5GNOW: Intermediate frame structure and transceiver concepts

This paper reports intermediate transceiver and frame structure concepts and corresponding results from the European FP7 research project 5GNOW. The core is the unified frame structure concept which supports an integrated 5G air interface, capable of dealing both with broadband data services and small packet services within the same band. It is essential for this concept to introduce waveforms which are more robust than OFDM, e.g., with respect to time-frequency misalignment. Encouraging candidate waveform technologies are presented and discussed with respective results. This goes along with the corresponding multiple access technologies using multi-layered signals and advanced multi-user receivers. In addition we introduce new (compressive) random access strategies to enable "one shot transmission" with greatly reduced control signaling particularly for sporadic traffic by orders of magnitude. Finally, we comment on the recent results on the 5GNOW networking interface. The intermediate results of 5GNOW lay the ground for the standardization path towards a new 5G air interface beyond LTE-A.