Unipi Team Leader: Prof. Giovanni Stea, Dip. di Ingegneria dell’informazione

The overall objective of Flex5Gware is to deliver highly reconfigurable hardware (HW) platforms together with HW-agnostic software (SW) platforms targeting both network elements and devices and taking into account increased capacity, reduced energy footprint, as well as scalability and modularity, to enable a smooth transition from 4G mobile wireless systems to 5G.
As it will be argued in the proposal, this approach will be necessary so that 5G HW/SW platforms can meet the requirements imposed by the anticipated exponential growth in mobile data traffic (1000 fold increase) together with the large diversity of applications (from low bit-rate/power power for M2M to interactive and high resolution applications).

Flex5Gware will adopt a holistic approach performing research and implementations on key building blocks of 5G (and cooperations among them) to provide versatile, flexible, reconfigurable, efficient operations for HW/SW platforms. The development of this concept entails many system design challenges that will be solved through disruptive technologies. E.g., analogue components to enable massive MIMO for mmWave, full duplex (simultaneous transmission and reception) for 5G waveforms, or reconfigurable SW architectures with interface abstractions for flexible control and management mechanisms across heterogeneous wireless devices and access networks.

Flex5Gware will evaluate and demonstrate the developed 5G technologies, in terms of proofs-of-concept, which will be showcased in a demonstration event where all the partners in the consortium will participate. The Flex5Gware consortium includes large industry leaders from infrastructure providers (ALUD, EAB and NEC), semiconductor manufacturers (IMC) and network operators (TI) as well as leading research institutions and academia and is reinforced with the participation of three SMEs. This powerful consortium, together with the measures detailed in the proposal, ensure a huge impact of the Flex5Gware results.

Coordinator
INTEL MOBILE COMMUNICATIONS GMBH (Germany)

Other participants

• ALCATEL-LUCENT DEUTSCHLAND AG (Germany)
• FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FÖRDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E. V. (Germany)
• COMMISSARIAT À L'ÉNERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ÉNERGIES ALTERNATIVES (France)
• SEQUANS COMMUNICATIONS S.A. (France)
• CNIT, CONSORZIO NAZIONALE INTERUNIVERSITARIO PER LE TELECOMUNICAZIONI (Italy)
• TELECOM ITALIA S.P.A. (Italy)
• CENTRE TECNOLÒGIC DE TELECOMUNICACIONS DE CATALUNYA (Spain)
• TECNOLOGÍAS, SERVICIOS TELEMÁTICOS Y SISTEMAS S.A. (Spain)
• CHARLES III UNIVERSITY OF MADRID (Spain)
• ERICSSON AB (Sweden)
• IMINDS ILAB (Belgium)
• KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN (Belgium)
• NEC EUROPE LTD. (United Kingdom)
• TEKNOLOGIAN TUTKIMUSKESKUS VTT (Finland)
• WINGS ICT SOLUTIONS INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES EPE (Greece)

Start date 01/06/2015
End date 31/05/2017
Duration 24 months
Project cost 7.993.586 €
Project funding 7.993.586 €
Unipi quota 111.250 €
Call title H2020-ICT-2014-2
Unipi role Partner

Project website https://flex5gware.eu/