Riccardo De Gaudenzi

European Space Agency, European Space Technology and Research Center, ESA-ESTEC, The Netherlands

Biography

Riccardo De Gaudenzi received his MsC degree in electronic engineering from the University of Pisa, Italy in 1985 and the PhD from the Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands in 1999. From 1986 to 1988 he was with the European Space Agency (ESA) Ground Stations and Communications Engineering Department. In 1988, he joined ESAs Research and Technology Centre, The Netherlands where he has been covering several technical and managerial positions inside the Directorate of Technology, Engineering and Quality. He is currently the Head of the ESA’s Electrical Engineering Department. The department covers radiofrequency systems and payloads for navigation, telecommunication TT&C and Earth Observation, EEE components and microelectronics, data handling systems, power systems and energy sources, electromagnetic compatibility, space environments and their effects. The department is equipped with state-of-the-art laboratory facilities covering the different technical areas. Dr. De Gaudenzi has contributed to 8 space communication standards, authored or co-authored more than 70 full papers on peer reviewed journals, 3 books, and he holds 28 patents.

Keynote: “Key Challenges for the Satellite Contribution to the 5G and Beyond Non Terrestrial Networks Component”

Recently, the wireless 3GPP community has been opening to the so-called Non Terrestrial Networks (NTN) satellite component in the 5G standardization process. The on-going NTN standardization represents a great opportunity for satellites to provide a complementary role in 5G and beyond networks. However, this opportunity, to which ESA is contributing, comes with a number of unresolved key challenges in particular for applications such as mobile direct access. In fact, while for backhauling and Internet of Things (IoT) applications, satellite technologies are quite mature, for mobile direct access some important technological gaps need to be filled. In this talk, some lessons learned from the past will be recalled before presenting the current satellite telecom landscape. Recalling the 5G and beyond requirements, the key satellite NTN challenges in terms of service, technical, regulatory and business aspects will be surveyed. Particular emphasis will be devoted to space and ground segment technological aspects considered key drivers for achieving adequate NTN performance and cost. It will be shown that the satellite 5G and beyond NTN component has great potential to complement terrestrial networks, also for direct access, provided proper focus and effort is devoted to the timely development of specific key satellite specific technologies on top of the on-going protocol standardization.

All sessions by Riccardo De Gaudenzi

Scientific Session – December 1

01 Dec 2020

14:30 - 18:00