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| CSIRO | SOLVE | Issue 12 | Aug 07 | |
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ARTICLE
COMMUNICATIONS:
Look, No Wires By Nicholas Way
Always on the move, always switched on: CSIRO ’s wireless technologies research is keeping pace with demands for more speed.For many Australians, it took the popular 2000 film The Dish to make them aware of the huge radio telescope at Parkes in central New South Wales. The film, a comedy based on the role played by the Parkes telescope during the 1969 Apollo 11 mission, has made this rural city and the first moon walk synonymous in the public mind.
Today, the Parkes radio telescope remains a very visible manifestation of CSIRO’s long – and internationally recognised – commitment to research in the field of wireless technology. However, the more than 60 researchers and engineers who make up the Wireless Technologies Laboratory at the CSIRO ICT Centre also work across three main science fields covering the entire wireless system: antennas and propagation, microwave and millimetre-wave technologies, and signal processing and communications. Dr Jay Guo, research director of the Wireless Technologies Laboratory, says: “We created one of CSIRO’s most important inventions – a high-speed wireless local area network (WLAN). WLAN devices using CSIRO’s invention are now everywhere. CSIRO invented the system and, with Macquarie University, designed the first effective baseband processor chip to implement it. That design, licensed to Australian company Radiata (subsequently acquired by Cisco for US$300 million in 2000), led to the first demonstration of a chip implementing the standard IEEE 802.11a.” The omnipresence of WLANs — and the size of the industry — shows CSIRO’s contribution to society and the international industry, he says. As do creations by two other groups. “With the invention of corrugated horns, multi-band feed systems and multi-beam antennas, the antennas group has led the world in reflector antenna systems for satellite communications. And the microwave and millimetre-wave group pioneered research into millimetre-wave monolithic integrated circuits (MMIC), especially at 200 GHz frequencies.” More recently, CSIRO has achieved more than six gigabits a second over a point-to-point wireless connection with the highest efficiency (2.4 bits/s/Hz) ever achieved for such a system. Multi-gigabit links operate at speeds that leave current wireless networks for dust. To put their speed into context, the complete works of Shakespeare could be transmitted over this six-gigabit link in four-hundredths of a second, or a full DVD movie in about 34 seconds. “This is the first stage towards direct connections of up to 12 gigabits per second,” Dr Guo says. “The system is suitable for situations where a high-speed link is needed, but it is too expensive or logistically difficult to lay fibre, such as in congested urban environments and across valleys and rivers. It is also ideal for creating networks to meet short-term needs, such as emergencies and large events.” Another breakthrough has been two world-first benchmarks for next-generation WLANs. Researchers have demonstrated a data rate of 600 Mbps on a single user 4x4 multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) system. This is the fastest transmission reported to date using a four-antenna system. They have also set a new performance benchmark for WLANs by allowing four simultaneous users to access a network at its maximum speed. “With users requiring ever more bandwidth, speed and reliability to access, for example, video and audio-based interactive services, the rapid development of the next generation of fast WLANs is imperative,” Dr Guo says. “Users increasingly want mobility with no loss of connectivity – and local area networks will continue to be a key element in maintaining this for consumers and business users of the internet.” The Wireless Technologies Laboratory also has a long history of working with the commercial sector. “We enjoy a long and fruitful collaboration with the wireless industry. At the same time we’ve embarked on a number of new collaborative research programs and projects with companies and research agencies such as NEC, Agere, Foxtel, the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, the joint Australia–New Zealand forestry, wood and paper research organisation Ensis and China Electronic Technology Corporation. The use of wireless technology takes this CSIRO laboratory into areas the public could hardly imagine, as Iain Walker, the laboratory’s business development manager, explains. “Take, for example, mine safety,” he says. “One of the major problems found in mining disasters, such as the Moura coal mine in Queensland and Beaconsfield gold mine in Tasmania, was the need for miners to communicate immediately with rescuers. Both power and communications are typically lost as a result of collapses or explosions, but decisions taken in the initial stages can have a major bearing on a successful rescue. Miners are increasingly wearing personal emergency devices (PEDs) that allow communication from the surface to the miner. Now this pioneering CSIRO technology is being extended to enable two-way communication for the first time.” Dr Guo says past research successes provide the springboard for the Wireless Technologies Laboratory’s projects into the future. “Right now we’re doing research on a cognitive wireless communications network (that is, smart, aware, adaptable). Such a network consists of intelligent nodes with reconfigurable antennas, wideband RF, adaptive signal-processing algorithms and advanced higher-layer protocols. Through cooperation between neighbouring nodes, information is delivered with the minimum cost and guaranteed quality of services. “This means basically that the network is ‘intelligent’,” Dr Guo says. “A user with a mobile device (phone, Blackberry, PDA and so on) would not notice it, but the device would be adapting to available network coverage to get the best access to services.” The laboratory is focusing on:
“The benefits of cognitive wireless communications networks are numerous,” Dr Guo says. “By learning their environment, cognitive wireless networks can dramatically improve link reliability and improve coverage and capacity. True radio interoperability can be achieved when radios learn to autonomously negotiate services and protocols with each other. This means that devices and networks are not centrally managed, but negotiate among themselves to get the job done – so the intelligence is distributed, not centralised.” Cognitive wireless is just another example of the innovation that keeps this CSIRO laboratory at the forefront of international research in wireless technology. “Our scientific and commercial competitive advantages have enabled us to build strong partnerships with the international and national wireless industry and with other research organisations,” Dr Guo says. “With wireless technologies becoming ever more important in so many areas of science, we also form partnerships across CSIRO.”APPLICATION Research in the field of wireless technologies, from the Parkes radio telescope to one of the most important patents in CSIRO’s history, which underpins WLAN standards. BENEFIT Keeping Australia at the forefront of international research in wireless technology, scientifically and commercially. For further information contact: |
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