COOPCOM: Cooperative and Opportunistic Communications in Wireless Networks

Cooperation and opportunism are two concepts that have recently revolutionized the way engineers think about wireless system design. Both have their origin at information theoretic studies and target the maximization of the spectral and power efficiency at the system level. Successful incorporation of these concepts in wireless system standards requires the solution of difficult theoretical and practical problems. Consequently, these concepts are expected to be long-term research topics of fundamental nature in the communications area.

Within the frame of this project, it is planned to:

• explore performance limits of cooperative and opportunistic schemes (e.g., information theoretic analysis of combined cooperative-opportunistic schemes, large-system analysis for gain quantification of cooperative schemes) and multiuser diversity with limited feedback;
• develop efficient strategies and coding schemes for cooperative and opportunistic communications, maximizing diversity and coding gain under various operational scenarios (homogeneous versus inhomogeneous channel statistics, full versus partial channel knowledge, codes for a combined cooperative-opportunistic scenario);
• develop efficient resource allocation with limited feedback, including decentralized resource allocation, by targeting the optimal exploitation of various grades of channel information at the transmitters (full, partial, statistical);
• implement selected cooperative and opportunistic schemes on a test-bed, in order to fully understand practical implementation constraints, assess the benefits of cooperation and opportunism in realistic environments, and support proof-of-concept.

The goal is to attain significantly higher aggregate data rates than what is currently envisioned in 4G research, while supporting much tighter QoS guarantees.

The project aims at developing and applying environmentally friendly joint approaches/methods and new techniques in planning and managing historical urban and rural sites in SEE. Its final objective is the elaboration of a shared transferable Environmental Planning Model to be applied to Cultural Heritage (CH) sites in the participating countries and exportable in the SEE area, thus ensuring productive project follow-up and concrete impact.The Project is in line with the recommendations of EU horizontal policies since it has been built with the very objective to introduce and apply sustainable environmental approaches to CH, by linking economic development to preservation of cultural values and using a participatory process which guarantees equal opportunities for participants and avoids discrimination based on religion, gender and culture.