I-Corps: NextG Wireless Communications

Award ID: 2243346

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the expansion of wireless communications that are expected to be a valuable resource to wireless network operators and defense contractors. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) auctions valuable airwave licenses that can be used to build faster and more powerful 5G networks. A recent FCC auction raised $22.9 billion. With the proposed technology, wireless network operators may use their most expensive spectrum licenses to double capacity and enable future growth of their customer base and data rate expansions. This I-Corps project is based on the development of technology to expand future wireless networks. The rapid growth in wireless devices has caused a spectral scarcity in sub-6 GHz legacy bands. Although the mm-wave spectrum is abundant and the future of wireless relies on moving to mm-wave bands, the legacy frequencies remain important for communications due to favorable physics for highly scattering urban environments. Consequently, there will always be demand for the sub-6 GHz spectral band from commercial, public safety, and military systems. In-band full duplex (IBFD) radios can simultaneously transmit and receive (STAR) two information-carrying signals over the same bandwidth, thus effectively doubling the bandwidth of operation and the capacity of the wireless channel. IBFD offers an advantage for wireless communications in legacy spectral bands. However, IBFD suffers from self-interference (SI) (shadowing the signal of interest (SOI) due to transmitter signal leakage to the receiver). The IBFD is especially challenging in multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) radios due to mutual coupling (MC) (shadowing the SOI due to transmission from neighboring antenna elements). Practical and low-complex designs capable of performing STAR in MIMO radios are crucial for the future of IBFD. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

NSF Program Director: Ruth Shuman