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| CSIRO | SOLVE | Issue 8 | Aug 06 | |
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ARTICLE
WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY:
New Shores Waiting for Net Surfers By Jason Major
Wireless technology has given people the freedom to sit in a shady park or aroma-soaked cafe and access the internet, electronic data or send emails, but today’s technology is limited in its speed, range and reliability. However, the next generation in wireless local area networks (WLAN) is coming and CSIRO scientists are helping set the standard. They recently established a record for data rate transfer speed, boosting the rate from current levels of 54 megabits per second (Mbps) to more than 600 Mbps over a 40 MHz channel. The standard bandwidth used today is 20 MHz, but industry consensus suggests that 40 MHz will be the next-generation WLAN standard. The CSIRO team has also demonstrated a fourfold increase in the number of simultaneous users able to access a WLAN, recently achieving a data transfer rate from a base station to four simultaneous users of 108 Mbps per user – double the speed available to a single user accessing any WLAN available today. The CSIRO team has outpaced the fastest wireless networks A significant point about this technology’s pending arrival is that about 90 per cent of laptops sold today already come equipped with WLAN capabilities, so the market is ready and waiting. Other devices such as hand-held PCs, tablets and mobile phones are rapidly following suit. Also, new applications such as high definition TV and mobile gaming, and combined PC/home entertainment systems with wireless connections, are driving a need for higher data rate WLANs with increased mobility and reliability. CSIRO’s technological innovations will increase the distance a user can be from an access point, improve the reliability through reduced drop-outs, increase the density of users within cells and improve the ability to screen out interference from other nearby WLANs. “CSIRO’s technology might seem futuristic, but it is likely to soon become a necessity,” says Dr Iain Collings, science leader for Communications and Signal Processing at the CSIRO ICT Centre. CSIRO’s WLAN technology is based on what is called a multiple input–multiple output (MIMO) system, which uses multiple antennae connected to the base station or access point. Dr Collings’s team has developed a novel way to use a four-antenna system. It is not the use of four antennae that is the breakthrough. The secret lies in CSIRO’s sophisticated signal processing algorithm. With any MIMO system there are multiple signals coming in and out of the access point antennae. The difficulty has been to distinguish or separate out the individual signals. CSIRO’s algorithm can extract each signal without interference from the other three. “Other MIMO systems exist, but none has achieved this feat,” Dr Collings says.
Future CSIRO WLAN research is focusing on more flexible, ad hoc networks such as Bluetooth and sensor/actuator networks. Applications will include high definition video over wireless internet links for remote sensing, and wireless home entertainment systems. For further information contact: |
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