April 16, 2018
The EU-funded project 5G Crosshaul was successfully completed with a final presentation at imdea Networks in Madrid at the end of March. The Fraunhofer HHI was involved with activities of the departments Wireless Communications and Networks as well as Photonic Networks and Systems in the two and a half year research project.
The project aimed at uniting existing and prospective fronthaul and backhaul data transmissions into a common network. The data transmission is based on SDN/NFV technology, which is able to achieve the 5G RAN target performance at reduced costs.
The contribution of Fraunhofer HHI consisted on the one hand in the development of innovative algorithms for energy savings (EMMA) in novel mmWave meshed networks as well as in the provision of a modern test field for the latest wireless and wired technologies of the project partners by the 5G Berlin initiative. A particular objective on the other hand was to develop novel optical free space link systems for backhaul applications.
“For the first time we were able to test packet-based fronthaul, midhaul and backhaul as well as radio-over-fiber technologies on the same infrastructure. In addition, the LED-based optical backhaul links have shown an impressive connection robustness. Combined with a 60 GHz radio beam, this link showed virtually no failure during a long-term observation and despite adverse winter weather conditions,” said the project coordinators at Fraunhofer HHI Jens Pilz and Anagnostis Paraskevopoulos, commenting on the project completion.
The project had a total budget of approx. 8.5 million Euros. Research institutions such as Carlos III University in Madrid, the Centre Technologic de Telecommunications de Catalunya and the University of Lund were research partners of the project, as well as telecommunications companies such as Nokia, Telecom Italia, NEC and Ericsson. Over 100 scientific publications as well as more than 25 system demonstrations at various events such as MWC, ECOC, or EUCNC prove the success of this project.