More powerful Internet access on airplanes and trains

Chalmers tekniska högskola 30 September, 2009 Others, Science, Technology

This opens up the possibility of using the 60 GHz band for applications requiring rapid data transfer, such as uncompressed transmission of HDTV, fast Internet access for passengers on airplanes and trains, and applications in medical technology and TV studios.

Previous experiments with 60 GHz were based on transmitters and receivers alone. This means that data transmission is disrupted when something passes the antenna lobe, which is not acceptable for wireless networks. Now these scientists have used a technology called Multiple-Input-Multiple-Output, MIMO. With this technology antennas do not need to be lined up and previous problems with shadowing, interference, and blocking are eliminated.

With MIMO technology, several transmitters and receivers are used for transmission of the signal; the same signal is transmitted with a slight time delay to the receiver antennas, with the signal taking different paths. The signals are spliced together using special algorithms in the receiver so that the correct information can be extracted. Through a winning combination of findings from several years of research on MIMO algorithms and baseband electronics, and many years of experience from designing compact multifunctional MMIC (Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuits) for 60 GHz, these scientists have successfully managed to pool their knowledge and construct the MIMO system.

The 60 GHz band is a license-free frequency band with several GHz of bandwidth, which opens up the possibility of wireless communication with transmission speeds of several Gbit per second.

Microwave Electronics Laboratory

For further information, please contact:
Herbert Zirath, Professor of high-speed electronics at the Division of Microwave Electronics at Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg, Sweden.
Phone: +46 (0)31-772 1852
herbert.zirath@chalmers.se

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