SpecEES: Wideband Wireless Communications with Low-Power Transceiver-Cell Circuits

随着世界范围内数据消耗的指数增长，无线通信系统中相应增加的相关功率消耗受到了极大的关注和关注。这项研究工作考察了使用简单的低功率设备发送和接收信号时的无线通信性能技术和限制。由于它们的简单性，这些设备被限制在发送和接收“一位”信息，并且具有极低的功耗。然而，它们中的许多可以以非常高的速度一起使用，从而提供总体较高的有效数据速率。这项工作考察了使用这类设备相对于功能更强大但功耗高得多的传统设备的潜在功率优势。该项目突破了传统线性系统和电路理论的许多领域，并将整合到线性系统、数字信号处理、电路设计和微波工程的本科生和研究生课程中。这些结果将被用来鼓励关于高数据速率如何不需要大量功率预算的讨论。依赖经典线性系统技术的无线通信系统的设计遇到了困难，在20 GHz以上的载波频率和2 GHz以上的带宽上电路的高功耗。收发机链中的线性放大器、混频器和高速模数转换器以及数模转换器变得低效和昂贵。这项研究工作考察了无线通信性能限制和技术，当一个新的能源效率高的“收发信机单元”用于空中接口。该收发信机单元利用其器件和电路中的非线性来获得非常低的功耗，并且在宽带宽和非常高的载波频率的各种技术中易于制造。该小区包括能够调制和解调每个码元的单个比特的发射机和接收机。这一努力具有变革性，因为它通过应用神经网络系统的低功率非线性“计算单元”的概念，着眼于在每个单元的性能与功率受限系统中的单元数量之间的权衡中最大化位/(秒-赫兹-瓦特)。

With the exponential increase in data consumption world-wide, the corresponding increase of associated power consumption in wireless communication systems is receiving significant attention and concern. This research effort examines wireless communication performance techniques and limits when simple low-power devices are used to transmit and receive signals. These devices, because of their simplicity, are constrained to transmit and receive "one bit" of information, and with extremely low power consumption. However, many of them can be used together and at very high speeds, giving an overall high effective data rate. The effort examines the potential power advantages of using such devices over conventional devices that are more capable but have much higher power consumption. The project pushes the boundaries on many areas of traditional linear systems and circuit theory, and will be integrated into undergraduate and graduate course offerings in linear systems, digital signal processing, circuit design, and microwave engineering. The results will be used to encourage discussion about how high data rates need not require a large power budget.The design of wireless communication systems that rely on classical linear-system techniques runs into difficulties with high power-consumption of circuits at carrier frequencies above 20 GHz and with bandwidths above 2 GHz. Linear amplifiers, mixers, and high-speed analog-to-digital converters, and digital-to-analog converters in the transceiver chains become inefficient and expensive. This research effort examines wireless communication performance limits and techniques when a novel energy-efficient "transceiver cell" is used for the air interface. The transceiver cell exploits nonlinearities in its devices and circuits to obtain very low power consumption and ease of fabrication in a variety of technologies for wide bandwidths and at very high carrier frequencies. The cell comprises a transmitter and receiver capable of modulating and demodulating a single bit per symbol. The effort is transformative because it looks at maximizing bits/(second-Hz-Watt) in the trade-off of the performance of each cell versus the number of cells in a power-constrained system, by applying concepts from neural-networking systems of low-power nonlinear ``computational cells''.