensive research and development efforts around the world. By exploiting the newly available frequency bands above 28GHz, future 5G technology will achieve data transfer rates up to 100 times faster (up to 10,000 MBit/s) than current mobile radio standards. This will enable entirely new applications, one of which will be to help autonomous cars improve functionality, thereby reducing accidents and combating environmental damage.

To contribute to this goal, AIT has teamed up with research collaborators at the TU Wien, Brno University of Technology and the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering for a joint research project on radio wireless wave propagation in new frequency bands, measurement technologies and advanced estimation algorithms. This work into understanding propagation channels is a key prerequisite to improving communication between vehicles for road safety and autonomous driving to achieve the goal of zero accidents.

Thomas Zemen, senior scientist and thematic coordinator at AIT: "We contribute to the understanding about the propagation mechanisms of radio wave in the mmWave domain for the communication between vehicles in practical city scenarios. Based on these empiric data we can obtain new insight for the communication system design in the mmWave domain."

Christoph Mecklenbräuker, professor at TU Wien, emphasizes the need for dependable vehicular connectivity to make transport safer, cleaner, and more efficient: "Our challenge is to achieve a reliable packet transfer for highly mobile users before the packet becomes outdated."

Andreas Molisch, professor at USC Viterbi School of Engineering, emphasized the importance of connections between fundamental research and applications: "Only by understanding the fundamentals, in particular the wave propagation in vehicle-to-vehicle environments, can we design the systems that have the reliability needed for revolutionary applications that will save lives and improve quality-of-life for many."

Ales Prokes, professor at TU Brno: "Our goal is to create versatile, reliable, and accurate tools describing mmWave signal propagation in a time-varying and rugged environment that will make the design of next generation mobile networks for vehicle communications easier, faster and less expensive."

The international research collaboration allows us to combine the resources of all institutions for empirical experiments and for data evaluation, forming a critical mass for obtaining new breakthrough results.

About TU Brno
The Research group at the Department of Radio Electronics, Brno University of Technology, headed by Prof. Ales Prokes, deals with the physical layer of V2X and intra-vehicle communication and localization. It has a long tradition in measurement, analysis, and modelling of UWB and mmWave propagation channels.

About TU Wien
Prof. Christoph Mecklenbräuker leads the research group flexible wireless systems at the Institute of Telecommunications. Major research topics in his group are dependable vehicular connectivity, channel characterization and emulation, smart wireless tags and sensors, as well as antenna array signal processing for localization and tracking.

About Professor Andreas Molisch
Andreas F. Molisch is the Golomb-Viterbi Chair professor at USC and head of the Wireless Devices and Systems group. Research topics of his team include wireless propagation channels, multiple-antenna systems, localization systems, wireless video distribution, and novel modulation methods.

About USC Viterbi School of Engineering
Engineering Studies began at the University of Southern California in 1905. Nearly a century later, the Viterbi School of Engineering received a naming gift in 2004 from alumnus Andrew J. Viterbi, inventor of the Viterbi algorithm now key to cell phone technology and numerous data applications. One of the school's guiding principles is engineering +, a coined termed by current Dean Yannis C. Yortsos, to use the power of engineering to address the world's greatest challenges. USC Viterbi is ranked among the top graduate programs in the world and enrolls more than 6,500 undergraduate and graduate students taught by 185 tenured and tenure-track faculty, with 73 endowed chairs and professorships.
http://viterbi.usc.edu/

About AIT
The AIT Austrian Institute of Technology is Austria's largest research and technology organisation. Among the European research institutes, AIT is a specialist in the key infrastructure issues of the future. In the context of comprehensive and global networking and digitalisation, the Center for Digital Safety & Security is developing modern information and communication technologies (ICT) and systems designed to establish secure and reliable critical infrastructure.

AIT experts in the field of Physical Layer Security develop novel communication methods for 5G systems, which enable ultra-reliable and high-performance communication links with minimal response times (latencies). This makes it possible to replace cables in production environments by wireless systems or to provide reliable communication between autonomous vehicles.

For more information see https://www.ait.ac.at/urllc.

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