Optimising Resource Efficiency in Future Mobile Communications

移动通信系统的设计(由研究人员)、操作(由运营商)和人们在街上使用变得越来越复杂。移动用户现在希望无论何时何地始终保持连接，并能够以尽可能低的成本访问一系列新服务，以帮助他/她在日常生活中提供帮助。目前，没有人知道如何评估一个制度在这样的规定下是否有效。其原因是涉及的参数数量巨大，这些参数共同影响系统效率。到目前为止，这种做法一直是使用此类参数的子集来定义局部效率--但这不能提供整体效率，也不会导致低成本或SCARE频谱的最佳使用。有三个重要的标准需要一起考虑和设计才能实现高效的移动系统。它们是：所提供服务的质量、容量和系统成本。这些标准中的每一个都分别受到大量参数的影响，其中每个参数具有不同的权重。优化设计需要在三个不同的标准之间找到微妙的平衡，但目前还没有可用的技术来使它们一起优化以提供所需的低成本解决方案。使这一点变得困难的是，移动系统在以下方面本质上是动态的：用户的移动性范围、广泛的操作环境、具有不同比特率和预期质量的广泛服务等。所有这些都指向对具有一定程度的适应性的系统的要求，以便系统能够自组织并适应不断变化的条件。目前，系统的设计和运行或多或少是按照固定的技术和参数进行的。这些问题包括空中接口的设计、媒体接入控制、切换算法、小区大小和固定频带分配，这些都会导致资源浪费和昂贵的解决方案。这里所述的未来移动系统是连续可适应和可重新配置的，并且自动响应环境和用户需求的条件。只有结合这些因素，才能最大限度地提高效率，才能向用户提供所需的低成本新服务。这里描述的研究的挑战是如何共同设计这种非常复杂的网络，以便用户、服务提供商和网络运营商都认为参与未来的移动愿景是高效和经济的。

Mobile communication systems are becoming more and more complex to design (by researchers), operate (by the operators) and used by the people in the street. Mobile users now wish to be always connected, irrespective of time and place, and have access to a range of new services to help him/her in everyday life, all at the lowest possible cost. Currently no one knows how to evaluate whether a system is efficient or not in such provision. The reason for this is the huge number of parameters involved which collectively influence system efficiency. So far the practice has been to use a subset of such parameters to define localised efficiency -- but this does not provide overall efficiency and it will not lead to low cost or optimum use of scare spectrum. There are three important criteria which need to be considered and designed together to achieve a highly efficient mobile system. These are: quality of offered service, capacity and the cost of the system. Each of these criteria are influenced by a large number of parameters individually, where each have different weightings. Optimum design needs to find a fine balance between the three different criteria and yet currently there is no technique available which enables them to be optimised together to provide the required low cost solution. What makes this difficult is that a mobile system is dynamic by nature in terms of: range of mobility of users, wide range of operational environments, wide range of services with different bit rates and expected qualities, etc. This all points to requirements for a system with a certain degree of adaptability so that the system can self-organise and adapt itself to changing conditions. Currently systems are designed and operated on more or less fixed technique and parameters. These include the design of air-interface, media access control, handover algorithms, cell sizes and fixed frequency band allocation which all lead to wastage of resources and expensive solutions. The mobile systems of the future, addressed herein, are continuously adaptable and reconfigurable and respond automatically to the conditions of environments and user demands. It is only by engaging with these factors that efficiency can be maximised and the required low cost new services can be delivered to users. The challenge of the research described herein is how to collectively design such very complex networks so that users, service providers and network operators will all consider it efficient and cost effective to participate in the mobile vision of the future.