Frequency Agile Radio (FARAD)

无线通信已经成为我们生活中使用的一项无处不在的技术。在整个社会，人们正在从台式电脑上使用互联网转向智能手机、平板电脑和笔记本电脑。因此，支持我们在线活动的无线数据传输量正在迅速增加。许多类型的传感器、仪表和嵌入式计算机(有时称为机器对机器(M2M)通信)的自动数据共享和收集也有显著增长。移动数据的持续增长对网络运营商来说是一个重大问题。为了应对这一巨大的通信量增长挑战，运营商正在考虑一些潜在的解决方案，其中包括三个主要概念：1.增加无线电频谱的可用性；2.部署异质和小蜂窝网络；以及3.分离控制和业务数据以加强网络管理。该项目将通过研究和开发微型、集成、可重新配置和可调的多频段无线电来解决预期的容量紧张问题，通过研究和开发微型、集成、可重新配置和可调的多频段无线电来实现“频谱敏捷”无线电接入和并行的多频段操作。研究将涉及450至6000 MHz微波频段的无线电系统敏捷性。该项目将包括天线、放大器、滤波器和数字转换器的联合设计，以实现频谱和能源效率高的捷变无线电系统。该项目包括五个主要研究领域：1.可调谐天线和滤波器--研究将重点放在可重构和可调谐天线上，集成滤波器以实现频率选择性和多频段并行运行。发射放大器-基站和手机发射放大器的研究将集中在实现可重新调谐、线性、宽带、节能和并发多频带操作的方法上。3.减少接收器干扰-将提供简单而有效的解决方案，以减少多频段RF接收器链中由RF阻断器引起的有害信号抑制的影响。多频段A/D转换和降低峰均比-研究将集中在开发接收器的并行多频段ADC技术和设计具有显著降低的峰均功率比(PAPR)的信号组。试验台演示：主题1-4将使用硬件在环射频试验台对解决方案进行评估和演示。通过研究频率捷变、并行多频段无线电技术，FARAD将对未来无线电接入网络的增长和新频段的高效使用做出重大贡献。该项目开发的技术和算法将在未来20到30年内实现无线网络的深远功能，帮助解决预期的容量紧张，同时建立无线电收发机设计的新范例。

Wireless communications has become a pervasive technology that we use throughout our lives. Across society, there is a move away from using the internet on desktop computers and towards smartphones, tablets and laptops. Consequently, the amount of wireless data transmission to support our online activities is rapidly increasing. There is also significant growth in automatic data sharing and collection from many types of sensors, meters and embedded computers, sometimes referred to as machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. This continuing growth in mobile data is a significant problem for network operators. In order to meet this enormous traffic growth challenge, operators are considering a number of potential solutions with three leading concepts: 1. increasing the availability of radio spectrum; 2. deploying heterogeneous and small cell networks; and 3. separating control and traffic data for enhanced network management.This project will address the expected capacity crunch by focusing on the RF bottleneck in future heterogeneous wireless networks through researching and developing miniature, integrated, reconfigurable and tuneable, multiband radios to enable 'spectrum agile' radio access and concurrent multiband operation. Research will address the radio system agility across the microwave spectrum bands from 450 to 6000 MHz. The project will embrace the co-design of antennas, amplifiers, filters and digitisers to achieve spectrum and energy efficient frequency agile radio systems. The project consists of five major research areas:1. Tuneable Antennas and Filters - Research will focus on reconfigurable and tuneable antennas with integrated filters to achieve frequency selectivity and concurrent multiband operation.2. Transmit Amplifiers - Research on transmit amplifiers for base stations and handsets will focus on methods to achieve re-tuneable, linear, wideband, power efficient and concurrent multiband operation. 3. Receiver Interference Mitigation - Simple and efficient solutions to reduce the effects of unwanted signal suppression caused by RF blockers in the multiband RF receiver chain will be sought.4. Multiband A/D Conversion & PAPR Reduction - Research will focus on developing concurrent multiband ADC techniques at the receiver and the design of signal sets with significantly reduced peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR).5. Testbed Demonstration: Themes 1-4 will lead to the evaluation and demonstration of solutions using a hardware-in-the-loop RF testbed.By researching a frequency agile, concurrent multiband radio technology FARAD will significantly contribute to the growth of future radio access networks and the use of new spectrum bands in an efficient way. The techniques and algorithms developed in this project will enable far reaching capabilities in wireless networks for the next 20 to 30 years helping to solve the anticipated capacity crunch while establishing a new paradigm in radio transceiver design.