This project is funded under the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, which is designed to provide an opportunity for small business, particularly the small high technology firm, to participate in NSF research. Phase I of the SBIR program serves as a filter to select promising proposals and determine if the firm can do high quality research. Phase II is the principal research project. Phase III is the conversion of the NSF-funded research into commercial applications and technological innovation supported by follow-on private venture capital or other non-federal financing. This Phase I project is researching a novel frequency hopping code division multiple access (FH/CDMA) personal communications network. This mobile cellular communications system, designed to maximize the number of users per cell, can operate in a frequency band containing other users. To maximize the number of users, synchronous FH/CDMA is being employed. Forward error correction and erasure detection and correction are being employed since interference can be detected. Slow and fast hopping is being studied to optimize performance in a multipath environment. Also, standard hopping codes such as PN and Gold are being compared with some new ideas on hop codes such as Reed-Solomon hopping patterns.
