America
New technology for Wi-Fi network developed
New York, March 15
A team of Columbia
University researchers led by an Indian-American engineer has invented a
technology that may double radio frequency data capacity.
The
new "full-duplex radio integrated circuits" (ICs) can be implemented to
enable simultaneous transmission and reception at the same frequency in a
wireless radio.
Up to now, this has been thought to be
impossible: transmitters and receivers either work at different times or
at the same time but at different frequencies.
"This is a game-changer," said associate professor Harish Krishnaswamy who led the team.
"By
leveraging our new technology, networks can effectively double the
frequency spectrum resources available for devices like smartphones and
tablets," Krishnaswamy added.
In the era of Big Data, the current
frequency spectrum crisis is one of the biggest challenges researchers
are grappling with and it is clear that today's wireless networks will
not be able to support tomorrow's data deluge.
Today's standards support 40 different frequency bands, and there is no space left at radio frequencies for future expansion.
At the same time, the grand challenge of the next-generation 5G network is to increase the data capacity by 1,000 times.
So
the ability to have a transmitter and receiver re-use the same
frequency has the potential to immediately double the data capacity of
today's networks.
Krishnaswamy noted that other research groups
and start-up companies have demonstrated the theoretical feasibility of
simultaneous transmission and reception at the same frequency, but no
one has yet been able to build tiny nano-scale ICs with this capability.
"Our work is the first to demonstrate an IC that can receive and transmit simultaneously," he said.
"Doing
this in an IC is critical if we are to have widespread impact and bring
this functionality to hand held devices such as cellular hand-sets,
mobile devices such as tablets for Wi-Fi, and in cellular and Wi-Fi base
stations to support full duplex communications," Krishnaswamy said.
The researchers presented thei