I-Corps Teams: Duocon - Advanced Wireless Technology

Regents Of The University Of Michigan - Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor MI

Investigators

Abstract

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is significant since the platform is an enabler of a range of high-speed wireless communications for next generation broadband applications. The next generation of the telecommunication network (5G and beyond) is going to be a technological paradigm shift, which is not only an evolution of the network but also the underlying fabric of an entire ecosystem of fully connected intelligent sensors and devices. 5G is an enabler of many applications and will impact virtually every industry sector, ranging from automotive, manufacturing, healthcare to smart city Internet of Things (IoT) and smart homes. Full realization of the economic growth of 5G, however, will depend on how robustly the network is deployed, and will require different approaches from those used in the past. In order to enable the ten-fold increase in data-rate and capacity, 5G network will heavily rely on advanced wireless technologies. The company's technology platform will solve some of the key challenges of wireless radios and networks, and will pave the way towards the rapid roll-out and growth of 5G, in the global race to get to the 5G first. This I-Corps project aims to enable multi-gigabit wireless communications for the emerging high-speed wireless applications. The core of the company's technology is a high-performance RF front-end, which enables our unique combination of features in our innovative wireless transceiver. The proposed RF front-end is based on novel system-level architectures along with high-performance RF components and sub-systems that are fundamentally different from the existing state-of-the-art fiber-speed wireless modules. To enable realization of the RF front-end, the team is applying a set of innovative design methodologies and technologies to tackle the challenges of the proposed complex RF front-end architectures. The company's RF front-end platform is the core technical contribution and intellectual merit of the approach, which provides the hardware necessary to enable the vision of a truly fiber-speed network with the ultimate network robustness, agility, with significant cost savings for the operators and businesses. 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.