The wireless cellular network has been one of the most successful communications technologies of the last three decades. The advent of smartphones and tablets over the past several years has resulted in an explosive growth of data traffic over the cellular network not seen in previous generations. With the proliferation of more smart terminals communicating with servers and each other via broadband wireless networks, numerous new applications have also emerged to take advantage of wireless connectivity. As the fourth generation (4G) networks, namely LTE-A, mature and become great commercial success, the research community is now increasingly looking beyond 4G and into future 5G technologies both in standardization body such as 3GPP, and in research projects such as the EU FP7 METIS. The increased importance of 5G is also evidenced by its central role in the emerging EU Horizon2020 research program in Europe and the recent establishment of the South Korea, China, and Japan joint 5G Forum.

Fundamental requirements that have emerged for radio access networks in the 2020 and beyond era include: 1) Capabilities for supporting massive capacity and massive connectivity; 2) Support for an increasingly diverse set of services, application and users – all with extremely diverging requirements for work and life; 3) Flexible and efficient use of all available non-contiguous spectrum for wildly different network deployment scenarios. These requirements bring a number of challenges to the design of future wireless networks, including the capability of supporting diverse traffic characteristics, massive connectivity due to massive number of devices (including machine-type terminals), and the densification and heterogeneity of such networks.

This workshop will be a venue to brainstorm on and to identify the emerging concepts, technologies, and analytical tools for 5G cellular networks. We aim to bring together leading researchers in both academia and industry, and to provide a forum for researchers from diverse backgrounds to share their views on what 5G should be and to have an open dialogue on the future of wireless research. The goal is to identify key 5G technology drivers that can deliver significant capacity, coverage and user-experience benefits.