Full-Duplex Radios; The Solution to Cluttered Wireless Spectrum Frequency

Bangalore: With the number of mobile networks on a steep rise, a need to use the wireless spectrum more wisely becomes critical.

A valid assertion can be by implementing a methodology that will enable sending and receiving of data on the same frequency simultaneously in the same space. This will not only reduce the cluttering spectrums but will also flawless communication and data transfer.

Efforts on the same line are being progressively made to reuse the spectrum for mobile networks but this comes with several challenges.

As 3G and 4G networks that are employed today send and receive at different times or at different frequencies, it is not possible to implement the full-duplex radio on the current infrastructure. Though the research team headed by Professor Yingbo Hua and Ping Liang at Riverside have said that they are close to solve this limitation though it might increase the cost of a cellular base station.

Implementing a full-duplex radio will increase the efficiency of a wireless network by offering same speed and capacity using only half of the spectrum. It will also provide the capability to incorporate the increasing number of users in the future.

The only problem that full-duplex radio will be the drowning of signals that the base station is trying to pick up from the outside by the signals coming from  within the base station. The outgoing signals are nearly 10 billion times more powerful than the ones coming in the base station and thus the possibility of these signals being drowned increases.

Liang has suggested a signal cancellation circuit to address this problem that will cancel out the signals within the radio and thus allowing the transmission to work without hindrance. He further clarified that his team is working at a 96db signal cancellation and is willing to implement it in the network infrastructure.

The commercial availability of this full duplex radio will take a while as there lays a long road ahead in enforcing the changes in standards and regulations.