2006-07-12 22:58:37

Wireless communication research, long an area of strength at Virginia Tech, has become a major focus with the creation of one of the largest wireless research groups in the United States.

The new university center encompasses eight centers, groups, and laboratories, including the well-known Center for Wireless Telecommunications, Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG), and Virginia Tech Antenna Group bringing together 27 faculty members and more than 100 graduate students focused on wireless.

W@VTech will continue to perform pioneering research and educate the next generation of wireless engineers, said Jeff Reed, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of W@VTech.. Faculty members' technical expertise ranges from circuits to networks.

Cognitive radio is a major research activity for the new group. Cognitive radio uses PC technology to allow the portable units used by emergency personnel to communicate, even if they are using different systems. The PC-based radio has artificial intelligence that can observe the environment, take action ?such as avoiding interference and enhancing connectivity; and learn, so that continued communication is assured by wirelessly networked intelligent radios. "Cognitive radio will also allow for better management of the spectrum, will enable the TV bands to be refarmed, and will provide a new level of sophistication in unlicensed devices such as ad-hoc video conferencing," said Reed. "Two years ago, we had no projects in this area. Today, half our projects are related to cognitive radio. Such an interdisciplinary area was one example of why it was important to reorganize the pool of resources," he said.

"Interdisciplinary" in this context refers to the concentrations within electrical engineering, such as antenna design, wireless networking, communication architecture, micro-electronics, RF electronics, and system-integration. Disciplines outside of electrical engineering, such as computer science, mathematics, economics, and business, also make up the W@VTech team.

Virginia Tech also has research expertise in physical layer communications, software radios, system prototype development including systems on a chip, and new wireless device technology, and is developing new standards to assure interoperability. A soon-to-be popular example is gigabit per second (Gbps) wireless networks, which Reed calls "the video wallpaper enabler," will receive high data rate video signals regardless of who manufactured the transmitter.

"The wireless technology that people are most familiar is composed of cellular base stations and a large and expensive infrastructure. We are beginning to have wireless devices everywhere. They are cheap and embedded in lots of things, such as for communication between vehicles and traffic lights," Reed said. Such applications require low cost and in some cases high data rate transmission.

Other new wireless areas include radio frequency identification (RF ID) tagging ?a boon for tracking and inventory control - and a new generation of wireless systems to provide both WiFi and cellular-like services at speeds over 200 times today's cellular service.

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