Thomas Heyn received his degree in electrical engineering (Dipl.-Ing.) from Friedrich-Alexander-University in Erlangen in 1996 and joined Fraunhofer IIS shortly after. He has been working in national and international projects in the area of telecommunication and digital broadcasting systems for contracting authorities as well as industrial partners for more than two decades. He is head of the Connectivity Group within the Broadband and Broadcast Department.

His current research interests include future mobile networks, investigating evolutions of 4G and 5G technologies like Virtual-MIMO concepts, convergence of satellite and terrestrial networks in 5G, industrial communications and connectivity of cars and UAVs.

As a 3GPP delegate for Fraunhofer IIS, his work at first largely revolved around NTN and URLLC. He was one of the first within 3GPP to integrate Non-Terrestrial-Networks and satellite into the new mobile communications standard. Currently Mr. Heyn and his team are pursuing this goal in the 3GPP RAN working groups. Due to his years of satellite experience, he is responsible for the satellite standardization efforts in 3GPP in the ESA project ALIX.

Furthermore, Thomas Heyn was one of the initial driving forces behind Fraunhofer joining OSA (Open Air Interface Software Alliance), realizing the potential an open platform offers for research and development within the 5G context for LTE and New Radio.

The presentation will give an insight on the 3GPP activities to integrate satellite in 5G in 3GPP. RAN working group identified the deployment scenarios and main impact areas, where New Radio has to be adapted for satellite operation. The upcoming Release-17 targets for the specification of New Radio over satellite.