An Overview of Device-to-Device Communications Technology Components in METIS

As the standardization of network-assisted device-to-device (D2D) communications by the Third Generation Partnership Project progresses, the research community has started to explore the technology potential of new advanced features that will largely impact the performance of 5G networks. For 5G, D2D is becoming an integrative term of emerging technologies that take an advantage of the proximity of communicating entities in licensed and unlicensed spectra. The European 5G research project Mobile and Wireless Communication Enablers for the 2020 Information Society (METIS) has identified advanced D2D as a key enabler for a variety of 5G services, including cellular coverage extension, social proximity, and communicating vehicles. In this paper, we review the METIS D2D technology components in three key areas of proximal communications—network-assisted multi-hop, full-duplex, and multi-antenna D2D communications—and argue that the advantages of properly combining cellular and
ad hoc
technologies help to meet the challenges of the information society beyond 2020.