Internet of Things (IoT)
EURECOM began studying new core and access-network architecture in support of the IoT, especially to cater to low-end and energy-efficient devices, in the context of the LOLA FP7 project where it was project leader. Two national projects, WL-BOX (FUI) and DataTweet (ANR) consider infrastructure elements of machine-type communications (MTC), in particular related to LTE-based gateways for MTC. These are key areas of research today in the context of 5G and a common theme in many of the 5GPPP projects. Several new paradigms for access-stratum protocols for massive numbers of low-cost terminals were considered and integrated in the OAI framework in the context of LOLA and can be exploited to innovation demonstrations in upcoming 5G activities. To this end, EURECOM is currently pursuing the integration new waveforms (UF-OFDM) proposed by Alcatel-Lucent in, to the LTE uplink, while reusing some of the LOLA protocol development. A common experimentation framework for studying coexistence of IoT traffic and broadband traffic in the same cell is planned in the coming months to showcase the efficiency of the new waveform and access-protocols. In the context of NFV and SDN, EURECOM will pursue specific architectural challenges for the support of IoT traffic.