End to End Eficiency

The End-to-End Efficiency (E3) project is an ambitious FP7 EC Large Scale Integrating Project (IP) aiming at integrating cognitive wireless systems in the Beyond 3G (B3G) world, evolving current heterogeneous wireless system infrastructures into an integrated, scalable and efficiently managed B3G cognitive system framework. The key objective of the E3 project is to design, develop, prototype and showcase solutions to guarantee interoperability, flexibility and scalability between existing legacy and future wireless systems, manage the overall system complexity, and ensure convergence across access technologies, business domains, regulatory domains and geographical regions.

Cognitive radio systems are seen by many actors of the wireless industry as a core technical evolution towards exploitation of the full potential of B3G systems. It is under way to revolutionise wireless communications just as the PC revolution did in its domain. E3 will ensure seamless access to both applications and services as well as exploitation of the full diversity of corresponding heterogeneous systems, in order to offer an extensive set of operational choices to the users (e.g. seamless experience), application and service providers (e.g. fast deployment of enhanced features and services in reduced time frames), operators (e.g. network management, operation and maintenance), manufacturers (e.g. wider market and migration to new standards) and regulators (e.g. increasing spectrum efficiency). E3 will optimise the use of the radio resources and spectrum, following cognitive radio and cognitive network paradigms (autonomic management, learning, experience, knowledge as well as context, profiles, policies). The management functions will be distributed over different network elements at various levels of the system topology. A corresponding management agility will be required for supporting the most efficient use of the cooperating technologies, at local, regional, and global levels.

E3 will make converge both cognitive radios and cognitive networks from technical, business, regulatory and standardisation perspectives. Consequently, future wireless deployments will be conceived on a fully cognitive system basis. The business models research will permit selection of the most relevant concepts and solutions ensuring development and future deployment of sustainable cognitive radio systems. The regulatory research will further and support the adoption of E3 concepts and solutions in the world radio regions. The research will also help the evolution of the regulatory framework in order to cope with the future development of more flexible spectrum usage (e.g. based on modified administrative mechanisms or market or technology driven), that will only be possible if suitable solutions for managing and controlling complex heterogeneous systems are in place. E3 will build on the IST E2R research results on reconfigurable equipment extending the corresponding concepts towards the design of a wireless cognitive radio system in which network entities will be able to self-adapt to a dynamically changing context (i.e., user traffic demands, etc.). The focus will furthermore be on the evolution of wireless systems in an evolutionary, non-disruptive way, by integrating existing wireless radio standards into a common framework with user devices be able to reconfigure and maintain one or multiple links simultaneously, and contributing to currently active/emerging standardisation bodies with a focus on key convergence enablers. In particular, ongoing standardisation on IMT-Advanced related radio and cognitive systems are targeted, with contributions enabling the convergence towards a future harmonised and interoperable wireless landscape. E3 will devise structuring rules for the definition and design of next generation of various standards (e.g. IEEE 802.16/11, P1900, ETSI, 3GPP....) allowing a seamless use of these standards to fulfil the scenarios of the current definitions of 4G systems at lower cost and complexity, and for a better spectrum efficiency (plug and play “lego blocks” for standards).

For this purpose, the E3 consortium will bring together major key European players in the domain of cognitive radios and networks, self-organisation and end-to-end reconfigurability. E3 will build on several key achievements from the successful FP6 E2R Programme, pursuing research into the most promising directions towards removing walls (current technical and regulatory limitations) and building bridges (technical) in order to facilitate the vision of true end-to-end connectivity. The E3 project addresses the core of the Strategic Objective ICT-2007.1.1 “The Network of the Future” from Challenge 1 “Pervasive and Trusted Network and Service Infrastructures”, and is developed under the FP7 eMobility European Technology Platform (ETP).

Project Website: https://ict-e3.eu/