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Robert Foster [1] and Deepak Nagarkoti [1] and Ju Gao [1] and Benjamin Vial [1] and Felix Nicholls [2] and Chris Spooner [2] and Sajad Haq [2] and Yang Hao [1]

Academic Editor: Davide Ramaccia

1, School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 4NS, UK, qmul.ac.uk

2, QinetiQ, Cody Technology Park, Ively Road, Farnborough GU14 0LX, UK, qinetiq.com

Received Feb 17, 2017; Accepted Jun 27, 2017

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1. Background and Motivations

The quest for ubiquitous wireless connectivity with ever-increasing data rates has been a feature of the last half century. With the advent of the Internet of Things (IoT) adding huge numbers of devices requiring bandwidth to an already-challenging push for even greater data rates to be supported on personal wireless terminals, considerable research effort is being invested into future wireless networks. High-data rate applications include the streaming of ultrahigh definition video and virtual and augmented reality (e.g., [1, 2]); the use of 60 GHz for these applications is now relatively well-established, with IEEE standards (e.g., 802.15.3c, 802.11ad [3]) well-suited for this aspect of 5G services and networks. Other aspects of 5G development are concerned with serving greater numbers of end-terminals and reducing latency, with some applications in the IoT relevant to this (even when data rate requirements are not severe).

A large number of technologies are being brought together to achieve the various aims for the next generation of wireless networks [4]. This includes the use of small cells (where the density of base stations is increased), cooperative communications (where interference is reduced via communication between nodes, to improve achievable data rates and reliability), carrier aggregation (where bandwidth from disparate channels is combined to meet requirements), and heterogeneous networks (where multiple networks operating at different frequencies and with different modulations, etc., are used). One key technology is massive multi-input-multi-output (M-MIMO) systems, where the number of antennas is increased by at least an order of magnitude (e.g., [5–7]).

One key approach to realise the objectives of future wireless networks is to utilise previously unused parts of the electromagnetic spectrum at...

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