IEEE P1900.4 System Overview on Architecture and Enablers for Optimised Radio and Spectrum Resource Usage

The field of application of the IEEE P1900.4 standard is radio systems forming a composite radio access network, i.e. with multi-radio access networks (RAN) using different radio access technologies (RAT). The end-user terminals are multimode terminals, supporting several RATs, with multi-radio link capabilities and having cognitive radio capabilities, such as operating flexibly on different frequency bands. The composite radio access network is assumed to be operated by either a single or several operators. Within this field of application, the standard provides common means to improve overall composite capacity and quality of service through distributed optimization of the usage of spectrum and radio resources offered by the composite radio access network. Basically, the optimization relies on a collaborative information exchange between the composite network and terminals. For this purpose, two entities are identified to facilitate this collaboration: network reconfiguration manager (NRM) and terminal reconfiguration manager (TRM), whilst the communication between NRM and TRM is ensured via a logical communication channel, the radio enabler (RE). Accordingly, this paper provides an overview of the IEEE P1900.4 scope and purpose, the reference usage cases wherein the standard would be applicable, including system requirements, architecture, and its reference model with main interfaces linked to the information model that is currently being developed.