Frequency Agile Radio (FARAD)

Wireless communications has become a pervasive technology that we use throughout our lives. Across society, there is a move away from using the internet on desktop computers and towards smartphones, tablets and laptops. Consequently, the amount of wireless data transmission to support our online activities is rapidly increasing. There is also significant growth in automatic data sharing and collection from many types of sensors, meters and embedded computers, sometimes referred to as machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. This continuing growth in mobile data is a significant problem for network operators. In order to meet this enormous traffic growth challenge, operators are considering a number of potential solutions with three leading concepts: 1. increasing the availability of radio spectrum; 2. deploying heterogeneous and small cell networks; and 3. separating control and traffic data for enhanced network management.

This project will address the expected capacity crunch by focusing on the RF bottleneck in future heterogeneous wireless networks through researching and developing miniature, integrated, reconfigurable and tuneable, multiband radios to enable 'spectrum agile' radio access and concurrent multiband operation. Research will address the radio system agility across the microwave spectrum bands from 450 to 6000 MHz. The project will embrace the co-design of antennas, amplifiers, filters and digitisers to achieve spectrum and energy efficient frequency agile radio systems. The project consists of five major research areas:

1. Tuneable Antennas and Filters - Research will focus on reconfigurable and tuneable antennas with integrated filters to achieve frequency selectivity and concurrent multiband operation.
2. Transmit Amplifiers - Research on transmit amplifiers for base stations and handsets will focus on methods to achieve re-tuneable, linear, wideband, power efficient and concurrent multiband operation.
3. Receiver Interference Mitigation - Simple and efficient solutions to reduce the effects of unwanted signal suppression caused by RF blockers in the multiband RF receiver chain will be sought.
4. Multiband A/D Conversion & PAPR Reduction - Research will focus on developing concurrent multiband ADC techniques at the receiver and the design of signal sets with significantly reduced peak-to-average-power ratio (PAPR).
5. Testbed Demonstration: Themes 1-4 will lead to the evaluation and demonstration of solutions using a hardware-in-the-loop RF testbed.

By researching a frequency agile, concurrent multiband radio technology FARAD will significantly contribute to the growth of future radio access networks and the use of new spectrum bands in an efficient way. The techniques and algorithms developed in this project will enable far reaching capabilities in wireless networks for the next 20 to 30 years helping to solve the anticipated capacity crunch while establishing a new paradigm in radio transceiver design.

The project plans to have wider impact through a number of pathways. These include impact on the wider community, the industrial supporters of the project, the wider UK communications industry and the researchers funded by the project.
Ultimately, the main beneficiaries of the research will be all wireless technology users. The frequency agile, multiband radio transceivers developed in FARAD will be deployed in smartphone, tablets, laptops, M2M devices and base stations operating on a global level. The potential for impact is immediate as new transceivers could advantageously employ the technology. However, even greater societal impact is envisaged as the broader capabilities of access networks for 5G and beyond become enabled by frequency agile multiband radio technology. The technology to be developed in FARAD is expected to penetrate the mass market within a 5 to 10 year time frame.

The research will also benefit UK and EU policy/regulation makers. OFCOM would benefit from an early indication of the capabilities of such hardware and its potential impact on future wireless ICT infrastructure. The efficient use of radio spectrum has significant impact on both the quality of service for users and the economic opportunity for industry and government.

The research will impact directly on the industrial supporters of the project by setting up and maintaining a regular dialogue on project progress and results. Six monthly progress meetings will be arranged and an advisory board of industrialists will be established to observe progress and contribute to the steering of the research programme. The project will involve two targeted technical workshops to discuss specific research themes and to promote interaction between the project researchers and the industrial supporters. Our industrial supporters consist of major equipment manufacturers and mobile network operators and are therefore ideally placed to bring this technology into the mass market.
Existing UK companies and new spin-out companies specialising in the design and manufacture of microwave radio units would benefit from the growth of this new market. Also, frequency agile, multiband radio technology will be of significant interest to manufacturers of military systems, such as BAE Systems and Selex ES.

The four funded postdoctoral researchers on the project will gain valuable technical and professional experience from working in this important area of technology. They will be trained to build their knowledge and experience, in particular in hardware design, implementation and testing. They will be encouraged to participate in University training on research funding, entrepreneurship and other skills aimed at developing their careers. They will also assist with supervising the four PhD students who will participate in the project.

In order to reach out to the wider non-scientific community, the postdoctoral researchers will be encouraged to become STEM ambassadors in order to encourage school children to become involved in science and engineering as a career path. Researchers from the project will also participate in Science fairs by organising events about the project.

Finally, the project will provide the investigators an opportunity to build on the reputation of the work through the recruitment and training of doctoral and masters level students. Knowledge gained from the project is likely to feed into future PhD projects and taught Masters programmes thereby enhancing the teaching and learning capabilities of both Universities in this important field.