Prototyping for End-to-End Reconfigurable Equipment A. Katidiotis, D. Petromanolakis, V. Stavroulaki, P. Demestichas (1) E. Patouni, A. Kousaridas, P. Magdalinos, N. Andriopoulos (2) K. El-Khazen, S. Buljore, P. Roux, C. Beaujean (3) T. Farnham (4) D. Nussbaum (5) A. Kountouris, F. Marx (6) (1) University of Piraeus, Department of Technology Education and Digital Systems, Greece, e-mail: katidiot@unipi.gr (2) Communication Networks Laboratory, Department of Informatics & Telecommunications, University of Athens, Greece e-mail: elenip@di.uoa.gr (3) Motorola Labs, European Communications Research, Gif-sur-Yvette, France, e-mail : karim@motorola.com (4) Toshiba Research Europe Ltd, Bristol, UK. email: Tim.Farnham@toshiba-trel.com (5) Eurecom, France, email : Dominique.Nussbaum@eurecom.fr (5) France Telecom (FTR&D), France, email : apostolos.kountouris@francetelecom.com Abstract— In the current wireless telecommunications world, various heterogeneous access technologies can co-exist in a diversified infrastructure, forming the so-called Composite Radio Environment. Reconfigurability, aims at bringing the full benefits of the valuable diversity within the Composite Radio Environment, by devising reconfigurable devices and supporting system functions to offer an expanded set of operational choices to all business players in the context of heterogeneous mobile radio systems, i.e. users, applications and service providers, operators and regulators. It is obvious that reconfigurability poses new requirements on the management of wireless systems. More specifically, from the equipment point of view, in order to be able to shift across heterogeneous wireless access technologies, dynamically adapting to the optimum RAT, enhanced management and control capabilities are required. In this direction, part of the work in the IST project End-to-End Reconfigurability (E²R) has focused on reconfiguration issues local to the equipment. In order to obtain proof of concept and measurements demonstrating the effectiveness and efficiency of the equipment reconfiguration management and control several individual prototyping activities have taken place. This paper focuses on prototyping activities conducted in the area of equipment reconfiguration management. Index Terms— End-to-End Reconfigurability, Reconfigurable Equipment, Prototype platform I. INTRODUCTION In the current wireless telecommunications world, various heterogeneous access technologies can co-exist in a diversified infrastructure, forming the so-called Composite Radio environment. In Composite Radio systems, different radio networks, such as GPRS, UMTS, WLAN, WMAN, DVB, etc, can be co-operating components of a heterogeneous wireless infrastructure, increasing the efficiency of service provision and the exploitation of available Radio Access Technologies (RATs). Through such Composite Radio systems, users can be directed to alternate RATs, according to service area regions, time zones, profile and network performance criteria. Reconfigurability, aims at bringing the full benefits of the valuable diversity within the Composite Radio Environment, by devising reconfigurable devices and supporting system functions to offer an expanded set of operational choices to all business players in the context of heterogeneous mobile radio systems, i.e. users, applications and service providers, operators and regulators. It is obvious that reconfigurability poses new requirements on the management of wireless systems. More specifically, from the equipment point of view, in order to be able to shift across heterogeneous wireless access technologies, dynamically adapting to the optimum RAT, enhanced management and control capabilities are required. In this direction, part of the work in the IST project E²R [1] has focused on reconfiguration issues local to the equipment. More specifically, a reconfiguration management framework considering architecture, interfaces and functionality, has been developed, and the extensions for execution environments (capable of hosting the reconfiguration management functionality and the flexible protocol stacks) including the development of reliability/security mechanisms for the equipment management have been realised. In order to obtain proof of concept and measurements demonstrating the effectiveness and efficiency of the equipment reconfiguration management and control several individual prototyping activities have taken place. This paper focuses on prototyping activities conducted in the area of equipment reconfiguration management.