In 6G telecom analysis at present, a vital portion of wi-fi spectrum has been uncared for: the Frequency Range 3, or FR3, band. The shortcoming is partly because of a scarcity of viable software program and {hardware} platforms for learning this area of spectrum, starting from roughly 6 to 24 gigahertz. But a brand new, open-source wi-fi analysis package is altering that equation. And analysis carried out utilizing that package, introduced final week at a number one trade convention, gives proof of viability of this spectrum band for future 6G networks.
In truth, it’s additionally arguably signaling a second of telecom trade re-evaluation. The high-bandwidth 6G future, in line with these of us, might not be fully centered round tough millimeter wave-based applied sciences. Instead, 6G could depart loads of room for higher-bandwidth microwave spectrum tech that’s finally extra acquainted and accessible.
The FR3 band is a area of microwave spectrum simply shy of millimeter-wave frequencies (30 to 300 GHz). FR3 can be already very fashionable at present for satellite tv for pc Internet and army communications. For future 5G and 6G networks to share the FR3 band with incumbent gamers would require telecom networks nimble sufficient to carry out common, rapid-response spectrum-hopping.
Yet spectrum-hopping would possibly nonetheless be a neater downside to unravel than these posed by the inherent bodily shortcomings of some parts of millimeter-wave spectrum—shortcomings that embody restricted vary, poor penetration, line-of-sight operations, greater energy necessities, and susceptibility to climate.
Pi-Radio’s New Face
Earlier this yr, the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based startup Pi-Radio—a by-product from New York University’s Tandon School of Engineering—launched a wi-fi spectrum {hardware} and software program package for telecom analysis and growth. Pi-Radio’s FR-3 is a software-defined radio system developed for the FR3 band particularly, says firm co-founder Sundeep Rangan.
“Software-defined radio is basically a programmable platform to experiment and build any type of wireless technology,” says Rangan, who can be the affiliate director of NYU Wireless. “In the early stages when developing systems, all researchers need these.”
For occasion, the Pi-Radio crew introduced one new analysis discovering that infers path to an FR3 antenna from measurements taken by a cell Pi-Radio receiver—introduced on the IEEE Signal Processing Society‘s Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers in Pacific Grove, Calif. on 30 October.
According to Pi-Radio co-founder Marco Mezzavilla, who’s additionally an affiliate professor on the Polytechnic University of Milan, the early-stage FR3 analysis that the crew introduced at Asilomar will allow researchers “to capture [signal] propagation in these frequencies and will allow us to characterize it, understand it, and model it… And this is the first stepping stone towards designing future wireless systems at these frequencies.”
There’s a great purpose researchers have lately rediscovered FR3, says Paolo Testolina, postdoctoral analysis fellow at Northeastern University’s Institute for the Wireless Internet of Things unaffiliated with the present analysis effort. “The current scarcity of spectrum for communications is driving operators and researchers to look in this band, where they believe it is possible to coexist with the current incumbents,” he says. “Spectrum sharing will be key in this band.”
Rangan notes that the work on which Pi-Radio was constructed has been revealed earlier this yr each on the extra foundational points of constructing networks within the FR3 band in addition to the particular implementation of Pi-Radio’s distinctive, frequency-hopping analysis platform for future wi-fi networks. (Both papers have been revealed in IEEE journals.)
“If you have frequency hopping, that means you can get systems that are resilient to blockage,” Rangan says. “But even, potentially, if it was attacked or compromised in any other way, this could actually open up a new type of dimension that we typically haven’t had in the cellular infrastructure.” The frequency-hopping that FR3 requires for wi-fi communications, in different phrases, may introduce a layer of hack-proofing that may probably strengthen the general community.
Complement, Not Replacement
The Pi-Radio crewstresses, nevertheless, that FR3 wouldn’t supplant or supersede different new segments of wi-fi spectrum. There are, as an example, millimeter wave 5G deployments already underway at present that may little question broaden in scope and efficiency into the 6G future. That stated, the ways in which FR3 broaden future 5G and 6G spectrum utilization is a wholly unwritten chapter: Whether FR3 as a wi-fi spectrum band fizzles, or takes off, or finds a snug place someplace in between relies upon partially on the way it’s researched and developed now, the Pi-Radio crew says.
“We’re at this tipping point where researchers and academics actually are empowered by the combination of this cutting-edge hardware with open-source software,” Mezzavilla says. “And that will enable the testing of new features for communications in these new frequency bands.” (Mezzavilla credit the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for recognizing the potential of FR3, and for funding the group’s analysis.)
By distinction, millimeter-wave 5G and 6G analysis has so far been bolstered, the crew says, by the presence of a variety of millimeter-wave software-defined radio (SDR) programs and different analysis platforms.
“Companies like Qualcomm, Samsung, Nokia, they actually had excellent millimeter wave development platforms,” Rangan says. “But they were in-house. And the effort it took to build one—an SDR at a university lab—was sort of insurmountable.”
So releasing an affordableopen-source SDR within the FR3 band, Mezzavilla says, may bounce begin an entire new wave of 6G analysis.
“This is just the starting point,” Mezzavilla says. “From now on we’re going to build new features—new reference signals, new radio resource control signals, near-field operations… We’re ready to ship these yellow boxes to other academics around the world to test new features and test them quickly, before 6G is even remotely near us.”
This story was up to date on 7 November 2024 to incorporate element about funding from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
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