EARS: Collaborative Research: Overcoming Propagation Challenges at Millimeter-Wave Frequencies via Reconfigurable Antennas

尽管毫米波 (mm-wave) 频段的大部分无线电频谱未得到充分利用，但工业界、政府和公众对无线通信系统的需求却越来越高。此类网络系统支持多种用途，例如智能电网电力基础设施、国土安全、军事应用、环境监测以及医疗和交通进步。为了满足需求，蜂窝提供商需要获得更多带宽，这也恰好是他们的主要资本支出。通过更好地利用 30-300 GHz（即毫米波段）的可用频谱，提供商不仅可以提供成本更低的服务，而且还可以为当前客户和服务不足的地区带来革命性的蜂窝接入和覆盖改善。该项目解决了限制毫米波段使用的许多顽固技术障碍。为了克服这些挑战，多学科团队将扩展信号处理、通信理论和电磁学知识，为该频段开发新型可重构天线和通信技术。此外，团队成员之间强大的行业联系将有助于促进商业化。该项目还包括与业界和公众共享毫米波测试台以进行远程测试，以及教育多所大学的学生，特别是加州州立大学贝克斯菲尔德分校的学生，该大学主要为代表性不足的学生服务。该项目的目标是利用新的可重构天线设计提供的额外自由度来建立新的波束成形和波束控制方法，以克服毫米波频率下的实质性传播挑战。该项目还可以对电气工程、计算机和信息科学以及数学和物理科学产生重大影响。结果将包括：(1) 新天线。所提出的可重构天线具有各种状态，每种状态具有变化的和预定义的辐射方向图。因此，它们将支持多个辐射方向图的同时传输，每个辐射方向图都具有较大的方向增益。前者提供波束分集以克服毫米波频率阴影，而后者则减少功率放大器设计限制； (2)新方法。更多的自由度将启用新的预编码、波束成形和波束控制方法，以克服路径损耗、阴影和信道稀疏性； (3) 验证。博伊西州立大学测试台上的结果验证将确保研究人员能够在毫米波频率下的实际硬件和传播设置中实现预期增益； (4)新框架。状态划分多址的新框架将使用各种可重新配置的天线状态及其相应的已知辐射方向图来服务多个用户； （5）专业知识。爱达荷州、加利福尼亚州和威斯康星州四个学术机构的研究人员共享互补的专业知识以及学术和行业经验。

Wireless communication systems are in increasingly high demand among industry, government, and the public, even while a large swath of the radio spectrum in the millimeter-wave (mm-wave) band goes underutilized. Such network systems support diverse uses such as smart grid electrical infrastructure, homeland security, military applications, environmental monitoring, and medical and transportation advances. To meet demand, cellular providers need access to more bandwidth, which also happens to be their primary capital expenditure. By making better use of available spectrum in the 30-300 GHz, i.e., mm-wave band, providers not only could offer less costly service, but also could potentially make transformative cellular access and coverage improvements for current customers and the underserved. This project addresses a number of stubborn technical obstacles limiting mm-wave band use. To overcome these challenges, a multidisciplinary team will extend signal processing, communication theory, and electromagnetics knowledge to develop novel reconfigurable antennas and communication technologies for this band. Further, strong industry connections among team members will help facilitate commercialization. The project also includes goals to share a mm-wave testbed with industry and the public for remote testing, and to educate students at several universities--notably at California State University, Bakersfield, which primarily serves underrepresented students.The project goal is to leverage the additional degrees of freedom provided by a new reconfigurable antenna design to establish new beamforming and beamsteering methodologies that overcome substantive propagation challenges at mm-wave frequencies. The project can also significantly impact electrical engineering, computer and information science, and the mathematical and physical sciences. Outcomes will include: (1) NEW ANTENNAS. The proposed reconfigurable antennas have various states, each with varying and predefined radiation patterns. Hence, they will support simultaneous transmission of multiple radiation patterns, each with large directional gain. The former provides beam diversity to overcome mm-wave frequency shadowing, while the latter reduces power amplifier design constraints; (2) NEW METHODS. More degrees of freedom will enable new precoding, beamforming, and beamsteering approaches to overcome pathloss, shadowing, and channel sparsity; (3) VALIDATION. Outcome validation on the Boise State University testbed will ensure that researchers can realize projected gains in realistic hardware and propagation settings at mm-wave frequencies; (4) NEW FRAMEWORK. A new framework for state division multiple access will use various reconfigurable antenna states and their corresponding known radiation patterns to serve multiple users; (5) EXPERTISE. Investigators across four academic institutions in Idaho, California, and Wisconsin share complementary expertise, and academic and industry experiences.