5G Radio Access Network Design - A Brief Overview on the 5G-PPP Project METIS-II

Abstract—The METIS-II project will be an EU-funded project within the 5G Infrastructure Public Private Partnership (5G-PPP) that is dedicated towards an overall 5G radio access network (RAN) design. It will build strongly upon the METIS project, which has laid the foundation for 5G by identifying key scenarios and requirements and determining the most promising technology components and key system design characteristics. However, METIS-II will go significantly further than previous projects by developing a comprehensive and detailed 5G RAN design according to “technology readiness level 2”. This is seen as an especially important step to ensure a timely and efficient standardization of 5G, likely to start in 2016. To achieve this, in addition to the technical work on designing the comprehensive control and user plane of an overall 5G RAN, the METIS-II project has the ambition to actively foster the collaboration within 5G-PPP, for instance by conducting workshops in particular with other projects within the wireless strand, and obtain an early pre-standardization consensus on fundamental design aspects related to the 5G RAN. In this paper, a brief overview on the project is provided, covering the objectives, the consortium composition, project structure and key innovations, as well as the timing and expected impact of the project.