Making strides in 5G technology

Spectrum efficiency measures how much data can successfully be packed into a radio signal transmitted from an antenna.

This 5G technology developed by the researchers is extremely efficient – in fact, the most efficient technology ever when it comes to managing many simultaneous users. The latest world record was set when researchers from Lund and Bristol attained more than 20 times the total data speed of today’s 4G technology, thereby almost doubling the previous record where they, using the same technology, achieved a twelve-fold improvement.

At the end of August researchers from Bristol visited Lund to test how well the technology works when the connected units are mobile.

“The tests we did so far were mostly with stationary users, but of course in reality you move when you use your phone”, said Steffen Malkowsky.

The team also received a number of awards at an event organised by the company National Instruments (NI). There Steffen Malkowsky together with research colleague Paul Harris from the University of Bristol received five separate awards for their research concerning Massive Mimo. They won NI’s Wireless and Mobile Communications category together with NI’s Engineering Grand Challenges Award, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Edgeline Big Analog Data Award, Powered by Xilinx Award, and the 2016 Customer Application of the Year Award.

The tests prove that Massive MIMO is on the way to become key technology for the coming global 5G standards.