School of Physics, Engineering and Technology

Cognitive Radio for 5G Small Cell Systems employing Smart Antennas

This project will examine how smart antennas can be used for future 5G small cell systems which share pooled spectrum. Spectrum assignment strategies will be developed which take into account time and spatially varying traffic profiles common in small cell systems, through changes in the beam pattern of both transmit and receive antennas. The impact of the degree of control information exchange required, possibly implemented through software defined networking, for systems possibly owned by multiple operators will be addressed. The benefits and drawbacks of such an approach compared with more conventional strategies will be evaluated. A mixture of simulation and analysis will be used to assess performance. Game theory and Markov analysis will be particularly important analytical tools.

Key objectives

To develop radio resource management schemes for 5G small cell networks
To model performance of the schemes
To understand how cognition can be applied to smart antenna systems

Outputs

Radio resource management schemes employing smart antennas
Simulation and analytical results
Contributions to conference and journal papers

Members

Nurul Sidek

David Grace

Dates

Start: May 2013

Research