Bernhard Walke

Bernhard Walke (born 28 July 1940) is a pioneer of mobile Internet access^[1] and professor emeritus at RWTH Aachen University in Germany. He is an outstanding driver of wireless and mobile 2G to 5G cellular radio networks technologies. In 1985 he proposed a local cellular radio network^[2] comprising technologies present in 2G to 4G or discussed for 5G systems like self-organization of a radio mesh network, integration of circuit- and packet switching, de-centralized radio resource control, TDMA/spread spectrum information transmission, antenna beam-steering, spatial beam multiplexing, interference coordination, S-Aloha based multiple access and demand assigned traffic channels, mobile broadband transmission using mm-waves, and multi-hop communication.

In 1991 he proposed CELLPAC^[3] for packet switching in GSM which triggered development of standard GPRS. In 1999 he proposed fixed two-hop decode-and-forward relays^[4] for cellular radio, now mandatory in standards 3GPP LTE Rel.10 and IEEE 802.16.1 (mobile broadband WiMAX). The relay concept triggered evolution of cellular radio architecture towards 3GPP LTE Small Cell networks, e.g. femto and pico cells operating like relays on radio resources provided by a donor base station.

The Communications Networks (ComNets) research team in large parts designed the ETSI/BRAN HiperLAN2 medium access control protocol adopted by standard IEEE 802.16 (WiMax) and used as a baseline in 3GPP LTE. Radio spectrum requirements for packet-switching mobile radio systems were calculated by World Radio Conference 2007 using a queuing model^[5] developed by Bernhard and his team. Work by Bernhard and his team on wireless quality of service supporting multi-hop radio networks^[6][7] materialized in standard IEEE 802.11s.

Walke earned his Dipl. Ing. (M.Sc.) degree in Electrical Engineering and Data Processing (1965) from University of Stuttgart, Germany. He worked two years as a Trainee with Telefunken and joined Telefunken Research (1967) where he received his doctorate (1975) from University of Stuttgart. As a department head at AEG Telefunken (now Airbus AG) he switched to FernUniversität Hagen, Germany (1983) as a professor for Data Processing Techniques. During 1990-2007 he was professor and director of the School of Communications Networks (ComNets) at RWTH Aachen' Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology and thereafter (until 2012) head of the ComNets Research Group.

Awards

IEEE Fellow 2016

ITG Award 1975 (Best annual paper award of Information Technology Society in VDE (Society of Electrical Engineers) in Germany)

References

1. Walke, Bernhard: “The roots of GPRS: the first system for mobile packet-based global internet access”, IEEE Wireless Communications, Volume: 20, Issue: 5, Page(s): 12-23, Oct. 2013.
2. B. Walke and R. Briechle, “A Local Cellular Radio Network for Digital Voice and Data transmission at 60 GHz,” Proc. Cellular & Mobile Communications International, London, U.K., Nov. 5–7, 1985, 215–225, http://www.comnets.rwth-aachen.de/publications/complete-lists/abstracts/1985/wabr-85.html
3. B. Walke, W. Mende, G. Hatziliadis: "CELLPAC: A Packet Radio Protocol Applied to the Cellular GSM Mobile Radio Network", In Proceedings of 41st IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference, Page(s): 408-413, St. Louis, Missouri, USA, May 1991.
4. B. Walke, N. Esseling: "Method for the operation of wireless base stations for packet transfer radio systems having a guaranteed service quality", US 7095722 B1.
5. H. Takagi, B. H. Walke: "Spectrum Requirement Planning in Wireless Communications: Model and Methodology for IMT - Advanced", John Wiley & Sons, 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-98647-9.
6. R. Zhao, B. Walke, and G. R. Hiertz: "An efficient IEEE 802.11 ESS mesh network supporting quality of service", IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 24 (11), 2005-2017.
7. G. R. Hiertz, D. Denteneer, S. Max, R. Taori, J. Cardona, L. Berlemann, and B. Walke: "IEEE 802.11s: The WLAN Mesh Standard", IEEE Wireless Communications, February 2010, 104-111.