Mobile Broadband Multimedia Networks Techniques, Models and Tools for 4G Edited by Luís Correia

Preface

This books presents the research work of COST 273 Towards Mobile Broadband Multimedia Networks, hence, it reports on the work performed and on the results achieved within the project by its participants. The material presented here corresponds to the results obtained in four years of collaborative work by more than 350 researchers from 137 institutions (universities, operators, manufacturers, regulators, independent laboratories and others – a full list is provided in Appendix B) belonging to 29 countries (mainly European, but also from Asia and North America) in the area of mobile radio. The objective of publishing these results as a book is essentially to make them available to an audience wider than the project. In fact, it just follows a ‘tradition’ of previous COST Actions in this area of telecommunications, i.e. COST 207, 231 and 259.

The main objective of COST 273 was to increase the knowledge on the radio aspects of mobile and wireless broadband multimedia networks, by exploring and developing new methods, models, techniques, strategies and tools towards the implementation of 4th generation mobile and wireless communication systems. As a secondary objective, it was intended that it should continue to play a supporting role similar to the one played by previous Actions in this area, that is, beside giving inputs to the development of systems beyond the 3rd generation, it was also expected that it would contribute to the deployment of systems that are more or less standardised, like UMTS and WLANs.

The structure of the book is based on the structure of the project itself, i.e. chapters are roughly mapped onto part of the work produced in a Working Group. There were a total of three Working Groups: WG1 – Radio System Aspects; WG2 – Propagation and Antennas; WG3 – Radio Network Aspects. A brief description of the project is given in Appendix A, so that readers who are not familiar with the COST framework in general, and with COST 273 in particular, can have a glimpse of it.

Chapters and sections were edited by some of the project’s participants, being based on the contributions that all participants have presented to the project. These contributions were given in the form of Temporary Documents (TDs), to which many references appear in the text. Since they were internal documents, their distribution cannot be carried out without the authors’ permission, which could pose problems for the reader in gaining access to them. To overcome this situation, references to TDs were replaced as much as possible by the corresponding ones in the open literature (e.g. papers in journals and from conferences); nevertheless, any reader interested can have access to the list of TDs and their authors via the project’s web site: http://www.lx.it.pt/cost273 As already mentioned, this book is the result of the work of many colleagues. An acknowledgement is due to all COST 273 participants, and to its management committee, for their effort and contributions; without their continued interest and participation, it would not have been possible to reach the goal of publishing this book. A special thanks is also due to section editors, as well as to all other direct contributors, for volunteering to perform the task of putting together all the information in a uniform and coherent style. A word of recognition is due as well to the colleagues who helped me in the direct management of the project: the first Vice-Chairman, Mr Per Lehne; the current Vice-Chairman, Prof. Narcis Cardona, and the Working Group Chairmen, Prof. Alister Burr, Prof. Ernst Bonek and Prof. Roberto Verdone, who served also as chapter editors, together with Prof. Pierre Degauque; the Sub-Working Group Chairpersons, Prof. Andreas Molish, Prof. Gert Pedersen, Prof. Pertti Vainikainen and Prof. Silvia Ruiz. And definitely last but not the least, the valuable work of Drs Tricia Willink, Jan Sykora and Ja-vornik Tomaz in establishing the guidelines for the writing of all contributions in LaTeX, and of Lúcio Ferreira and Martijn Kuipers in going through the whole manuscript, taking care of all the LaTeX addition tasks, is duly recognised.

Luís M. Correia

(COST 273 Chairman)

Lisbon