Ultra-Wideband Based Next-Generation Wireless Networking

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

The next explosive growth in networks will come from connecting together billions of low cost, low power sensors, effectors, and smart devices. These will be communicating primarily through wireless means for reasons of mobility, ease of deployment, aesthetics, and cost. Even if such networks start out as special purpose local networks, people anticipate that they will come together in many ways. They will certainly be interconnected with each other through gateways to the broader wired Internet. The goal in this proposed project is to find the right architecture to enable Internet-like gains in the new context of wireless connectivity. In order for wireless networks to support a wide range of applications and be suitable for mass deployment, they will need to posses the following characteristics: (1) negligible interference that allows peaceful co-existence with other independent wireless systems operating over the shared spectrum; (2) managing interference between nodes to efficiently and fairly share bandwidth; (3) dynamic and energy efficient routing and packet relaying algorithms that support mobility of network nodes; (4) scalability to support a large number of heterogeneous devices and links; (5) precise positioning capabilities to provide location information for the devices for which this is important; (6) robust and energy efficient network protocols that tolerate failure of some network nodes; (7) extremely low power wireless transceivers to ensure longevity for the energy-limited nodes; and (8) small and low cost wireless transceivers to enable widespread deployment. This proposal is to study the above in the context of ultra-wideband (UWB) wireless signaling and multi-hop routing. Research is intended to achieve multiple objectives, Develop (1) Efficient algorithms to determine the fundamental tradeoffs involved in tracking the positions of devices within a network of heterogeneous nodes; (2) Robust and efficient protocols for routing digital communications within such networks and explore the fundamental capacity limits of such systems; (3) Distributed signal processing algorithms that are network-energy and position aware to take advantage of correlations at the application layer to reduce resource consumption throughout the network hierarchy; (4) Extremely low power, highly integrated single-chip CMOS architecture to UWB transceivers, and (5) An integrated test environment by combining an in-house FPGA-based testbed (as the digital back-end) with UWB analog front-end from AetherWire Inc. This will ultimately have approximately 30 UWB nodes from Aether Wire Inc. to test and therefore further discover issues involved with such networks.