Broadband Wireless Communications Hawaii Center for Advanced Communications

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Broadband Wireless CommunicationsHawaii Center
for Advanced Communications

• Anthony Kuh
• Chairman, Electrical Engineering
• Background and Overview
• Broadband Communications
• Proposed Organization and Development

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Mission Statement
The University of Hawaii Center for Advanced
Communications is a multidisciplinary research
center bringing together researchers from diverse
areas to work together on advanced communication
systems (wireless).

• Joint collaborative basic and applied research
• Members of the Center
• External researchers from industry and academia
• Provide students with a rich and diversified
  education to prepare them for careers in the
  telecommunications industry and academia.
• Encourage industrial interactions, promotion of
  entrepreneurial activities, and providing
  technical leadership and expertise to the
  University and State of Hawaii.

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Background Personnel

• Telecommunications (established tradition)
• Networks (ALOHA wireless packet radio networks)
• Communications and coding (Protocols for NASA
  and GSM wireless standard)
• Signal Processing
• Solid State electronics and devices (outstanding
  young talent)
• Microwave/Millimeter-wave research lab (MMRL)
• Physical Electronics lab (PEL)
• Integrated Circuits and Design lab

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Background Activities

• Federal Government (NSF, NASA, DOD)
• Seeking broad multidisciplinary initiatives that
  will have a profound effect on information
  technology.
• Encourage partnerships between academia,
  industry, and government .
• HCAC
• Bring together telecommunications and solid
  state electronics and devices groups
• External collaboration and joint funding with
  other Universities and industry.

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Center Overview

• Personnel
• Members 11 faculty members
• Students 40 graduate students (11 Ph.D.
  candidates), undergraduate students
• Activities
• Research Areas Solid-state devices and circuits,
  telecommunications
• Funding
• Group funding NSF Wireless Information
  Technology and Networks (Millimeter-Wave Systems
  for Wireless Communications).
• Government NSF, NASA, DARPA (15 funded grants,
  4.7 million).
• Industry Boeing, Hitachi, LSI Logic, Microsoft,
  TRW (11 funded grants, 570,000).
• Education
• Multidisciplinary graduate education.
• Undergraduate education and research
  opportunities.

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Broadband Communications
Within a decade, most people in developed
countries will have access to Internet
connections that are tens if not hundreds of
times faster than the ones in common use today.
Scientific American, Oct. 99.

• Cable Consumer, coaxial cable to home.
• Copper Digital Subscriber Line (DSL), use
  existing phone network.
• Fiber Expensive to home, highest available
  bandwidth.
• Satellites Low earth orbit systems, satellite
  deployment costs high.
• Wireless Wide range of services ranging from
  Local Multi-point Distributed Systems (LMDS) to
  mobile broadband access.

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Telecommunication Revenues
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Broadband Wireless Communications
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Digital Divide (Two tiered economic society)

• Silicon Valley (economic center of new
  information technology society)
• Strong engineering programs at Stanford
  University and University of California,
  Berkeley.
• State of California support in 50s and 60s.
• Other communities around nation want to
  participate in new economy.Examples Silicon
  Forest (Seattle), Silicon Hills (Austin), Route
  128 (Boston). All have strong Universities
  nearby with excellent engineering programs.
• With increase in computational power of computers
  there has been a shift to communications. 90s
  have seen development of many University
  wireless communications centers . Example UCSD
  Wireless Communication Center.
• Brought in top researchers from academia and
  industry.
• Developed partnerships with industry (examples
  Qualcomm, Nokia)

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Proposed Development and Organization

• Infrastructure
• Research
• Education
• Industry
• Benefits to Hawaii

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Infrastructure (Partnership)

• Center Personnel
• Director (need to hire leader in
  telecommunications with academic, industrial and
  administrative experience)
• Members
• Existing members (support and retention)
• New members (augment expertise and bridge
  technologies)
• UH Administration (positions, infrastructure,
  budget)
• State Government (financial support)
• Industrial Partners (annual fees)
• Each partner to have members as focal contacts.
• Joint work with focal contacts on research
  projects.
• Federal Government (Joint collaborative
  research with members, other institutions, and
  industry)

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Funding for Center (Partnership)

• State Government
• 5M funding over 5 years to startup Center.
• 1st year 1M (410K personnel, 300K startup,
  90K retention, 200K equipment).
• Industry
• Unrestricted funds through partners program.
• Restricted funds.
• Federal Government
• Center and group grants from NSF, DOD, NASA.
• Individual grants.

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Research Overview
Major focus is on high-performance wireless
networks. Transmission technology for networks
are millimeter-wave frequencies (30-300 GHz)
which provides broadband rates up to 5 gigabits
per second.

• Millimeter-wave networks
• Ideal for indoor wireless LANs, line of sight
  (LOS).
• Shorter wavelengths imply smaller antenna and
  circuit dimensions.
• Broadband applications (interactive multimedia).
• Mobile Wireless Networks
• Network control and management
• Channel and source coding for wireless
  communications
• Signal processing algorithms
• Applications (broadband access everywhere)
  commercial and military

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Education

• Attract quality students and researchers (reverse
  brain drain).
• Provide multidisciplinary education to prepare
  students for careers in telecommunications.
• Fundamental and cutting edge classes.
• Research instruction and experience.
• Information Technology Alliance (Engineering,
  Computer Science, Business, Education)
• Work to establish educational programs with
  industry (life-long learning).
• Coop programs (undergraduate and graduate
  students).
• Distance learning programs.

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Industrial RelationshipsA key to Center
development and growth is close working
relationships with industry. (Industrial
Partners)

• Startup companies
• Adtech started by UH EE Professors.
• Verifone started by UH EE graduate.
• EE Professors starting high tech companies.
• Attracting companies to Hawaii (Uniden).
• Relationships with local companies Adtech, GTE
  Hawaiian Tel, Oceanic Cable, military.
• Special relationships with TRW and Boeing.
• Other industrial ties ATT, Fujitsu,
  Hewlett-Packard, Hughes, LSI Logic, Microsoft,
  Motorola, Sony, Sun Microsystems, Texas
  Instruments, Xilinx

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Center Benefits to the State of Hawaii
A well funded Center with quality personnel will
provide

• a significant boost in federal and industry
  funding to the University of Hawaii.
• a large increase in students who will be well
  prepared for careers in telecommunications.
• technical knowledge to the State for development
  of a telecommunications industry.
• an increase in skilled technical people and high
  technology industry that will come to Hawaii.
• an increase in the number of high technology
  conferences and workshops held in Hawaii.

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Why develop the Hawaii Center for Advanced
Communications?

• Personnel diversified members with expertise in
  a broad range of communications technology.
• Existing backbone infrastructure Optical fiber
  backbone in place can work well with local
  wireless system for broadband access for
  consumers and business.
• Geographic location Pacific Rim location can
  bring wireless technologies from Asia (Japan)
  and North America (USA) together.
• State and industry interest Diversification of
  Hawaiian economy.
• Timing Industry time-scale is short (need to act
  now).