Press Release | ASTRI - Hong Kong Applied Science And Technology Research Institute Company Limited

ASTRI CTO speaks at the Asia Pacific Radio Spectrum Conference 2016 (APRSC 2016)

Asia Pacific Radio Spectrum Conference 2016 (APRSC 2016) with the theme of Sustainable IoT Smart Cities was held on 9 – 10 March 2016. Dr. Meikei Ieong, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of ASTRI was one of the conference speakers and gave a presentation titled “Enabling technologies for IoT and Smart Cities”.

For details of the conference, please refer to: http://sct.ouhk.edu.hk/aprsc2016 (English only)

Dr. Meikei Ieong, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of ASTRI gives a presentation at the Asia Pacific Radio Spectrum Conference 2016

Delegation of Guangzhou Science, Technology and Innovation Commission visits ASTRI

A delegation led by Mr. Zhan De Cun, Deputy Director of Guangzhou Science, Technology and Innovation Commission visited ASTRI on 8 March whereby they learnt about the latest corporate development of ASTRI and shared Guangzhou’s “1+9 policies regarding technology and innovation development. The delegates also visited ASTRI Security Laboratory.

The delegates introduces Guangzhou’s “1+9” policies

The delegates visits ASTRI Security Laboratory

Delegation of Quanzhou Investment Zone for Taiwanese Party Working Committee visits ASTRI

A delegation led by Mr. Wu Hanzong, Secretary of Quanzhou Investment Zone for Taiwanese Party Working Committee visited ASTRI on 8 March to know more about ASTRI and its latest technologies development. Dr. Frank Tong, Chief Executive Officer of ASTRI and Dr. Justin Chuang, Vice-President & Group Director of Communications Technologies cum Acting Director of Software and Systems of ASTRI extended a very warm welcome to the delegation. ASTRI’s colleagues gave an ASTRI overview and a presentation on ASTRI’s technology development area on medical and health.

Dr. Frank Tong, Chief Executive Officer of ASTRI (right) presents souvenir to Mr. Wu Hanzong, Secretary of Quanzhou Investment Zone for Taiwanese Party Working Committee (left).

ASTRI Board appoints new Director

[Hong Kong, 4 March 2016] Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute Company Limited (ASTRI) has announced the appointment of Mr Andy Liu, Vice Chairman of Hong Kong Biotechnology Organization, to the ASTRI Board for a term of two years with effect from 1 March 2016.

Mr Andy Liu has served as President of Asia Pacific and China for IMS Health, a TPG private equity portfolio company focusing on big data healthcare. Mr Liu’s area of focus is commercialisation and M&A. He has extensive experience in healthcare big data and healthcare technologies.

Furthermore, commencing 1 March 2016, three serving Directors of ASTRI, namely Mr Cheng Cheuk-wing, Prof Ching Pak-chung and Mr Ha Yung-kuen have also been re-appointed for another two-year term.

AIR fellows wins top prize in Innovative IT Project Award

Team CheckWave from ASTRI Innovation Runway (AIR) Program has won the top prize in JOS Innovative IT Project Awards with its digital receipt solution via an app platform which is expected to launch in this year.

For more details, please visit:
http://cw.com.hk/news/jos-awards-hk100k-prizes-student-innovators (English)
http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/lifestyle/20160303/00298_001.html (Chinese)

ASTRI and Intel Help Mobile Network Operators Support Small Cell Networks

Network Function Virtualization (NFV) is a major R&D initiative of Networking Software in ASTRI to accelerate network evolution to virtualized network that delivers high performance, high availability and management agility. Intel has invited ASTRI as an Ecosystem partner of the Intel® Network Builders programme which seeks to increase ecosystem alignment, leading to the design of world-class solutions by SDN/NFV vendors.

Leveraging on the Intel® Open Network Platform Server (ONP Server), ASTRI has developed LTE core network solution, consisted of virtualized Small Cell Gateway and virtualized Evolved Packet Core (EPC). The solution gives mobile network operators (MNOs) a flexible and high performance tool to build out dense small cell networks. For details, please visit https://networkbuilders.intel.com/docs/Intel-and-ASTRI-Help-Mobile-Network-Operators-Support-Small-Cell-Networks.pdf.

The solution developed by ASTRI is now showcased in the Network Infrastructure Solutions Library of Intel® https://networkbuilders.intel.com/solutionslibrary. To learn more about Intel® Network Builders, please visit: https://networkbuilders.intel.com.

ASTRI demonstrates next generation Machine Type Communications (MTC) UE solution with Rohde & Schwarz at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2016

(Hong Kong, 22 February 2016) Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) performs a live demonstration of its next generation LTE Machine Type Communications (MTC) UE with the Rohde & Schwarz (R&S) SMW200A vector signal generator at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain.

In the demonstration, a live 3GPP Release 12 TD-LTE Cat. 0 MTC UE data channel is established with ASTRI’s MTC UE receiver. The standard compliant signal is generated by R&S SMW200A vector signal generator with internal LTE-A waveform generator. ASTRI’s UE demodulates the received signal and displays real time statistics on the control computer. The display reveals the advanced performance of ASTRI’s low cost and low power MTC solution based on ASTRI’s commercial LTE terminal technologies. While the next generation MTC standard is still evolving, ASTRI’s MTC solution is developed based on a Software Defined Radio (SDR) platform. The software based design allows fast adaptation to multiple MTC standards, such as eMTC and NB-IoT. ASTRI is developing related architectures and algorithms for potential MTC technologies, such as extended power saving modes, narrow band LTE, GMSK modulation, etc.

ASTRI has been devoted to LTE products research and development since 2008. As one of the leaders in LTE and LTE-Advanced terminal and small cell technologies, ASTRI provides the first market-ready reference design for terminal baseband cores and small cell supporting both TD-LTE and LTE FDD. ASTRI’s LTE technologies have been employed in partners’ chips and system solutions serving public and private network markets. Its core network technology has been successfully transferred to multiple companies. ASTRI is also actively working on the 4.5/5G research and development on different cellular technologies, including Ultra-Density Network (UDN), massive MIMO, Device-to-Device (D2D), Vehicular-to-Everything (V2X), License Assisted Access (LAA), Cloud-RAN etc.

ASTRI’s MTC UE demonstration is carried out at Sunnada booth (Hall 5, Stand 5G70) in MWC Barcelona, 2016, being held at Fira Gran Via, Barcelona, Spain, from 22 to 25 February 2016.

ASTRI’s MTC UE baseband solutions supports.

3GPP release 12 MTC :
Peak data rate reduction
Half duplex
Single antenna receiver
3GPP release 13 eMTC:
Maximum 6 PRB bandwidth
Lower UE power class
Coverage enhancement through small/large number of repetition
Cross-subframe scheduling
M-PDCCH
3GPP release 13 NB-IoT:
Single-tone/Multi-tone transmission for uplink: 3.75kHz, 15kHz
NB-PDCCH, NB-PBCH and NB-PDSCH
NB-PSS, NB-SSS and NB-RS
NB-PUSCH
Pure preamble based PRACH with single-tone transmission

ASTRI and Sunnada jointly demonstrate a series of new LTE solutions at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2016

(Hong Kong, 22 February 2016) Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI), together with Fujian Sunnada Network Technology Co. Ltd., performs a series of live demonstrations of Sunnada’s latest LTE and 5G infrastructure solutions supported by ASTRI’s advanced wireless and network technologies at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona, Spain.

The joint demonstration showcases the latest commercial LTE base stations and network infrastructure technologies. The displays include an end-to-end LTE infrastructure that illustrates a complete LTE infrastructure processing chain consisting of LTE small cell and virtualized LTE EPC, LTE small cell gateway and security gateway.

The key technologies demonstrated include:

Virtualized LTE Evolved Packet Core (EPC), LTE Small Cell and Security Gateway on latest OPNFV platform, with orchestration capability that significantly reduces deployment complexity and time.
AllJoyn-based Smarthome Management System, which supports centralized management and remote status monitoring and control of AllJoyn-enabled home appliances and devices.
LTE NXP B4860 based micro cell, which supports LTE-Advanced with Carrier Aggregation (CA), up to 8 antennas, and up to 3 sectors with 1200 connected users per sectors.
LTE distributed antenna beamforming small cell, which supports coherent joint transmission with up to 64 distributed active antenna units for distributed MIMO applications.
LTE MTC UE reference design, which is a Software Defined Radio (SDR) based MTC baseband solution for different MTC standards including rel. 12 MTC, rel. 13 eMTC and NB-IoT, etc.

Sunnada’s Director Mr. Haven Huang said, “Riding on ASTRI’s advanced technologies, we have been able to open up new solutions in wireless network infrastructure that cater for the needs of our customers. We believe that our close collaboration with ASTRI will bring not only great values but also profound impacts to the industry.”

Dr. Justin Chuang, ASTRI’s Vice President and Group Director of Communications Technologies Group, said, “With the combined strengths of ASTRI and Sunnada, we have successfully developed a good number of highly competitive mobile network products since 2011. We expect that our happy cooperation will go on and on and bring even more ground-breaking technologies in years to come.”

ASTRI has started its collaboration with Sunnada, the China-based wireless network equipment manufacturer and service provider, on commercial TD-LTE small cell and small cell gateway solutions since 2011. The TD-LTE small cells with LTE and WLAN functionality were especially developed for the China market and are ready for deployment test in the mainland and around the world. ASTRI will continue working closely with Sunnada in the joint development of next generation wireless communications technologies.

Sunnada and ASTRI are demonstrating the latest LTE solutions at Sunnada booth (Hall 5, Stand 5G70) at MWC Barcelona, 2016, being held at Fira Gran Via, Barcelona, Spain, from 22 to 25 February 2016.

ASTRI signs Memorandum of Understanding with Fundacio Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC) and CTTC-HK Limited (CTTCHK)

(Hong Kong, 22 February 2016) The Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) has strengthened its collaboration with Fundacio Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya (CTTC) and CTTC-HK Limited (CTTCHK) to jointly participate in 5G R&D projects.

Fifth generation, 5G, mobile communication system is expected to enable new services including enhanced mobile broadband, massive machine type communications, and ultra-reliable and low latency communications. ASTRI and CTTC are actively engaged in 5G R&D in Asia and Europe, respectively. The two organizations sign the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to jointly participate in R&D projects on topics such as 5G air interface designs, 5G hardware and software platforms, and 5G fronthaul and backhaul solutions. This partnership will facilitate ASTRI, CTTC and CTTCHK to reach out to new markets and enhance the commercialization and impact of their technologies.

The MoU was signed by Justin Chuang (Vice President and Group Director of ASTRI), Miguel Angel Lagunas (Director of CTTC), and Albert Sitja (Director of CTTCHK) at the CTTC Barcelona headquarter during the Barcelona Mobile World Congress 2016 study mission co-organized by the Hong Kong Science and Technology Park Corporation and Catalonia Trade & Investment, the public agency that works to attract foreign direct investment to Barcelona and Catalonia.

ASTRI’s 5G R&D focus covers D2D/V2X solutions for enhancing reliability and reducing latency, ultra-dense network (UDN) algorithms and architecture, massive MIMO channel estimation and robust beamforming solutions, and opportunistic spectrum utilization schemes.

ASTRI has striven to develop LTE research since 2008 and has become a leader in LTE and LTE-Advanced small cell and terminal technologies, providing the first market-ready reference design for small cell and terminal baseband cores supporting both TD-LTE and LTE FDD. ASTRI’s LTE technologies have been employed in partners’ chips and system solutions serving public and private network markets. Its core technologies were successfully transferred to multiple companies.

Since 2009, CTTC has been working in several LTE research and development projects in TDD-LTE Physical Layer and LTE network simulation. Currently, CTTC is one of the Spanish research institutions more deeply involved in the development of the future generation of mobile communications 5G and is already working on the 5GPP projects Flex5Gware, FANTASTIC-5G and 5G-Crosshaul.

ASTRI demonstrates industry’s first OPNFV based LTE Core Network Solution with its own FastCloud Orchestrator at Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2016

(Hong Kong, 22 February 2016) Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI) showcases the newly developed virtualized LTE core network solution based on OPNFV (Open Platform for Network Functions Virtualization) with its own FastCloud Orchestrator at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona, Spain.

OPNFV is a new open source project focusing on accelerating Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) evolution on open platform and addressing the needs of communications service providers. ASTRI is the first in the industry to offer OPNFV based LTE core network NFV solution. The virtual Network functions (VNFs) in the NFV solution include: LTE Evolved Packet Core (EPC), LTE Small Cell Gateway, and Security Gateway.

Orchestrator is one of the key enabling technologies in the NFV solution to accelerate and simplify the network provisioning and deployment. ASTRI’s FastCloud Orchestrator can automatically configure various VNFs with just a few clicks, bringing up an end-to-end LTE network in just a few minutes. ASTRI’s FastCloud Orchestrator greatly facilitates the network deployment compared with the traditional non-virtualized network deployment.

ASTRI’s virtualized LTE core network solution is ideal for vertical network applications, such as mobile Internet-of-Things (IoT), and subway deployment etc.

In addition to the OPNFV platform, ASTRI’s NFV solution also supports other platforms including Intel® Open Networking Platform (Intel® ONP).

The demonstration is at Sunnada booth (Hall 5, Stand 5G70) at MWC Barcelona, 2016, being held at Fira Gran Via, Barcelona, Spain, from 22 to 25 February 2016.