Frequency Agile Radio (FARAD)

无线通信已经成为我们在生活中使用的普遍技术。在整个社会中，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。来自许多类型的传感器、仪表和嵌入式计算机的自动数据共享和收集（有时称为机器对机器（M2M）通信）也有显著增长。这种移动的数据的持续增长对于网络运营商来说是一个重大问题。为了应对这一巨大的流量增长挑战，运营商正在考虑一些潜在的解决方案，其中有三个主要概念：1.增加无线电频谱的可用性; 2.部署异构和小小区网络;以及3.分离控制和流量数据以增强网络管理。该项目将通过研究和开发微型、集成、可重新配置和可调谐的多频段无线电，重点关注未来异构无线网络中的RF瓶颈，以解决预期的容量紧缩问题，以实现“频谱敏捷”无线电接入和并发多频段操作。研究将解决无线电系统在450至6000 MHz微波频段的灵活性问题。该项目将包括天线，放大器，滤波器和数字化器的共同设计，以实现频谱和能源效率的频率捷变无线电系统。该项目包括五个主要研究领域：1。可调谐天线和滤波器-研究将集中在可重新配置和可调谐天线与集成滤波器，以实现频率选择性和并发多频带操作。发射放大器--对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、功率高效和并发多频带操作的方法上。3.接收机干扰缓解-将寻求简单有效的解决方案来减少多频带RF接收机链中RF阻塞器引起的不需要的信号抑制的影响。多频带A/D转换和峰均功率比降低-研究将侧重于在接收机上开发并行多频带ADC技术，以及设计具有显著降低的峰均功率比（PAPR）的信号集。试验台演示：主题1-4将导致使用硬件在环RF测试平台对解决方案进行评估和演示。通过研究频率捷变、并发多频段无线电技术，FARAD将为未来无线电接入网络的发展和有效使用新频段做出重大贡献。该项目开发的技术和算法将在未来20至30年内实现无线网络的广泛功能，帮助解决预期的容量紧缩问题，同时建立无线电收发器设计的新范式。

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.