DYNASAT demonstrated the future of 5G Non-Terrestrial Networks at EuCNC

The DYNASAT project aimed to promote 5G Non-Terrestrial Network (NTN) technologies and demonstrate ways for improving their performance, but how? The first project demonstrations took place at the EuCNC 6G summit on 7–10 June 2022. Read the highlights here!

The DYNASAT project aimed to pave the way for the future of 5G NTNs, related technology development and standardization. It demonstrated selected innovative techniques for satellite architectures to significantly improve the performance of a 5G satellite network infrastructure.

The goal of the project was to show the potential performance benefits of the chosen techniques. This was done by using the software-based demonstration tools developed within the project.

DYNASAT was part of EU Horizon 2020 programme and was operated by six partners: Magister Solutions, University of Bologna, Martel Innovate, Thales Alenia Space France, University of Parma, and Fairspectrum. 

The DYNASAT project started in December 2020 and ran for 28 months, ending in 2023. The project demonstrations were showcased for the first time at the EuCNC 6G summit in June 2022.

Dynamic Spectrum Sharing and Multi Connectivity for 5G Satellite Systems

The demonstration consisted of three sub-demonstrations. The first sub-demonstration was called “Multi connectivity between 5G on-Terrestrial Network (NTN) satellites”. It investigated the possibility of connecting User Equipment to many satellites to improve the connection performance.

The second sub-demonstration investigated the coordinated dynamic spectrum access in hybrid TN and NTN satellite scenarios. The objective was to ensure that the TN and NTN can operate in the same frequency band without interference.

The third sub-demonstration investigated non-coordinated spectrum sharing in hybrid TN and NTN environments. The goal was to be able to deactivate certain satellites in order to ensure the continuity of the TN connections.

Magister SimLab building up the future of the network simulation

The objective of the project was to show the potential performance benefits of the above-mentioned techniques using software-based demonstration tools developed within the project.

Magister was responsible for the first and second sub-demonstrations. They were based on a detailed non-real time network simulator developed for hybrid 5G TN and NTN network scenarios.

Magister SimLab was used to highlight simulation scenarios and main simulation outputs. It was also used for animation-based demonstration, which was used to highlight the main elements of the demonstrated features and their benefits.

While the project was related to 3GPP Release 17 NTNs, it had its eyes on the future:

“NTN multi connectivity is one of the candidate techniques for 3GPP Release 19. Therefore, we’re strongly building a base for the future standardization. Thanks to this project, we at Magister are fortunate to enhance our simulators towards those goals. In addition, we’ve focused on enhancing SimLab’s demonstration abilities and usability”, commented Jani Puttonen, the former CEO of Magister Solutions.

The DYNASAT project gathered feedback on its demonstrations at the EuCNC both from the project group and the audience.

“The feedback gives us guidelines for future developments targeting demonstrations at Mobile World Congress 2023.”

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