[hpsdr] First All-Digital Radio Transmitter

[Berndt Josef Wulf]

Interestingly, it appears that they are utilising the eSATA interface.

73, Berndt
VK5ABN

On Fri, 2015-05-08 at 10:15 +0000, Ari thor wrote:
> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
> 
> http://www.rfglobalnet.com/doc/first-all-digital-radio-transmitter-0001
> 
> First All-Digital Radio Transmitter
> 
> Radio Transmitter
> Cambridge Consultants demonstrates a world first in radio design
> 
> Technology innovation firm Cambridge Consultants has successfully completed
> initial trials of the world's first fully digital radio transmitter - a
> turning point in wireless design and a real enabler for the 'Internet of
> Things' (IoT) and 5G technology. It's a radio built purely from computing
> power, using the same familiar digital technology you'd find in a computer
> microprocessor in your home or office.
> 
> Unlike 'software-defined radio' (SDR), it's not a mixture of analogue and
> digital components - for the first time, the radio is completely digital,
> which can enable new ways of using spectrum intelligently. The innovation is
> set to be hugely disruptive, like a previous Cambridge Consultants
> breakthrough - the development of the first single-chip Bluetooth radio,
> which led to the spinout of the global short-range wireless and audiovisual
> giant CSR.
> 
> The latest breakthrough - codenamed Pizzicato - unlocks the potential of the
> IoT. It  opens the door to a new dynamic way in which the predicted 100
> billion IoT devices can operate together in a crowded radio spectrum. And it
> will enable the creation of 5G systems, with multiple radios and antennas.
> 
> The Pizzicato digital radio transmitter consists of an integrated circuit
> outputting a single stream of bits, and an antenna - with no conventional
> radio parts or digital-to-analogue converter. Patented algorithms perform
> the necessary ultra-fast computations in real time, making it possible for
> standard digital technology to generate high-frequency radio signals
> directly.
> 
> "Our first trial of the technology has created 14 simultaneous cellular base
> station signals," said Monty Barlow, director of wireless technology at
> Cambridge Consultants. "But it is the potential which is so exciting. Like
> mainstream microprocessing, a Pizzicato-based radio would directly benefit
> from Moore's Law - shrinking in cost, size and power consumption with each
> new generation of silicon fabrication.
> 
> "If we're going to get high-speed broadband to every mobile phone in the
> world, we'll need lots of tiny, high-performance radios in those phones. The
> radios will be squashed together in a way that analogue just doesn't
> tolerate. Whereas a Pizzicato-like digital radio can follow Moore's Law to
> smaller size and lower power consumption.
> 
> "It could also be programmed to generate almost any combination of signals
> at any carrier frequencies, nimbly adapting its behaviour in a way that is
> impossible in conventional radios. It is early days for this technology but
> we believe radio design has reached a turning point."
> 
> In recent decades, wireless design teams such as Cambridge Consultants have
> employed extensive digital techniques in radios - and such SDRs have
> provided a tenfold improvement in the data rate that can be squeezed into a
> radio channel. But a more dramatic improvement is needed to cope with the
> growth in mobile broadband and the IoT.
> 
> Good radio spectrum is a scarce resource - only low frequencies (1GHz or
> lower) propagate well over distance or through walls, so they are in great
> demand. Greater efficiency requires the use of dynamic or 'cognitive
> wireless' techniques to sense the radio environment and switch parameters on
> the fly. This could give access to more of the estimated 90% of the
> allocated spectrum which is not in use at any one time.
> 
> Making use of the higher carrier frequencies of 10GHz and beyond, however,
> will require techniques such as meshing and beamforming to circumvent the
> inherently poor range - and the analogue parts of radios are becoming an
> increasing bottleneck.
> 
> "Crowding 50 analogue radios together on one chip, switching their
> operational parameters every few microseconds and expecting them to work at
> 60GHz is an analogue designer's nightmare," said Barlow. "With Pizzicato, we
> have created a glimpse of future disruptive technology - a radio built
> purely from computing power."
> 
> About Cambridge Consultants
> 
> Cambridge Consultants has one of the world's largest independent wireless
> development teams, with more than 120 experts working in areas ranging from
> ultra-low-power short-range wireless connectivity to global satellite
> communication. During its 55-year history, the company has helped clients
> develop technology ranging from the world's first wireless implanted pacing
> system to the ground-to-air radio system controlling air traffic over the
> majority of the planet.
> 
> SOURCE: Cambridge Consultants
> 
> _______________________________________________
> HPSDR Discussion List
> To post msg: hpsdr at openhpsdr.org
> Subscription help: http://lists.openhpsdr.org/listinfo.cgi/hpsdr-openhpsdr.org
> HPSDR web page: http://openhpsdr.org
> Archives: http://lists.openhpsdr.org/pipermail/hpsdr-openhpsdr.org/



 1431157243.0