The fifth generation, 5G, mobile communications technologies are expected to transform the telecommunications services and networks' business models and respective ecosystems. 5G is transforming networks on five streams: 1) densification by adding millimeter wave small cells in the access network to boost capacity; 2) distribution of radio and core functions, content and services on the edge clouds for pooling gains, low latency, high reliability, security and privacy; 3) decomposition of network functions to lift scalability, programmable transport mesh that interconnects the distributed datacenter infrastructure; 4) softwarization of the network with advances in analytics and machine learning enables high level of automatization in management and orchestration; and 5) virtualization and slicing, utilizing the above capabilities for new service oriented business models. With roots in economics and engineering, platform research has an intrinsically dualistic perspective to business. In the economics tradition platforms have been seen as two- or multi-sided markets connecting supply and demand, whereas in the engineering tradition they have been seen as modular technological designs for facilitating innovation. Platforms and ecosystems can be seen intertwined, as both traditions acknowledge platforms to be consisting of a complex networked/layered system of modular components and interfaces the scope and scale of which go beyond the immediate platform actors. A transformation of business models as well as entire industries from vertical or horizontal linear towards two-sided and networked is ongoing. Furthermore, with the platformization an "oblique" business models are emerging focusing on value sharing through value co-creation and co-capture, while the traditional vertical control-oriented business models have aimed at controlling value creation, and the horizontal business models controlling value capture. As an emerging field, 5G related business models have been discussed to a limited extent in the literature and sharing based platform business models in general have seldom been examined. An essential question is How to understand and capture the role of sharing in the evolution of future platform-based ecosystemic business models in 5G? This study has an intrinsically dualistic perspective to platform business utilizing the 4C ecosystemic framework and the as a Service (aaS) digital service-dominant logic business model typologies. In the 4C business model framework each of the four types of business models have varying value propositions and revenue models: connection (e.g., CBRS), content (e.g., data), context (e.g., search or location), and commerce (e.g., marketplace and platforms). From the ecosystem perspective, the typology can be interpreted as a set of nested layers, where lower layer business models are required as enablers and value levers for the higher layers to exist. On the other hand, in the digital services domain, service oriented business models like infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS) enable a large number of digital service providers to offer a variety of cloud-based services across the cloud stack layers. This research followed a cyclical process of research-oriented action research. The study collected and utilized data from the future-oriented 6G Wireless Summit in Levi in March 2019. The findings demonstrate that in 5G modules can be defined as an add-on software subsystem that connects to the platform to add functionality to the platform defined interfaces as specifications and design rules that describe how the platform and components interact and exchange information using well-documented, and predefined standards like application programming interfaces (APIs). The novelty of this study relates to leveraging two new complementing elements of the platform architecture: data and algorithms. The 5G management and orchestration layer can incorporate an exposure function opening the assets of a network to other service providers like mobile virtual network operators, micro-operators, industry verticals, enterprises and 3rd party applications. Exposing valuable infrastructure and data assets to the developer community through a set of APIs and setting up effective partnerships will allow service providers to grow their businesses by sharing their services with these external partners. Via softwarization and virtualization of network functions and opening of interfaces, sharing economy concepts will be utilized not only at higher platform business layers but widely in network connectivity, spectrum management and radio site domains. Changes in the ownership of spectrum access rights, networks, network resources, facilities and customers will result in several different combinations depending on the situation as different sites have different requirements and infrastructures. 5G system architecture enables different levels of exposure to resources and network functions between business actors and depending on the relationships between business actors and customer there exist different levels of transparency in network resource provisioning and further, different forms of cooperation models. Demands and resources can be brought together through the matching/sharing resource configuration/orchestration roles including different kinds of operators, resource brokers (e.g., Citizens Broadband Radio Service Spectrum Access Systems (CBRS SAS) operators), and various service/application providers such as trust/security providers. Block chain or distributed ledgers technology is attracting high hopes as artificial intelligence (AI) complementing technologies. Without central authority in a distributed manner, this technology allows storing and sharing information that does not change too often giving rise to e.g., new ways of organizing spectrum, network slice and data markets, or helping to maintain trust in an inter-operator setting. Introduced network elasticity and scalability enable network and resource usage adaptation to needed capacity and service levels on demand that, in turn, improves business agility while reducing both capital and operational expenses. Traditionally, the wireless networks context has been dominated by supply side business models while our study anticipates the increase in two- or multisided service oriented business models utilizing sharing economy concepts. Moreover, the CBRS "Spectrum-as-a-Service" (SPaaS) concept was found to leverage all the elements of the extended ecosystemic platform architecture components, interfaces, data and algorithm, in particular through the introduction of SAS and spectrum license marketplace.

Dynamic spectrum sharing with other networks using optimized PHY/MAC layers & guided by Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Santanu Dutta, Gary Churan, Dunmin Zheng Ligado Networks A design approach and simulation results are described for an ad hoc mesh network sharing a common band with other networks. The PHY/MAC layer is optimized for power/bandwidth efficiency over disjoint spectrum. In addition, AI/ML may be used to improve performance by spectrum occupancy prediction, aided by reinforcement learning. The network continuously senses the spectrum occupancy of the shared band and dynamically organizes itself to utilize the unoccupied segments (spectral holes) of the band. The system may be a candidate for unlicensed (GAA) networks in the CBRS band. Another application may be HF, where the band is often very congested with narrowband interference, whose spectrum occupancy changes slowly with time and distance. In addition to autonomous sensing of spectrum holes, a performance advantage may be derived by utilizing feeds from a central controller (if present), such as the Spectrum Access System (SAS) in CBRS, which allocates spectrum resources to the higher priority networks in the shared band. Furthermore, elements of AI/ML may be used to predict where and when spectral holes will appear, so that the network can better deal with rapidly changing spectrum occupancy than is possible from a purely sense-and-avoid approach. The innovations in the proposed system include: (1) Optimal utilization of disjoint spectrum at the PHY/MAC layers, using coherent power integration over frequency (unlike non-coherent integration typically used in frequency hopping systems); (2) Use of interference avoiding CDMA (CDMA-IA) as the multiple access technique, which avoids overlaying power on other networks' spectra, thereby avoiding interference to and from other networks; (3) waveform design based on application of Fountain codes in the frequency domain, which leads to implementation advantages in disjoint spectrum; (4) robust, decentralized control of the network, which reduces latency and improves network efficiency; (5) support of relay function for serving "hidden nodes"; (6) operation on a single band, with no need for paired spectrum to support FDD; (7) Potential for applying Machine Learning to predict occurrence of spectral holes, so that the subject network can better optimize its own spectrum occupancy.

The results of extensive propagation testing in the 3.5 GHz band will be presented. The measurements were obtained in real-world urban/suburban environments, and are directly relevant to network planning and co-existence studies in the new 3.5 GHz CBRS band. The measurements will be compared to predictions using, for example, free space loss and ITM, to show that actual losses are typically much greater than predictions. Various scenarios are investigated, including indoor/outdoor losses, losses in wet/dry weather, seasonal differences, and losses during a significant snow event.

Software Programmable AND Hardware Adaptable: Can You Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too?
Manuel Uhm (Xilinx Inc. & Wireless Innovation Forum, USA)

Heterogeneous processing systems are in vogue for most embedded systems, typically leveraging some combination of general purpose processors, digital signal processors, graphics processors, hardware accelerators and/or FPGA fabric. While this makes sense from a hardware perspective as there is no single processor type that is ideally suited for all algorithms and applications, it can make for an extreme software development challenge as different tools, languages and debug methodologies are often required to program each processor type with no easy way to do system level testing and debugging. Higher levels of abstraction have been touted as a solution to this complex problem, however, the industry has not converged on a single methodology as a typical embedded system could require programming in multiple languages or APIs such as C, C++, Python, VHDL, Verilog, CUDA and/or OpenCL, just to name a few of the more common choices. Since it seems highly unlikely that industry will achieve convergence on this thorny issue, a more logical approach is to embrace multiple levels of abstraction through a unified platform that simplifies development and debugging. This presentation will outline just such an approach using a new category of heterogeneous processor, the Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform (ACAP). Xilinx has launched the first ACAP with a portfolio of heterogeneous processors known as Versal.

CERTIF: Conformity tests on software defined radio platforms
Olivier Kirsch (KEREVAL, France)

In order to facilitate interoperability and portability of software defined radio components, the conformance to SDR standards (including APIs and behavior specifications) is mandatory. Due to the huge number of requirements and to ensure reproducibility of the compliance assessment, a testing methodology has been developed and implemented into the bench CERTIF. Firstly this presentation will summarize briefly the test methodology applied to verify the conformance of a software radio platform to the SDR standards. In a second time we will show all kind of non conformance issues detected by the bench CERTIF on the basis of concrete examples and we will show the reproducibility of the test results. All these cases come from experience feedbacks on the bench. The presentation will be made by Olivier Kirsch, Test project Manager of KEREVAL. KEREVAL is a French testing Lab.

The 5G base station uses Massive MIMO technology in full-fledged manner, and a base station provided with tens to hundreds of antenna elements forms beams for individual terminals in the area to improve power efficiency or to reduce interferences among adjacent base stations. By doing them, installation of higher-density base stations becomes possible, and the transmission capacity per unit area is dramatically improved. However, there is a limit to improve beam accuracy, because digitally controlled analog phase shifters are used for a wide band area reaching 100 MHz to 400 MHz in the case of a millimeter wave band. In order to realize full digital beamforming system, which is essential for performing phase control on OFDM subcarrier basis to achieve much finer beams, the amount of arithmetic processing of the base station is massively increased, and therefore, it is still at the examination stage. In this research, we propose an efficient base station architecture with full digital beamforming. By performing phase control in each OFDM subcarrier unit by baseband digital signal processing for each antenna element, more precise beam forming is enabled, compared to the conventional analog method. In addition to that, we also propose a method of beamforming by resource block units. Linking with resource block allocation of OFDMA, this could be used to maximize the potential of full digital beamforming and dramatically improve space efficiency.

The Federal government is required to operate in a compressed spectrum ranges due to FCC auctions. This presents a risk that a variety of commercial and federal operators will harmfully interfere with each other. The National Advanced Spectrum and Communications Test Network (NASCTN) is a multi-agency-chartered organization that supports the growing need for accurate, reliable, and unbiased measurements and analyses to support increased spectrum sharing by both federal agencies and non-federal spectrum users. This partnership between DoD, NIST, NTIA, NASA, NOAA, and NSF provides unique capabilities and a neutral test organization to tackle difficult and contested measurement problems in shared spectrum. Includes development of new test methodologies, providing trusted validated data in determining levels of interference between Commercial and Federal assets, access to key test facilities, and the ability to operation as a trusted agent to protect proprietary and classified information. Prior projects include LTE impacts on GPS L1 (data accepted by all stakeholders to inform technical discussions of policy), and Aggregate AWS-3 LTE Emissions (informs interference models used by DoD for expedited and expanded entry of commercial deployments into the 1755-1780 MHz band). NASCTN's new 5G Laboratory Testbed is extensible & adaptable to take on today's challenges in Spectrum Sharing, Coexistence, and Interference testing. Capabilities include a complete network infrastructure that hosts a standalone IT network and carrier-grade base stations, support of 5G FR1 andFR2 in addition to 4G LTE, wifi, and GPS, and access to anechoic chambers for OTA measurements.