Overview of the AROMA Project

The provision of beyond 3G (B3G) heterogeneous network topologies is conceptually a very attractive notion; however, it is a challenge to accomplish an efficient network design. A typical heterogeneous scenario is constituted by several Radio Access Technologies (RATs) each having a Radio Access Network (RANs) interfacing a common Core Network (CN). Thus, interworking among heterogeneous RANs leads to a better overall performance than the accumulated performances of the stand-alone systems. This challenge calls for the introduction of new radio resource management (RRM) algorithms operating from a common perspective that take into account the overall amount of resources offered by the available RANs, and therefore are referred as Common Radio Resource Management (CRRM ) algorithms. The objective of the AROMA 1 project is to devise and assess a set of specific resource management strategies and algorithms for both the access and core network part that guarantee the end-to-end QoS in the context of an all-IP heterogeneous network. In order to accomplish the above objectives, the project evolves around two main activities: (1) algorithmic development and simulation by means of advanced simulation tools, and (2) demonstration of the technology by means of implementing real time testbed for proof of the concepts developed in the project.