Bernhard H. Walke (born 28 July 1940 in Neisse, Upper Silesia) is a pioneer of mobile Internet access and professor emeritus at

RWTH Aachen University RWTH Aachen University (), also known as North Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Rhine-Westphalia Technical University of Aachen, Technical University of Aachen, University of Aachen, or ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hoch ...

in Germany. He is a driver of wireless and mobile 2G to 5G cellular radio networks technologies. In 1985, he proposed a local cellular radio network comprising technologies in use today in 2G, 4G and discussed for 5G systems. For example, self-organization of a radio mesh network, integration of circuit- and packet switching, de-centralized radio resource control, TDMA/ spread spectrum data transmission,

antenna Antenna ( antennas or antennae) may refer to: Science and engineering * Antenna (radio), also known as an aerial, a transducer designed to transmit or receive electromagnetic (e.g., TV or radio) waves * Antennae Galaxies, the name of two collid ...

beam steering Beam steering is a technique for changing the direction of the main lobe of a radiation pattern. In radio and radar systems, beam steering may be accomplished by switching the antenna elements or by changing the relative phases of the RF signa ...

, 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 General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G and 3G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Ins ...

for packet switching in GSM which triggered development of

ETSI The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is an independent, not-for-profit, standardization organization in the field of information and communications. ETSI supports the development and testing of global technical standard ...

standard

GPRS General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G and 3G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Insti ...

. GPRS air-interface protocols follow a 1993 version of CELLPAC. In 1999, he proposed fixed two-hop decode-and-forward relays for cellular radio, now mandatory in standards 3GPP LTE Rel.10 and

IEEE 802.16 IEEE 802.16 is a series of wireless broadband standards written by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). The IEEE Standards Board established a working group in 1999 to develop standards for broadband for wireless metrop ...

.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-Advanced. Radio spectrum requirements for packet-switching mobile radio systems were calculated by World Radio Conference 2007 using a queuing model developed by Walke and his team. Work by Walke and his team on wireless quality of service supporting multi-hop radio networks materialized in standard IEEE

802.11s IEEE 802.11s is a wireless local area network (WLAN) standard and an IEEE 802.11 amendment for mesh networking, defining how wireless devices can interconnect to create a wireless LAN mesh network, which may be used for relatively fixed (not mobile) ...

. Walke earned his Dipl. Ing. (M.Sc.) degree in Electrical Engineering and Data Processing (1965) from

University of Stuttgart The University of Stuttgart (german: Universität Stuttgart) is a leading research university located in Stuttgart, Germany. It was founded in 1829 and is organized into 10 faculties. It is one of the oldest technical universities in Germany wit ...

, 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 in 1983 at

AEG Telefunken Telefunken was a German radio and television apparatus company, founded in Berlin in 1903, as a joint venture of Siemens & Halske and the '' Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft'' (AEG) ('General electricity company'). The name "Telefunken" ap ...

(later taken-over in part by Airbus), he moved to FernUniversität Hagen, Germany, as a professor for data processing techniques. During 1990–2007, he was professor and director of the School of Communications Networks (

ComNets ComNets (''Communication Networks''), a chair of RWTH Aachen University, is a former university department in Germany working on Mobile Communications. Head of ComNets was Bernhard Walke. Research projects are mainly funded by third parties lik ...

) at RWTH Aachen's Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology until 2017 where he was head of the ComNets Research Group.

P3 Solutions and P3 communications

In 2001, Walke, together with his ComNets colleagues Marc Peter Althoff and Peter Seidenberg and the Aachen-based P3 - Ingenieurgesellschaft für Management und Organisation mbH as investor and manager represented through Michael Tobias, was one of the founders of the P3 Solutions GmbH to offer consulting services to mobile network providers and vendors and the public sector, although he didn't play an active role in the day-to-day business of the company. On 31 July 2009, the company absorbed its sister P3 networks GmbH to become P3 communications GmbH. In the 2010s, Walke sold his shares in the company. On 10 January 2019, when the holding company

P3 group GmbH P3, P-3, P.3, or P03 may refer to: Entertainment * ''Persona 3'', a 2006 video game * ''Postal III'', a 2011 video game * Third (Portishead album), ''Third'' (Portishead album), 2008 music album * P3 Club, a fictional nightclub in the television s ...

(the successor of the P3 Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH) split into the Aachen-headquartered (which was renamed into on 25 October 2019 and firms as umlaut SE since 22 October 2020) and the newly founded

P3 global GmbH The P3 Group GmbH is a management consultancy with headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Based on the company's data, more than 1450 employees work for the company, generating a revenue of about 115 million euros. The P3 Group draws its clients ...

based in Stuttgart (which was renamed (back) into on 20 January 2020), the core of the company stayed with umlaut and was renamed into

umlaut communications GmbH Umlaut may refer to: Language and writing * Umlaut (diacritic), a diacritical mark that consists of two dots ( ¨ ) placed over a letter ** Metal umlaut, used in names of heavy metal or hard rock bands for visual rather than phonetic ef ...

. On 14 June 2021, it was announced that umlaut SE would become part of

Accenture Accenture plc is an Irish-American professional services company based in Dublin, specializing in information technology (IT) services and consulting. A ''Fortune'' Global 500 company, it reported revenues of $61.6 billion in 2022. Accentur ...

's Industry X endeavour.

Awards

* IEEE Fellow 2016 "for contributions to packet switching and relaying in cellular mobile systems" * ITG Award 1975 (Best annual paper award of Information Technology Society in VDE (Society of Electrical Engineers) in Germany)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walke, Bernhard H. 1940 births Living people German electrical engineers Academic staff of RWTH Aachen University