STTR Phase I: A Fully-Digital Transceiver Design for mmWave Communications

这个项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力涵盖了无数领域，包括无线保健、远程教育、供应链管理、公共安全、反贫困倡议、市场和娱乐。然而，这项工作的一个更直接的成果是一个强大的全数字毫米波软件定义无线电(SDR)平台，将以非常实惠的价格向学术研究人员提供；这将刺激进一步的研究，并使毫米波试验台实验可以在资金较少的学术研究团体的能力范围内进行。将这种变革性技术作为未来毫米波无线电的参考设计的雄心勃勃的目标代表着一个巨大的商业机会，这不仅限于蜂窝生态系统(基站、平板电脑和智能手机)，还延伸到汽车、无人机、虚拟现实(VR)耳机等新的互联设备。这个小型企业技术转移(STTR)第一阶段项目专注于为下一代无线系统开发毫米波(毫米波)无线电技术。为了缓解传统蜂窝频段的频谱紧张，并使超高速第五代(5G)蜂窝成为现实，28 GHz以上的毫米波频率是必要的。然而，在这些频率下具有独特挑战性的传播特性要求使用收发信机，这些收发信机不仅在低功率预算下运行，而且提供蜂窝生态系统所需的健壮性。虽然现有的收发信机允许无线电一次仅在一个方向或少量方向上查看(即，发送或接收)，但拟议的收发信机设计允许无线电同时查看所有方向。虽然看似简单，但这种独特的能力--与自上而下的实施相结合？将以合理的功率预算为蜂窝系统提供巨大的好处。这项拟议的技术在毫米波的理论承诺和实际实现之间建立了关键的技术桥梁。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project covers a myriad of domains including wireless health-care, remote education, supply-chain management, public safety, anti-poverty initiatives, market-places, and entertainment. However, a more immediate work product from this effort is a powerful fully-digital mmWave software defined radio (SDR) platform that will be made available to academic researchers at very affordable rates; this will spur further research and make mmWave testbed experimentation within the reach of lightly-funded academic research groups. The ambitious goal of making this transformative technology the reference design of future mmWave radios represents a massive commercial opportunity which is not limited to the cellular ecosystem (base station, tablets and smartphones), but rather extends to new connected players such as cars, drones, virtual reality (VR) headsets and beyond.This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase I project focuses on the development of millimeter-wave (mmWave) radio technologies for next generation wireless systems. The mmWave frequencies of above 28 GHz are necessary to alleviate the spectrum crunch in the traditional cellular bands, and to make ultra-fast 5th Generation (5G) cellular a reality. However, the uniquely challenging propagation characteristics at these frequencies necessitates the use of transceivers that not only operate over low power budgets, but also deliver the robustness that the cellular ecosystem demands. While existing transceivers allow the radio to look (i.e., transmit or receive) in only one direction or a small number of directions at a time, the proposed transceiver design allows the radio to look in all directions simultaneously. While seemingly simple, this unique ability - combined with a top-down implementation ? will provide enormous benefits to cellular systems at reasonable power budgets. The proposed technology forms the key technological bridge between the theoretical promise of mmWave and actually achieving it in the real world.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.