Beyond LTE-Advanced

Our Beyond LTE-A projects are part of a rich pipeline of innovation activities to solve future wireless capacity demands, extend network coverage and improve in-building penetration. These new topologies and spectrally efficient air interface solutions provide fundamental building blocks for future wireless architectures including smaller cells and direct link communications for personal and machine type devices.

InterDigital engineers and university and ecosystem partners are working together in these key areas of Beyond LTE-A technology:

• Cellular Controlled Device-to-Device (D2D) – Next generation topology formed through a “virtual infrastructure” of terminals aims to capture the wireless connection and idle capacity of the billions of wireless devices being used.  Innovations in mesh networking and peer-to-peer communication leverage terminals as helpers and relays to extend reliable coverage in dense urban environments, around obstructions, and indoors;
• Small Cells using Higher Frequency Spectrum – Ultra-dense small cells with millimeter wave spectrum are intended to address future capacity demands and to further exploit broad femto and pico cell deployments;
• Advanced Waveforms – This aims to fully enable Dynamic Spectrum Management (DSM) through spectrally agile waveforms, increasing energy efficiency through joint baseband-radio designs.

 

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InterDigital device-to-device communications technology enhances capacity and coverage in urban environments. In a typical dense urban environment, cellular coverage can be spotty, especially indoors, since most basestations are typically placed at or near intersections where they will provide the greatest coverage to outdoor users. Often coverage can be poor in the center of large structures, as signals may be blocked by concrete and steel. Poor indoor coverage can be solved with additional small cell deployments, but this is costly and sometimes not possible.

That is where device-to-device communications provide a novel approach to solving poor coverage conditions, since users with a strong signal help nearby users with a weak signal — this greatly enhances coverage and restores service for users near the interior of the building. Local traffic can also be offloaded from the network. With InterDigital’s device-to-device technology, coverage and capacity are enhanced 100% or more.