Lecture1: Overview of Wireless Communications

History of Wireless Communications Examples of Wireless Communication Systems Technical Issues in Wireless Communications

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History
1897 Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio telegraph 1920s - 1930s Police radio dispatch 1935 Frequency modulation (FM) demonstrated by Armstrong WWII accelerated the development of new technologies 1950s - 1960s development of the cellular concept

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History of Cellular Systems

1915 Wireless voice transmission between New York and San Francisco was first established 1946 Public mobile telephone service was introduced in 25 cities across US 1950s - 1960s Development of the cellular concept at AT&T Bell Laboratories 1980s First generation analog cellular systems 1990s Second generation digital cellular systems

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Mobile Telephone Service(1946)

First public mobile telephone service Half-duplex, push-to-talk system Central system to cover entire metropolitan Signal is frequency modulated (FM) Bandwidth is 120kHz (telephone-grade speech: 3kHz baseband spectrum) Inefficient use of the radio spectrum
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Improved Mobile Telephone Service (1962)

Due to technological advances, bandwidth was reduced to 30kHz Full-duplex system Automatic phone dialing and trunking IMTS quickly became saturated in major markets 1978 (30 years after introduction) New Yorks capacity is only 543 users
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US Advanced Mobile Phone Systems (AMPS, 1983)

First US cellular wireless telephone system Coverage area is broken into small cells with a low-power transmitter in each cell Used FDMA with 30 KHz FM voice channels 666 duplex channels in the 800MHz band, with additional 166 channels in 1989 40 MHz in 1983, increased to 50 MHz in 1989 Similar system in Europe: European Total Access Communication System (ETACS)
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Digital Cellular Systems (1990s)

GSM uniform standard for second generation digital systems in Europe (900 MHz band)
Combination of TDMA and slow frequency hopping Frequency-shift keying for voice modulation Used in the US at the 1.8 GHz band

IS-136 (900 MHz) / IS-54

Combination of TDMA and FDMA and phase-shift keyed modulation

IS-95 (900 MHz and 1.8 GHz band)

Direct-sequence CDMA w/ binary modulation & coding
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Cellular Telephone Systems

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History of Wireless LANs

1970s Introduction of wired Ethernet 1985 FCC authorized public use of ISM frequency bands for wireless LAN products Initial wireless LANs had very poor performance and have high-cost Current generation of wireless LANs (802.11 standards) have better performance and lower cost
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First Generation of WLANs

Based on proprietary and incompatible protocols Most operated within 26 MHz spectrum of the 900 MHz ISM band Direct sequence spread spectrum with data rates of 1-2 Mbps Both star and peer-to-peer architectures used Motorolas Altair operated on licensed 18 GHz band with data rates of 6 Mbps

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Second Generation of WLANs

802.11b standard developed for WLANs to operate with 80 MHz bandwidth at 2.4 GHz Direct sequence spread spectrum with data rates of around 1.6 Mbps and a range of approximately 150 m Star architecture was pre-dominantly used After slow initial growth, popularity of 802.11b WLANs expanded considerably
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Second Generation of WLANs

Additional standards with higher data rates
802.11a: 300 MHz at 5 GHz U-NII band
Multicarrier modulation providing 20-70 Mbps data rate

802.11g: can be used in either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz

Multicarrier modulation with speeds up to 54 Mbps

802.11n: can be used in either 2.4 GHz or 5 GHz

Uses OFDM and MIMO

In Europe: HIPERLAN (high performance radio LAN) Type I similar to 802.11a

20 Mbps, 50 m range, peer-to-peer architecture
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Wide Area Wireless Data Services

1971 First network based on packet radio (ALOHANET) developed in Univ. of Hawaii 1970s 1980s Military investment to develop networks using packet radios 1990s Commercial application for wireless data access (20kbps) Low data rates, high cost, and lack of killer applications made these services mostly disappear in the 1990s
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Satellite Networks
Types characterized by height of orbit
Low-earth orbit (LEOs) at roughly 2,000 km Medium-earth orbit (MEOs) at roughly 9,000 km Geosynchronous-earth orbit (GEOs) at roughly 40,000 km altitude

Live reporting (voice and video transmission) from remote locations, location positioning (GPS), broadcasting of video and audio over large geographic regions
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Satellite Networks
Geosynchronous satellites
Have large coverage areas, fewer satellites needed to provide global coverage Large propagation delay High power needed to reach satellite

Lower orbit satellites

30 to 80 satellites needed for global coverage Still bulky compared to cellular phones
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Low-Cost, Low-Power Radios

Bluetooth
Normal operation: 10m at 1mW transmit power Can be increased to 100m at 100mW transmit power 2.4 GHz ISM band, IEEE 802.15 standard

Zigbee
2.4 GHz ISM band, IEEE 802.15.4 standard Lower cost and lower power consumption Slower data rate but slightly less power with a larger transmission range

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Ultrawideband (UWB) Radios

Extremely wideband radios with very high potential data rates 2002 FCC allowed UWB to operate at either baseband or at 3.6-10.1 GHz range Severe transmit power restrictions to limit interference with primary users UWB signals easily penetrate through obstacles and provide precise ranging capabilities
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Technical Issues
Choice between wireless and wire technologies changes as new technologies become available
Desktop PCs are being replaced by laptops Television transmission vs. cable transmission

Different requirements for different applications (voice and data applications)

Data rate, bit error rates (BERs), latency, demand over time
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Technical Issues
Main challenges in wireless communication: fading and interference Path loss, signal reflection and scattering
Causes large-scale and small-scale fading

Radio spectrum is a scarce resource

Causes a lot of interference

Standardization is not a perfect process

Needed to drive down cost, but may hamper technological advances

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References
Wireless Communications by Andrea Goldsmith
Chapter 1, pages 1-19

Wireless Communications: Principles and Practice (2nd Ed.) by Theodore S. Rappaport

Chapter 1, pages 1-21

Fundamentals of Wireless Communication by David Tse

Section 1.2, pages 2-5

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