Unmet Need: Wideband interference cancellation for wide modulated bandwidth
The announcement on opening mm-wave bands for 5G by the Federal Communications Commission has intensified research in academia and industry on commercial mobile networks using mm-wave multi input multi output (MIMO) supporting wide channel bandwidths. However, as next-generation networks progress towards ultra-dense small cells, the dramatic shortening of inter-cell distances will result in both line-of-sight and non-line of-sight interference channels. While interference mitigation using electronic phased-arrays has been an active research area, the dense small-cell mobile networks with wide modulated bandwidths and higher data rates impose unique challenges to the front-end hardware that has not been addressed.
The Technology: Wideband spatial interference cancellation using sampled time delay technique
WSU researchers have implemented a wide aperture, high-resolution, true-time-delay technique for addressing wideband spatial interference cancellation in dense networks. Additionally, the technique addresses the beam squint problem in wideband large-scale electronic phased-arrays. This technology will serve the 5G millimeter-wave communication hardware using a small form-factor, precise delays method and very low power consumption compared to state-of-art. The developed technology also includes a method to cancel unwanted co-channel interference that overlap the desired signal completely.
Applications:
• Next-generation satellite industry.
• 5G millimeter-wave communication hardware applications.
• Future ultra-dense small cells for 5G communications.
Advantages:
• Easy augmentation to existing architecture with minimal power or area penalty.
• Largest range/resolution for beamforming.
• Spatial interference cancellation for 100% overlap of interference with the desired signal.
• Digitally tunable delay with 5 ps resolution.