In the MAGNET PAN concept most of the communication takes place within or between several PANs physically or virtually attached to people. The significant dynamics of the involved peer-to-peer radio communication channel and the varying exposure to interference from other communication systems depending on the actual environment impose requirements on the developed PAN radio access solutions that are new compared to existing radio systems. Considerable differences to existing systems can also be found for the MAC layer. Radio access for neighbouring PANs has to be handled, co-existence has to be ensured and if required, inter PAN connections have to be set up.

In MAGNET Beyond, low-power, low-complexity, spectrum efficient and robust hardware/software solutions are the main goals of the RF, L1 and L2 prototype specification and implementation. However, a good trade-off between complexity on the one hand and performance as well as QoS on the other hand has to be found to meet all MAGNET Beyond requirements. Further (cross-) optimisations will be performed for the specific PAN scenarios, system and user requirements defined in WP1. This also includes cross-system optimisation and adaptation strategies with respect to higher layers, linking up with WP2 through a Reconfiguration Management Plane as illustrated by Figure 6.6.

For the complete PAN system concept, it is envisaged that the very wide range of system QoS requirements will be supported by only two selected air interfaces, FM-UWB and MC-SS, for LDR and HDR applications respectively.

Towards having a full system concept two types of intra- and inter-mode integrations are necessary. The first, intra-mode, integration includes both modules, PHY and MAC as separate entities, and then the cross-optimised PHY-MAC modules, developed in WP3, to be consistently put together to have fully optimised air interface capability. The second, inter-mode, integration will put the selected air interfaces together to form one unified system concept to enable the reciprocal visibility and data exchange between the modes. Also inter-mode integration might need revisions on each mode to allow consistency across the modes.

The performance comparison at PHY/MAC simulation level of the PAN-optimised LDR FM-UWB and HDR MC-SS air-interfaces with legacy and emerging solutions will be performed in typical scenarios specified by the MAGNET system requirements. The reference systems will be the MBOA/WiMedia proposal for HDR and, the existing Bluetooth and emerging IR-UWB proposal for LDR solutions. The results will be provided as possible enhancement solutions to the corresponding emerging PAN PHY/MAC standards.

WP3 will have strong contribution to the MAGNET System Specification activity (A1.1.1), for specification of the interfaces between the developed Air Interface components to be integrated in WP5.

WP3 is divided into the following tasks

• Task 1 PAN Radio Environment Characterisation
• Task 2 Development of Optimised FM-UWB & MC-SS PAN Air Interfaces
• Task3¬ PAN Environment FM-UWB/MC-SS Co-existence and Cross-optimisation
• Task 4 Specifications and Guidelines for RF/PHY/MAC Implementations