D-Band radio 5g network technology
Nowadays there is a shared vision among industry, operators and academy that 5G wireless networks will have to provide wideband wireless access and ubiquitous computing anywhere and at any time. The human life of the majority of the EU citizens will be surrounded by intelligent wireless sensors, which will bring radical changes to the way we live and do things. Supporting this scenario is a challenge for network operators and wireless network infrastructures and it will demand a tremendous performance improvement of medium range wireless infrastructure. This challenge needs to be addressed by a convergence of advanced semiconductor nanotechnology and a robust wireless infrastructure based on meshed networks with seamless fiber performances.

The DRAGON project, through the exploitation of the radio spectrum in D-band (130-174.8 GHz) , will overcome the constraints of current E-band wireless backhaul solutions to achieve a small-form factor and high-capacity radio solution, suitable for massive deployment, that will enable bringing the speed of optical systems to backhaul systems in a cost effective way. The DRAGON project vision and objectives rely on a power efficient and silicon based BiCMOS transceiver analog front end, operating in D-band and enabling cost efficient deployment of telecommunications networks with seamless fiber performance. A beam steering integrated antenna array using an intelligent low-cost packaging technology will be developed for the implementation of the 5G network demo trial on field, with fine beam alignment for facilitating the installation and compensating pole vibration.

The DRAGON consortium has a well-balanced and complementary know-how in the relevant areas for designing and demonstrating the feasibility of a small cell cellular network architecture based on meshed D-band backhaul links. DRAGON will therefore secure Europe’s industrial leadership and pave the way towards innovative 5G telecommunications networks.