channel - Advances in Electronics and Telecommunications

ADVANCES IN ELECTRONICS AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS, VOL. 1, NO. 1, APRIL 2010 3
Recent Advances and Future Trends in
Wireless Communications
Note from the Issue Editor
The opening issue of Advances in Electronics and Telecommunications collects
original research contributions in the area of modern radio communications.
It consists of papers authored by the researchers of the NEWCOM++
Network of Excellence in Wireless Communications – the leading European
network in this thematic area – and presents their collective vision on recent
advances and future trends in wireless communications.
NEWCOM++ project (contract no. 216715) is being implemented since
2008 under the European 7th Framework Programme, targeting the objective
ICT-2007.1.1: The Network of the Future, mainly in the direction of
“Ubiquitous network infrastructure and architectures”. The competence of
this network includes topics from the wireless communication system physical
and link layers, medium access control, radio-resource management,
networks and their organization as well as topics concerning cross-layer
design and optimization, related measurements and system validation. The
project addresses also interdisciplinary issues of wireless communication
system design, such as flexible platforms, wireless security, opportunistic
and cognitive wireless access, spectrum and energy-efficiency.
Today, after the second year of NEWCOM++ operation and successful collaboration of its members, effective
reserach-integration mechanisms have been put in motion, thus enabling consollidation of efforts towards the
progress of wireless communications in Europe and world-wide. Some representative results of the NEWCOM++
partners scientific cooperation are presented in this issue.
The issue begins with an invited paper authored by Kostas Stamatiou, John G. Proakis (member of the Advances
in Electronics and Telecommunications Advisory-Board) and James R. Zeidler: “Spatial Multiplexing in Random
Wireless Networks”. The paper considers the performance of various spatial multiplexing techniques, and the
number of streams maximizing the transmission capacity.
The following papers have been co-authored by the NEWCOM++ researchers, presenting their view on future
trends in wireless communications and reporting recent results in the above-mentioned research areas.
The second invited paper in this issue, by Sergio Benedetto (the NEWCOM++ Scientific Director) and Luis
M. Correia, presents “A Vision into Medium-Long Term Research in Wireless Communications”. It summarizes
NEWCOM++ Vision Book, in which the medium- and long-term research tendencies are identified. In particular,
the discussion concerns networks (heterogeneous and opportunistic, cognitive and cooperative, and the ultimate
limits of wireless networks), bandwidth and energy-efficient radio access, multimedia signal processing for
wireless delivery, the so-called hard technologies and Green Communications.
Then, we have a few papers reviewing current trends in the design of wireless communication system hardware
platforms, physical and MAC layers: “A Review of OFDMA and Single-Carrier FDMA and Some Recent Results”
by Cristina Ciochina and Hikmet Sari, “Trends in Adaptive Modulation and Coding” by Andreas Zalonis, Natalia
Miliou, Ioannis Dagres, Andreas Polydoros and Hanna Bogucka, and “Considering Microelectronic Trends in
Advanced Wireless System Design” by Dominique Noguet, Guido Masera, Venkatesh Ramakrishnan, Marc
Belleville, Dominique Morche and Gerd Asheid.
One more contribution considers trends in wireless communications, looking at the needs of modern information
society: “Technology as a Need: Trends in the Evolving Information Society” by Giovanni Emanuele Corazza
and Alessandro Vanelli-Coralli.
The following papers report innovative research results in the area of software-defined, opportunistic and
cognitive radio: “Spectrum Occupancy in Realistic Scenarios and Duty Cycle Model for Cognitive Radio”
by Miguel López-Benítez and Fernando Casadevall, “High-Level Design Methodology for Ultra-Fast Software
Defined Radio Prototyping on Heterogeneous Platforms” by Christophe Moy and Mickaël Raulet, and “Sociability
Based Routing for Environmental Opportunistic Networks” by Roberto Verdone and Flavio Fabbri.
Another group of contributions present scientific results in the area of physical layer algorithmic design:
“Bayesian Foundations of Channel Estimation for Smart Radios” by Romain Couillet, Andrea Ancora and