MWC 2023

Fira Gran Via, Barcelona / February 27, 2023 - March 02, 2023

MWC 2023

Booth: 7G31

From February 28th to March 3rd one of the most important events in the mobile technology industry will be held in Barcelona, Spain: The Mobile World Congress (MWC). Fraunhofer will be there, showcasing its technological advancements to leading companies, experts, and enthusiasts from around the world.

Visit us in Hall 7 at booth 7G31, to learn about the latest 5G solutions and their applications, get inspired by our key technologies for 6G, and hear superior, immersive and personalized sound on mobile devices, wireless headsets or soundbars. Step into our soundproof rooms and experience how our AI-based, low complexity algorithms can filter out disturbing noise during audio or video calls.

We look forward to seeing you in Barcelona.

^{MPEG-H Audio: Personalized and Immersive Sound for Broadcast and Streaming}

With MPEG-H, Next Generation Audio is already a reality: Broadcasters and streaming providers around the globe count on it for their services. In Brazil and South Korea, the technology is on the air 24/7 and it is the basis of Sony's immersive 360 Reality Audio music streaming services. The 3D music tracks, available from providers such as Amazon Music, Tidal, nugs.net, and Sony Select, can be enjoyed on mobile devices (with headphones), soundbars, AVRs, smart speakers, and in the car.

Listen to a 3D audio experience that perfectly matches your preferences. With MPEG-H Audio, you can choose from presets or create your own settings. It is now possible, for example, to switch between languages, adjust the volume of a sports commentator, enhance the dialogue, and choose from several audio description options.

^{Fraunhofer Cingo: For Truly Immersive Sound on Headphones}

Cingo brings immersive sound to everyday life through your mobile device. It delivers best-in-class audio quality and is easy on the hardware. This makes it the perfect solution for the DSPs of mobile devices or even headphones, where processing power and power consumption are major concerns. When fed with head tracking-data, Cingo can create an even more realistic 3D sound experience by responding with minimal latency to the user’s head movement. The state-of-the-art binauralizer is the ideal companion for Next Generation Audio codecs such as MPEG-H Audio.

^{The uphear line of Audio Processing Technologies}

The upHear Microphone Processing technology has been designed to improve the audio capturing capabilities of professional and consumer devices (e.g., mobile devices, action and 360° cameras, smart speakers and soundbars, audio and video conferencing solutions) using built-in microphones. By removing undesired noises, interfering sounds, and reverberation from the microphone signals, it extracts desired sounds such as speech and music even in demanding acoustic environments. With deep-learning based AI noise reduction algorithms, it can extract speech while suppressing a large variety of noise types that can occur during audio calls and video recordings in indoor and outdoor situations.

The upHear Spatial Audio Capturing additionally provides immersive spatial sound capturing capabilities for speech and music recordings with compact consumer devices such as action cameras and mobile phones. It can render the recorded audio to various spatial sound formats including channel-based formats and higher-order Ambisonics, while providing robustness against undesired sounds such as background noise and wind.

The upHear Voice Quality Enhancement is an extension of the upHear Microphone Processing technology that enables human-machine interaction and hands-free full duplex voice communication using the built-in microphones of embedded devices. It extracts the user’s voice and improves speech intelligibility in challenging acoustic environments by removing undesired echoes, interfering sounds, and reverberation from the microphone signals.

^{LC3/LC3plus: High-Quality Audio for Bluetooth, VoIP, and DECT}

The new LC3/LC3plus audio codec was jointly developed by Ericsson and Fraunhofer IIS to address the drawbacks of today's wireless communication platforms. The low complexity of the codec meets the requirements of wireless communication platforms such as Bluetooth, DECT, and VoIP terminals. By reducing the required bit rate by about 50 per cent compared to older codecs, LC3 and LC3plus enable energy-saving services that allow for longer battery life or the development of smaller products. Thanks to the flexible codec design, applications are not limited to voice services, but can also be extended to high-quality music streaming. At the same time, the codec operates with low coding delay, low computational complexity, and small memory requirements.

LC3plus has just recently been certified for the Hi-Res Audio Wireless Logo of the Japanese Audio Society.

^{Goodbye to Interrupted or Buffering Audio and Video Streams – thanks to xHE-AAC}

xHE-AAC, the latest generation of the AAC codec family, is the ideal solution for today’s audio and video streaming services – be it movies, music, audiobooks, podcasts or digital radio. With a stereo bitrate range from 12 kbit/s to 500 kbit/s and higher, as well as improved speech quality and stereo imaging, xHE-AAC noticeably improves sound quality. Its mandatory MPEG-D DRC loudness and dynamic range control and seamless bitrate adjustment using DASH and HLS guarantees the best user experience in any playback situation. xHE-AAC decoding is natively supported in Android, Fire OS, iOS, and Windows. At MWC 2023, Fraunhofer shows the latest features: xHE-AAC encoding of live broadcasts and events to complement its existing file-based encoding.

^{Key technologies for your path to 5G Advanced}

Fraunhofer IIS is an internationally recognized partner for 5G technologies and their application. Our mission is to close the gap between research and application.

For this purpose, a unique combination of test center and testbeds was created. This combines research and development work with two testbeds for the most important application areas of 5G Advanced, Industry 4.0 and Automotive.

Fraunhofer IIS's range of services for companies in the field of 5G Advanced ranges from

Training and consulting on the use of 5G Advanced via
Feasibility and technology studies up to
Prototype implementations of application scenarios with 5G Advanced.

In recent years, Fraunhofer IIS has been able to demonstrate RAT-dependent indoor localization with 5G and the integration of satellite communication in 5G for the first time worldwide.

The multi-vendor 5G SA OpenRAN Testbed Industry 4.0 at Fraunhofer IIS is a recommended testbed of the 5G ACIA (5G Alliance for Connected Industries and Automation) for industrial communication and localization with 5G.

You can experience more about 5G Advanced from automotive applications to satellite communications, from high-precision localization in industrial environments to the world of private networks with edge computing at Fraunhofer IIS.

^{Key technologies for your path to 6G}

While the implementation of 5G technologies is still in full swing, research is already underway on the next-generation mobile communications standard. 6G is expected to pave the way for developments in the fields of medicine, Industry 4.0, and the entertainment and automotive sectors. This will enable applications such as virtual reality, digital twins, or autonomous driving to be driven forward, because it is precisely here that the advantages that 6G will bring over its predecessor are essential: extreme reliability, even high data rates, lower latency and the possibility to accurately obtain the location of objects and sense the environment.

To realize the 6G visions, we are developing key technologies for the upcoming mobile communications standard in the “6G SENTINEL” project together with four other Fraunhofer institutes. To ensure data rates and availability, we are working on tapping terahertz frequencies and developing flexible 3D networks. In particular, the inclusion of satellites and flying platforms offers the chance of limitless mobile communications coverage. We are also leveraging our expertise in positioning and sensing so that applications in the field of Industry 4.0 and autonomous driving benefit from an increase in accuracy. Notably, for use cases like “augmented workplace” or for working with the digital twin precise localization of all objects involved in a scenario with high local accuracy, reliability and low latency is crucial. Knowing the radio environment with such a deep insight enhances all aspects of the 6G system. We use our experience and knowledge to accompany our customers with tailored solutions on their path to 6G.

https://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/en/ff/kom/mobile-kom/6g-sentinel.html