The STRIKE project should demonstrate that a capacity increase in terms of number of simultaneous users in the same time at the same frequencies is possible for both the HiperMAN and the HiperLAN standards with minor standard modifications. The impact of this capacity increase on the other network layers will be studied. Novel DLC strategies will be proposed to optimally exploit this new user dimension. The project should also demonstrate the possibility of interworking networks between both broadband standards at the DLC/ MAC layer to guarantee: n high QoS, n streaming applications as foreseen in the 4G roadmap, and n overall coverage. The intrinsic limits of the number of simultaneous users will be provided (depending on the scenarios and the studied standard) as well as complexity issues. The work planned specifically proposes to achieve the following objectives:

• To study novel concepts and methods that offer higher capacity and throughput, bringing advantages in terms of performance, cost and spectrum efficiency to the end user. The gains will be realised through the use of MTMR techniques at the base stations (HIPERMAN/HIPERLAN) and, possibly, at the terminal station. This will allow a cell capacity increase in number of simultaneous transmitted (pre-equalisation) and received (multi-user detection) data flows.

• To evaluate the STRIKE top-level architecture through the investigation of the impact of the MTMR schemes to the Data Link Control layer (DLC).

• To combine fixed BWA with WLAN systems to provide a wireless in-house extension. In this context, different methods for end-to-end QoS provisioning will be investigated.

• To validate these enhanced techniques at frequencies of operation between 3.4-3.6 GHz and 5GHz as specified by ETSI/BRAN HIPERMAN and HIPERLAN, through link and systems simulations, exploiting channel models derived from literature, previous IST-projects and standardization bodies. A demonstrator will be developed to validate the hardware DLC/baseband part of HIPERMAN and the HIPERMAN/HIPERLAN switch ensuring an end-to-end QoS. 

• To promote the STRIKE results at various and key conferences, via the World-Wide-Web and in standardization bodies. A set of recommendations will be made available in the ETSI/BRAN HIPERMAN and HIPERLAN and some contributions will be made to ITU study group 8F, to take into account new transceivers technologies and new higher level network strategies including interworking aspects. To this end, an ETSI HIPERMAN-HIPERLAN interworking committee may be created.

More specifically, the project will develop Digital Signal Processing (DSP) algorithms and evaluate the performance results in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER) and spectrum efficiency. A simulation platform will be built up based upon a signal processing transmitter chain including different multiple antennas configurations. Different algorithms will be investigated and developed to maximize the spectral efficiency and therefore, the capacity of the system. The performance results will then be used to select the most appropriate algorithm for the implementation. The project will implement the PHY-layer enhanced with the selected MTMR techniques. The most promising MTMR technique in terms of capacity increase and/or link reliability will be selected and designed (C- or VHDL-code) before integration on hardware (HW). A HW baseband demonstrator including the MTMR algorithm will be implemented to demonstrate the benefits in capacity increase. The MAC/DLC layer aspects represent one of the major challenges of the STRIKE project. It is indeed crucial that the MAC/DLC layer can support additional sophisticated physical layer techniques as the MTMR techniques introduced at the PHY-layer. As such, the top-level architecture will be simulated and evaluated. The impact of the MTMR schemes on the Data Link Control layer (DLC) will be studied. The performance evaluation will be performed on realistic scenarios defined by operators, and measured in terms of system throughput, data packet latency, and support of applications with different QoS requirements.