Overview

SpectrumX, initiated by a 5-year, $25M center grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), is the world’s largest academic hub where all stakeholders can innovate, collaborate, and contribute to maximizing social welfare of the precious radio spectrum, in the U.S. and around the world. ND Wireless is leading SpectrumX as an outgrowth of its many collaborative research projects on wireless technologies and spectrum management, within the University of Notre Dame as well as with industry and government agency partners.

SpectrumX is conducting strategic research, workforce development, and policy outreach projects to transform spectrum management through flexible licenses, new coexistence approaches, distributed sensing, and cloud automation to fully enable 5G and beyond while expanding diverse commercial, scientific, and government uses of spectrum. The center serves as a trusted resource for all stakeholders in spectrum research and education, balancing interdisciplinary, intercultural, and individual perspectives to develop new technologies, economic analyses, and policy options for spectrum use.

Sponsors and Collaborators

SpectrumX brings together broad and synergistic research capabilities from a team of 41 founding researchers and staff from 27 universities, including 14 minority-serving institutions (MSIs), a key federal research facility, and a pioneering corporate partner; a multitude of relationships across industry, government, and academia; and significant experience in interdisciplinary research collaboration, policy engagement, and educating students at all levels about spectrum use and related topics. The team has a nationwide footprint and actively engages across the radio spectrum ecosystem. SpectrumX is uniquely positioned as the NSF Spectrum Innovation Initiative (SII) Center to engage with key regulatory agencies such as the National Information and Telecommunications Administration (NTIA) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which respectively regulate government and non-government use of spectrum.

More information: http://spectrumx.org/

Get involved: http://spectrumx.org/get-involved/

 

Overview

Fifth-generation cellular network technology (5G) is already here, at least in part. All four major U.S. carriers have rolled out some form of early 5G in the constant race to satisfy public demand for more and better. Consumers want longer battery life, more robust networks, and lower costs for devices and services. They want quicker and more stable access to augmented reality, gaming, and real-time control. In short, they want the next generation of technology before the current one is even mature.

The push for more and better wireless prompted a multi-PI WI team led by Prof. Hochwald to explore the next frontier in wireless communications, specifically millimeter-wave frequencies and gigabit-per-second (Gbps) speeds.  Hochwald and his team are collaborating with researchers from AT&T on a 6G project.  “The project, titled ‘Ultra-low-cost, low-power millimeter-wave transceivers,’” said Hochwald, “is exploring nontraditional, nonlinear radio architectures in order to create electronics and circuits that can be very low-power and low-cost while not compromising data rates or performance.”

According to Hochwald, the high frequencies of millimeter waves can be both a blessing and a curse. There is an abundance of bandwidth available to support high data rates. However, the technology that operates in these bands is costly and consumes large amounts of power. Additionally, millimeter-wave frequencies have trouble penetrating walls and doors and propagating over long distances. For example, handsets that run these frequencies have a very limited range and, often, short battery life.

The project tests theoretical and practical concepts as team members work to build a new functioning communication system. Rather than employing a small number of very highly capable power-hungry circuits, the team is using a large number of simple low-power circuits to achieve their goals. “A key factor in the project,” said Hochwald, “is to exploit nonlinear circuits that have been traditionally avoided in communications systems.”

Recently, real-world measurements using specially designed prototypes developed by Professor Chisum, whose research efforts include millimeter circuits and antennas, and his students in a WI testbed demonstrated the feasibility of this novel project, obtaining very high data rates at very low power. This work was recently published in the IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques (https://doi.org/10.1109/TMTT.2022.3222424) where the design is reported to consume 0.71-mW of power and achieve Gbps data rates with a BER of 1E-3 at a range of 20cm. By including only 11.5dB of RF gain the prototype sustained Gbps data rates with a BER of 1E-5 at 3.7m. The low power consumption and long ranges achieved with this prototype show it is suitable for scaling to hundreds or thousands of elements in massive multi-in–multi-output (MIMO) arrays for next-generation millimeter-wave wireless communications systems.

The Notre Dame Millimeter-Wave Lab is also being used by the team to assess whether the new transceivers can be competitive with other state-of-the-art transceiver circuits in key performance indicators such as throughput, power, and out-of-band emissions.  “We are revisiting many of the basic assumptions of linearity that have traditionally been part of communication system analysis for years.  For example, Professor Laneman, who is also part of the team, is helping with the new nonlinear communication theory that is needed to analyze these low-power circuits,” said Hochwald.

Sponsors and Collaborators

Notre Dame team members include Hochwald; Jonathan Chisum, associate professor of electrical engineering; J. Nicholas Laneman, professor and co-director of the WI and Director of SpectrumX.

Electrical engineering graduate students Himanshu Sharma and Xiangbo Meng are currently working on the project. Former graduate students Nick Estes and Kang Gao (Qualcomm) were involved in the project.

 

Related Publications

Overview

With the exploding use of the radio frequency (RF) spectrum for communications, sensing, positioning, public safety, and defense, there are many science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) career opportunities, across industry and government, for learners who have an integrated understanding of practical radio systems that must operate in the presence of interference. This project focuses on developing educational materials and a low-cost laboratory kit to grow interest in the field and to prepare learners for these exciting and challenging careers. In particular, we aim to provide a solid foundation on the concepts, hardware, and software implementation aspects, testing and debugging, and performance evaluation of radio systems.

Our high-level approach is to modify a junior / senior elective course on communication systems, which is typical in electrical engineering curricula and involves lectures, problem sets, and concept exams. As described further below, we are incorporating three new elements:

• Real-world interference scenarios
• Experiential learning through hands-on laboratory exercises
• Competition and red teaming

In addition to course development, we are conducting formal course assessment to confirm that these elements contribute to student interest, confidence, and efficacy.

Real-World Interference Scenarios

All aspects of modern life have become increasingly dependent on the RF spectrum. The most visible examples are terrestrial and satellite communication networks that employ the latest global technology standards (5G NR, WiFi 6E), but there are many other use cases that are critical to our economy and national security, such as environmental sensing (NOAA satellites), positioning and timing (GPS system), and military communications and electronic defense. These applications require radios and system designs that can operate in the presence of interference in congested, and in some cases contested, spectrum environments.

Experiential Learning through Hands-On Labs

The reality is that interference cannot be fully addressed from just an analog circuit or a digital signal processing perspective. This makes traditional educational approaches inadequate for introductory courses on the subject, because learners either start with an analog RF circuits course or a communication theory course, and rarely develop a system-level, integrated perspective. Some aspects of radio systems are extremely difficult to convey without hands-on labs and the experience of tuning up a radio and making it work. The lab kit is a custom software-defined radio (SDR) that the students build up from hardware components (Analog Devices, Mini-Circuits), program in a high-level language (Python), and test with laboratory equipment (Keysight).

Competition and Red Teaming

Only 40% of intended STEM majors in the United States currently complete their degrees, and there is a shortfall of over one million college graduates relative to anticipated workforce needs. Students who do not complete their intended STEM major attribute their departure to various factors including a “cold” classroom and academic climate, difficulty with conceptual understanding, lack of self-efficacy, and a lack of interest in the material. This project addresses the contributing factors for this low completion rate with a redesigned course that combines well-established scenario-based learning methods with targeted self and peer assessment through alternative analysis. Specifically, students critique each other’s designs through red teaming, and instructional staff encourage competitions among lab groups on achieving the highest data rates, most robustness performance, and so forth.

Sponsors and Collaborators

The RadioWare project received funding from the Office of Naval Research (ONR) to help enhance pathways for STEM careers in the Navy, Marine Corps, and DoD more generally. We have engaged experts in Electronic Warfare from the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) Crane as well as the Army Research Lab (ARL) to advise on the interference scenarios, laboratory exercises, and student interactions.

RadioWare involves multiple investigators in the ND Wireless Institution, including J. Nicholas Laneman, Jonathan Chisum, and Bertrand Hochwald.

 

 

 

The heart of the RadioHound System is a low-cost, pervasive, persistent spectrum sensor that leverages low-cost SDRs suitable for deployment in mobile environments. RadioHound maps the entire spectrum from 25 MHz to 6 GHz, and will have the capability to support mmWave bands. RadioHound enables spectrum mapping in real time, providing a reliable indicator of spectrum utilization. It’s beacon capabilities provide a mechanism for measuring radio signal propagation between devices. Because of its portability and low cost, widespread deployment can give a good understanding of device-to-device and device-to-infrastructure connectivity, especially in crowded or dense environments.

The widespread deployment of RadioHound enables understanding of Wireless network architectures in new frequency bands, spectrum sharing possibilities and algorithm testing, and spectral efficiency and utilization measurements across large geographic areas. The overall cost of the RadioHound Node and the low-cost SDR (a commercial DVB-T receiver), but without the three antennas for the sub-GHz range or the mmWave front-end MMIC, is around $70. The eventual target is a sensor costing less than $10.

RadioHound System

The RadioHound System comprises three components: the RadioHound Sensor (Hardware), the RadioHound Cloud and the RadioHound App (Software). The hardware sensor includes a tri-band RF front end (including a tunable wideband receiver, tunable narrow-band beacon transmitters, and transverses for specialized frequency bands) and three antennas for the different bands: 25-100 MHz, 0.1-0.4 GHz, and 0.4-6 GHz respectively. The external operating environment of RadioHound requires a host to communicate with and allow data collection, management, and transmission to the RadioHound Cloud. The host provides geo-location capability, storage, and transmission to the central database, and can have different form factors, with the Raspberry Pi being the simplest and most nomadic. The RadioHound sensor derives its power from the host. The power consumption in the current Phase 1 (proof of concept) is 3W, with an envisioned target of 0.5W in future phases.

The RadioHound Cloud involves the scalable partitioning of functions into the following separate server instances: data warehouse for storage and retrieval of records, check in server for authorization of nodes, and allows for future provisions for security. The RadioHound app provides two functions: send commands to the RadioHound sensors and enhanced visualization of the data stored in the Cloud through a GUI web app. The system software also includes a master controller that sends jobs to nodes and a state machine for data flow control amongst other functions.

Sponsors and Collaborators

The RadioHound project was started in July 2015 with sponsorship from InterDigital and Nokia (previously Alcatel Lucent) via the BWAC I/UCRC, an NSF program. Subsequent funding from and collaboration with the US Army Research Laboratory helped to mature the platform toward an initial proof of concept and field deployment. Future phases will focus on reducing the cost and power needs of the sensors, developing a cost-scalable Millimeter Wave MMIC, and the evolution of the software.

RadioHound is a Wireless Institute multi-PI project, with the hardware components developed by Jonathan Chisum and Bertrand Hochwald (Lead PI), and the software components by J. Nicholas Laneman and Aaron Striegel.

Electrical Engineering graduate students currently working on the project are Abbas Termos and Xiangbo Meng. Former graduate students involved in the project include Nik Kleber (Raytheon Technologies), Arash Ebadi Shahrivar (Qualcomm), and Lihua Wan.

Related Publications

“RadioHound: A pervasive sensing network for sub-6 GHz dynamic spectrum monitoring,” https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.06212.

 

Related Publications