TÜBİTAK Supports 5G Project

Under the TÜBİTAK 1001 program, the project of BAU Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences faculty member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alkan Soysal has been granted support with a total budget of 224,696.00 TL.

The project titled "Energy Efficiency in 5G Heterogeneous Cellular Networks", managed and carried out by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Alkan Soysal, received support from TÜBİTAK. The project aims to develop methods and algorithms that will increase the energy efficiency of massive MIMO networks, a 5G technology, under a heterogeneous architecture by solving an analytical optimization problem.

Summary:

Developments in the Information and Communication Technologies sector in recent years have come to occupy a very important place in daily life by responding to the rapidly increasing demand for data rates. However, the amount of carbon that the rapidly developing sector releases into nature is a cause for concern. Restructuring mobile communication infrastructure with environmentally friendly features in order to reduce the amount of carbon released into nature and ensure energy efficiency is an issue emphasized by both academia and industry. Today, 80% of the total energy spent in mobile communication systems is consumed in the radio access network. Methods that save energy at base stations significantly reduce the operating expenses of service providers. Therefore, for reasons of both environmental protection and economics, this project will examine energy efficiency (EE) in 5G heterogeneous cellular networks.

Although the technologies that can meet the requirements of 5G mobile networks have not yet been finalized, research activities on candidate technologies have begun. In this context, the biggest innovation expected in the radio interface is the presence of hundreds and even thousands of antennas at the base stations of 5G mobile networks. The realization of this innovation, known in the literature as massive MIMO, will be possible as antenna sizes shrink to millimeter dimensions and, consequently, carrier frequencies rise to millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies. The use of a very large number of antennas at base stations fundamentally changes the communication models and methods used in previous generations. Our aim in this project is to develop methods and algorithms that will increase the energy efficiency of massive MIMO networks, a 5G technology, under a heterogeneous architecture by solving an analytical optimization problem.