RC3: Robust Cognitive Cooperative Communications

根据Ofcom在2007年的数字红利报告，频谱是有限的，只是因为他们严重利用不足，由于僵化和低效的管理。据报道，超过90%的地点可以有大约100 MHz的频谱可用于其他服务。这些未充分利用或未使用的频谱空洞，也称为白色空间，主要是由于数字电视频带的交织频谱。考虑到整个3G频谱只有75MHz，这是一个不可接受的浪费。然而，与此同时，这为英国的移动的运营商、宽带服务提供商和用户提供了黄金机会，以改善在频谱TV白色空间中使用认知传输的个人通信的QoE。在此背景下，英国电信致力于利用电视频谱白色空间，使用认知无线电（CR）技术为农村地区的家庭提供无线宽带接入。据英国电信称，农村地区有275万客户，这些地区被称为“非点”，虽然听起来很荒谬，但没有3G覆盖，互联网服务几乎仅限于通过住宅或商业电话线拨号上网。在“非点”中，服务小于2M bps，但是TV频谱白色空间如果被适当地利用，则可以潜在地覆盖超过25%的“非点”，以改善服务。机会在于，邻近的家庭可以共享它们的天线和信号处理能力，以在没有额外成本的情况下使用频谱白色空间来提供高得多的QoE。多个家庭合作），这提供了通过在用户之间共享资源来改善渠道的可能性。这一极具挑战性的目标有可能重新定义无线网络的架构，为扩展覆盖范围和提高宽带通信的QoE提供新的系统解决方案。在这个项目中，PI和BT（作为工业合作伙伴）将联手解决认知合作的优化问题。我们的目标是解决特定的合作MIMO信道的基本技术挑战。例如，所需的优化将需要考虑到个别用户的要求、限制和公平问题。此外，所提出的合作解决方案还需要对不完美的信道状态信息（CSI）和合作节点的不确定性具有鲁棒性，并且以分布式方式实现。英国电信将是一个关键的合作伙伴，在实践层面提供宝贵的投入，以确保项目的可交付成果是可利用的。拟议项目的最终成果将是自优化合作天线系统的技术，可用于在电视频谱白色空间中通过无线为“非点”区域提供宽带覆盖。

According to the Ofcom's Digital Dividend report in 2007, spectrum is limited only because they are seriously underutilised due to rigid and inefficient management. It was reported that over 90% of locations could have around 100MHz spectrum available for other services. These underutilised or unused spectrum holes, also known as white spaces, are mainly due to the interleaved spectrum for the digital TV band. Given the fact that the entire 3G spectrum is only 75MHz, this is an unacceptable wastage. At the same time, however, this gives golden opportunities for mobile operators, broadband service providers and users in the UK to improve the QoE for personal communications using cognitive transmission in the spectrum TV white spaces. In this context, BT is committed to exploiting the TV spectrum white spaces for providing wireless broadband access for homes in rural areas using cognitive radio (CR) technologies. According to BT, there are 2.75 million customers in rural areas, known as "not-spots" where, as ridiculous as it sounds, have no 3G coverage and Internet service is pretty much limited to dial-up access over residential or business telephone lines. In the "not-spots", the service is less than 2M bps but the TV spectrum white spaces, if utilised properly, can potentially cover more than 25% of the "not-spots" for improved services. The opportunity is that homes in a neighbourhood can share their antennas and signal processing capability to deliver much higher QoE using the spectrum white spaces at no extra cost.This project takes a novel perspective of enhancing the energy and spectrum efficiencies of wireless communications via user cooperation (e.g., multiple homes cooperation), which offers the possibility to improve the channel by sharing the resources between users. This exceptionally challenging objective has the potential to redefine the architecture of wireless networks, provide a novel system solution for extending the coverage and enhancing the QoE of broadband communications. In this project, the PI and BT (as the industrial partner) will join force to address the optimisation problem for cognitive cooperation. Our aim is to tackle the fundamental technical challenges specific to a cooperative MIMO channel. For instance, the required optimisation will need to take into account of individual users' requirements, constraints and fairness issues. Also, the proposed cooperative solution is also required to be robust to imperfect channel state information (CSI) and asynchronousity of the cooperating nodes, and be realised in a distributed manner. BT will be a key partner to provide invaluable inputs on the practical level to ensure that the project deliverables are exploitable. The final outcome of the proposed project will be the technologies for self-optimising cooperative antenna systems which can be used to provide broadband coverage for "not-spot" areas over wireless in the TV spectrum white spaces.