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Our projects > APOGEE
 

                                                                                          

APOGEE in a few words

The APOGEE project (Analyse et oPtimisatiOn des systèmes d’après 3èmeGEnEration) addresses the future cellular communication systems currently in the 3GPP/LTE stadardization phase.  It represents a pre-competetive development project under the "End-to-end Very High Rate Networks" research theme put forth by the French National Research Agency (ANR).  The project has a duration of 26 months and started in February 2008.   The project partners are Mitsubishi ITE-TCL (coordinator), CEA-LETI, Orange Labs, TeamCast, Supélec and Eurécom.  The total effort amounts to 15 man years with a budget of 2.2 million euros.

 

The strong points of the project are:

  • Validation of innovative technologies through prototyping
  • Potential impact on future variations of the standard 

 

Project Overview

The 3GPP initiated a standardization effort in September 2006 concerning the long-term evolution of third generation cellular systems.  This evolution brings a radical modification of the underlying air-interface in order to provide significantly higher data rates and spectral efficiency.  The objective of APOGEE is to propose physical layer technologies (MIMO schemes, advanced detection, channel coding) and multiple-access techniques (resource allocation) in keeping with the different versions of the ongoing 3GPP standardization process in order to attain uplink spectral efficiencies of 2.5 bits/s/Hz at minimal user terminal implementation complexity and power consumption.  In addition, validation of the considered technologies is carried out through experimentation using a hardware demonstrator made up of 2 terminals and a base station including MIMO RF front-ends working in real-time. This real-time hardware demonstrator will enhance the existing equipment developped in the context of the ANR2005 OPUS project which was restricted to the downlink channel of the future evolution of UMTS.  As a continuation of the work carried out in OPUS, studies related to the optimization of the downlink channel also be carried out.

 

The approach taken by the APOGEE project aims at:

  • defining in the context of workpackage 1 (SP1) the scenarios and evaluation criteria concerning the multiple-access techniques SC-FDMA and MIMO which are simulated in workpackage 2 (SP2) and implemented in workpackage 3 (SP3),
  • to select, in SP2, the PHY/MAC algorithms to be implemented in the demonstrator
  • to carry out, in SP2, the specific research activities aiming to improve the performance of a reference system which concern the physical layer, the PHY/MAC interface and on the algorithms of the MAC layer (uplink and downlink)
  • to develop in the context of SP3 a hardware demonstrator platform which implements the essential characteristics of LTE in addition to the identified enhancements.

 

In order to obtain the most up-to-date information regarding the evolution of the 3GPP/LTE standardization procees, it was decided that in the context of SP1, to provide a report summarizing the minutes of the outcome of each 3GPP/LTE meeting.  These reports are edited by ITE-TCL and Orange Labs and will permit the link-level simulators (SP2) and demonstrators (SP3) to follow the standard as closely as possible. In order to ensure tight collaboration between the partners of the project a content management system was put in place by Eurecom (BSCW) allowing for document exchange and storage of deliverables, presentations and software developped in the project.  In addition, a mailing list was put in place to facilitate information exchange between the partners.  In the context of SP2, the decision to develop a complete 3GPP/LTE SC-FDMA MIMO simulator, which constitutes a large number of source files (C++,C), is an important part of the project.  Orange Labs, who is responsible for delivery of the simultion platform, provides a simulation methodology based on the Galacsy tool which will facilitate the development and integration of the elements stemming from the different partners.  In the context of SP3, the link-level simulator developped in SP2 will permit the validation of the baseband signal processing procedures on the hardware demonstrator through the comparison of reference files between simulated and mesured data at each test-point in the transmission or reception chains.

Impact and Expected Results

 

Research on future PHY/MAC technologies covering the needs of emerging wireless systems 

 

  • Possible patents: fundamental patents and implementation patents
  • Publication of innovative solutions in international conferences (IEEE VTC, ICC, GLOBECOM, COST and WWRF)
  • Demonstration of the prototype at conferences

 

Influence on the 3GPP standardization activities

 

  • Long Term evolution worldwide standard

 

The main expected results are:

  • Common Software reference simulator for the SC-FDMA MIMO uplink
  • Advanced PHY/MAC studies
  • Real-time hardware demonstrator
  • 2 terminals and one basestation
  • MIMO RF front-ends
    • 2-antenna terminals
    • 4-antenna basestations
                                                                                  
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