A technology that could revolutionize the "world" of wireless networks, thanks to the use of ultra-high frequencies, is expected to be presented by Intel at Mobile World Congress.
According to a publication by MIT Technology Review, the company has built a prototype antenna that can be placed on stations the size of a milk carton. This technology – «millimeter wave modular antenna array» – essentially integrates high‑speed «fifth generation» (5G), like those demonstrated last year by researchers at Samsung and New York University, into a small‑size device. The central idea is to cover cities with such devices‑stations (one per two building blocks) that will have the ability to manage large volumes of data over a short range. Each such station will be able to send and receive data at speeds greater than one gigabit per second, within a radius of a few hundred meters, at the moment when today’s standard, 4G LTE, «moves» around 75 megabits per second.
The Intel and Samsung technologies are expected to use frequencies of 28 and 38 gigahertz or higher for mobile communications. These frequencies, known as “millimeter waves,” can carry much more data than those used in today’s mobile networks, but they are easily blocked by interfering objects in the environment, making them impractical for use in mobile devices.
For addressing this problem, processors make dynamic changes to the transmission and sharing of the signal, controlling the direction in which the signal is sent from each antenna, making continuous adjustments according to the changing environmental conditions. Many research groups are working on the development of such systems, however Intel claims that its approach is the most effective.“We can increase the number of antennas as far as we consider it practical to increase transmission and reception sensitivity. The obstacles are regulatory in nature, not technological» says Ali Santri, head of the relevant department at Intel, in MIT Technology Review.
Source: naftemporiki.gr
