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The Signal Processing and Communications Group, of the Department of Signal Theory and Communications of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), is leading the European ROCKET project (www.ict-rocket.eu). This project is funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme and is coordinated by Professor Josep Vidal. The project aims to work on two new technologies that will be key to the future WiMax* and LTE* mobile networks: the opportunistic use of frequency bands and the implementation of relay terminals.

Firstly, it has been noted that certain radio spectrum frequencies are underused in certain places and/or at certain times of day. From this scenario the possibility emerges for both mobile terminals and base stations to detect whether it is possible to make use of these bands at their location and thus increase the speed of information transmission.
 
Secondly, the project plans to implement very small and cheap relay terminals to significantly boost the performance of wireless networks without the need to increase the number of large expensive installations on the roofs of buildings, since small relay terminals could be easily installed on traffic signals or street lights. In some cases, users’ mobile telephones and notebook computers themselves could act as relays. This would also mean that users would experience fewer situations of limited access. 

The idea of the project is to engineer wireless communications solutions with the capacity to transmit at more than 100 Mbps and with the possibility of reaching peaks of 1 Gbps. This new technology will benefit all applications requiring a high transmission speed in mobile environments: Internet content downloads, online video games, television on mobile telephones, video calls, etc. The terminals that will benefit most from this new technology, however, will be pocket computers and notebooks, as well as electronic organizers and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants). 

The UPC is the only Spanish university participating in the ROCKET project, which has funding of 3 million euros, as well as the involvement of the University of Aachen (Germany), the University of Surrey (United Kingdom), the Czech Technical University (Czech Republic), the Commisariat à l’Energie Atomique (France) and the companies Motorola Labs, Intracom Telecom Solutions SA, Iber WiFi Exchange SLU and Dune SLR.

*WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access)
*LTE (Long Term Evolution of UMTS)