An integrated program of research is proposed for exploiting all available modes of diversity in the wireless channel. This requires the development of novel antennas for transmitting in diverse modes, digital receivers for exploiting these modes, and dynamic resources allocations for assigning them.

The primary challenges in this research are to manage and exploit the complex and time varying nature of the wireless communication channel, while meeting the power and bandwidth constraints of mobiles, base stations and networks. Hence, the work emphasizes integration of digital receivers for multiaccess communication with smart antennas and dynamic resource allocation. The smart antenna excites the temporal, spatial, and polarizational modes in the wireless channel. The multiuse receiver uses these modes to decode mobile users and to estimate channel parameters, which are used by the dynamic resource allocator to provide the required QoS to end users.

The design of a high frequency (e.g., 30 Ghz), high bandwidth radiating and receiving antenna which is agile in space, time, and polarization will involve numerical modeling, device construction, and testing of a prototype, based on prior experience with millimeter wave lens antennas. The design of multiaccess receivers which exploit available degrees of freedom will be based on actual device characteristics and on realistic scattering models for the channel. These receivers will be designed and implemented in reduced dimension subspaces. These subspaces are generated by resolving the real channel into a parallel combination of virtual diversity channels, using a special canonical space-time coordinate system. The designs will be evaluated using the software radio testbed currently under development at Eurecom.. The innovative aspect of the proposed dynamic network allocation work is the shared use of information at the physical and network layers to jointly optimize the use of channel and network resources for ensuring QoS. Dynamic resource allocation will exploit all the channel modes made available by the antennas and receivers. Estimates of signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) and bit error rate (BER) will be shared between the physical and network layers to dynamically allocate power and bandwidth across different channel modes, while keeping signaling and receiver complexity manageable. This integrated research program will influence the conception, development, and implementation of future wireless communication networks.

A key element of this project is the integration of student and faculty research activities at three universities: the University of Wisconsin, the University of Colorado, and Eurecom in France, the later a recipient of an IEEE Education Award for its innovative integration of mobile wireless, multimedia, and networking. The likelihood of success I this collaborative program is high, because working relationships between the three schools have been established through prior visits, sabbaticals, and collaborations.

The management plan is built around regular visits between laboratories at the participating schools, and joint advising of students working at technology boundaries. The integrated perspective developed in this research program will be incorporated into a new undergraduate wireless communication laboratory, a graduate colloquium course, and a wireless communication reading course. This work will impact the content of existing courses in communications, signal processing, networks, antennas, and electromagnetics. ***

Project Start
Project End
Budget Start
1999-09-15
Budget End
2002-08-31
Support Year
Fiscal Year
1999
Total Cost
$407,432
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Colorado at Boulder
Department
Type
DUNS #
City
Boulder
State
CO
Country
United States
Zip Code
80309