I-Corps: All-digital transceivers for millimeter wave communications

这个i-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力几乎涵盖了与下一代移动通信技术相关的所有应用，如联网汽车、无人机、机器人和智能手机。这项无线技术可以通过建立在28 GHz以上的毫米波(MmWave)频谱中运行的更高效和更强大的连接来释放更高频段的真正潜力。由此产生的无线容量的增加和延迟的减少将支持在5G环境下定义的关键用例，如交互式增强现实/虚拟现实(AR/VR)、自动驾驶和无人驾驶机器人。快速无线交换大量信息对AR/VR至关重要，因为它将允许摆脱连接到耳机的电缆，对于自主汽车和机器人系统，因为它将以最小的延迟广播由激光雷达、雷达和摄像机等传感器产生的大量数据，从而使视线之外的视觉成为可能。这个i-Corps项目专注于设计一种用于毫米波通信的全数字收发电台。为了缓解传统蜂窝频段的频谱紧张，并使超高速5G用例成为现实，28 GHz以上的毫米波频率是必要的。然而，要在这些频率上挑战传播特性，就必须使用收发器，这些收发器不仅在低功率预算下运行，而且还能提供无线生态系统所需的稳健性。现有最先进的毫米波模拟收发器无线电在稳健性和功率之间进行了权衡：它们允许无线电一次只能在一个方向或少量方向上发送或接收。相反，这种全数字波束形成技术允许同时查看所有方向，从而实现更高频谱效率和更强大的通信。这一设计的决定性技术特征是每个天线链的信号被独立数字化，而不是现有的技术，来自每个天线的信号首先以模拟方式组合，然后被数字化。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 I-Corps project covers nearly all applications related to next generation mobile communications technologies, such as connected cars, drones, robots, and smartphones. This wireless technology can unlock the true potential of higher frequency bands by establishing more efficient and robust connections that operate in the millimeter Wave (mmWave) spectrum above 28 GHz. The resulting increased wireless capacity and reduced latency will enable the key use cases that have been defined in the context of 5G, such as interactive Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR), autonomous driving, and unmanned robotics. Rapidly exchanging large amount of information wirelessly will be of paramount importance for AR/VR, as it will permit getting rid of the cables connected to the headsets, and for autonomous automotive and robotic systems, as it will enable beyond line-of-sight vision by broadcasting with minimal latency massive amount of data generated by sensors such as lidars, radars, and cameras.This I-Corps project focuses on the design of an all-digital transceiver radio for mmWave communications. The mmWave frequencies of above 28 GHz are necessary to alleviate the spectrum crunch in the traditional cellular bands, and to make ultra-fast 5G use cases a reality. However, 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 wireless ecosystem demands. Existing state-of-the-art mmWave analog transceiver radios trade-off robustness against power: they allow the radio to transmit or receive in only one direction or a small number of directions at a time. Conversely, this all-digital beamforming technology allows to look in all directions simultaneously, resulting in more spectral-efficient and robust communications. The defining technical feature in this design is that the signals from each antenna chain are digitized independently, as opposed to existing techniques where the signals from each antenna are first combined in analog and then digitized.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.