WALTER : Wireless alliances for testing experiment and research

Ultra and Very high speed radio platforms are key developing technologies for emerging applications but raise issues of efficient radio spectrum management, wireless coexistence and interoperability, from the radio physical layers to the media access control layers. Among these broadband radio platforms, Ultra Wide Band (UWB) is a very promising technology for the broadband transmission of data using spectrum-efficient and flexible radio techniques. Initiatives such as the WiMedia Alliance have developed concepts to use UWB as a standard radio platform allowing transport of upper level protocols such as Wireless USB (WUSB), TCP/IP (using the WiMedia Logical Link Control Protocol, WLP) and the next generation of Bluetooth. The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is producing harmonised standards to foster UWB adoption in Europe; nevertheless Europe is still lagging behind the USA and others. If not corrected, this situation could hinder the European innovation potential to develop new applications and services based on extremely high capacity networks. To pursue the needed European standardisation and regulation efforts, while reinforcing the European leadership in the field of wireless networks, a new range of broadband (including UWB) testbeds have to be developed. The WALTER project will address this need and overcome the associated technological issues of measuring ultra-high frequency signals by developing a pan-European interconnected testbed. This testbed will make use of the strong European expertise in conformance and interoperability testing. Based on a deep needs analysis and specifications definition, it will be flexible enough to address both the short-term (industry and regulators) and long-term needs (research communities), while allowing testing of spectrum mitigation techniques. The deployment of these testbeds will be supported by dissemination activities and liaison with international stakeholders. The organisation of two interoperability events will allow a large operational circulation of the project outcomes.