Back to single caRrier for beyond-5G communications AboVE 90GHz – BRAVE

The BRAVE project proposes to investigate innovative technologies allowing for an efficient radio-communication usage of the 90GHz-200GHz spectrum. It will contribute to the emergence of ultra-high throughput and capacity brought by beyond-5G (B5G) wireless communication systems. The wideband Single-Carrier (SC) waveform will be studied as an enabler for the migration of 5G networks towards Tbits/s systems. Achieving PHY-layer high spectrum efficiency under low energy consumption constraint is the main challenge.
BRAVE defines six major objectives: the partners will (1) elaborate analog+digital processing solutions that (2) operate above 90 GHz, based on (3) new efficient and ultra-wideband SC waveform; the specific channel properties and (4) RF impairments are modelled and considered in the waveform design; (5) the integration into a link- and system-level simulation platform permits the assessment of the proposed technology in realistic scenarios; and (6), the project identifies the spectrum regulation constraints and requirements.
The 200-GHz upper limit has been decided according to current known limits in CMOS implementation (i.e. feasibility) and channel sounding equipment (i.e. to guarantee existence of literature data).

The expected success of the proposed BRAVE technique relies on the following factors: first, wireless Tbit/s data rates necessitate the future B5G technologies to be compliant with ultra-large bandwidths; second, the almost-flat frequency channel that should be achieved from the propagation channel sparsity and high antenna directivity allows the low-PAPR and high-spectrum-efficiency SC waveforms to properly operate.
The consortium has been built on the complementary skills of the partners to efficiently tackle the different challenges of the project: regulation, signal processing, hardware implementation, and software-based evaluation. Furthermore, the partial overlap between those skills and the strong experience of the partners in research collaboration do guarantee a constructive work.
The project objectives meet several ANR priorities: part of the 7th challenge (“Société de l’information et de la communication”), BRAVE is in line with orientation 26 (“5th generation of network infrastructures”) and orientation 27 (“Connected objects”). It is also part of the axis 7 (“Communication, processing and storage infrastructures”).

Several use cases have been identified, for which Tbits/s systems operating above 90 GHz are of interest: kiosk application; server farm; hot-spots delivering high speed data to demanding applications such as augmented or virtual reality; high-capacity wireless mesh backhauling for dense access networks and connected cities. Those use cases will be further analysed at the earliest stage of the project. The most relevant ones in terms of technology and expected value, will serve in the definition of the BRAVE requirements, evaluation and demonstration.

The work is organized in four complementary work-packages. WP0 gathers the activities on project management and dissemination (publications, events, and web-based communication). The use cases, technical scenarios and market perspectives are studied in WP1, as well as the regulation aspects. The main technological blocks are elaborated in WP2: wireless channel modelling, based on deterministic or hybrid approaches; RF impairments modelling; design of the wideband SC waveform, equalization and synchronization functions. Those blocks are then integrated into the WP3 simulation platform, along with the selected scenarios, in order to assess the PHY-layer performance (throughput, capacity, error rate, and power consumption) and potential techno-economic interest. Hardware demonstration is not envisaged for different reasons (early research activity, current cost of implementation); the software-based testing, which uses realistic PHY models and simple network-level assumptions, will offer the needed first insight.