EARS: Terabit-per-second Scale Networking: Design to Field Trials, Lab to Tower

William Marsh Rice University, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

The driving vision of this project is to break the Terabit/sec networking barrier through fundamental research, prototype designs, and proof-of-concept field trials. This project will realize the first Tb/sec transmission from a tower to four aggregated clients, each at 300 Gb/sec and 300 meters. The project will simultaneously realize the most diverse spectrum access tower ever deployed, spanning from 500 MHz to 100 GHz. The tower is located in an economically disadvantaged area of Houston, Texas, and will serve the local community. Through Technology For All, the project team has a history of engaging the local community spanning from broadband access to technology training. The project outcomes will provide a template for other communities in the US and globally. This project targets to inform and impact spectrum policy and the FCC via demonstration of novel usage cases of emerging and diverse spectral bands. This project will impact future standards by demonstrating what is feasible in new and diverse bands. This project will impact industry through demonstration of results coupled with the team's extensive collaborative industry network. Finally, the project includes an inter-disciplinary education plan and the team includes multiple Ph.D. students from under-represented groups. The project's objective is to fundamentally advance today's Gb/sec-scale systems and realize terabit-per-second wireless networks for both fixed backhaul and mobile access. Breaking the Tb/sec barrier requires a 100x increase in rate even beyond expected gains realized from 5G advances such as massive MIMO and full duplex. To realize this vision, the project team proposes the following integrated research thrusts. The first project thrust is development and fabrication of a 10,000 element transmit and receive array at 100 GHz. The key technique is a modular digital-to-impulse on chip radiating design that provides unprecedented directivity. Second, the project targets Tb/sec aggregate access to mobile clients by (1) exploiting the properties of spectrum spanning over two orders of magnitude for high-directivity sender-receiver beam alignment and (2) incrementally aggregating polarized clients to enable simultaneous transmission to multiple clients while controlling inter-stream interference. The final project thrust realizes deployment of all system components on a 20 meter urban tower along with multiple client sites. A key outcome will be an extensive measurement campaign of throughput and its underlying determinants in both operational and controlled testing scenarios.