SBIR Phase I: Wireless Networks that can Scale Capacity with User Demands

This Small Business Innovation Research Prgram (SBIR)Phase I project will demonstrate the design and implementation of a wireless network whose capacity scales with increasing user demand. Wireless spectrum is limited; wireless demands can, however, grow unlimited. Wireless users have long suffered from the inability of cellular and Wi-Fi networks to keep up with increased demand resulting from the growth in mobile devices and applications. This is despite the fact that individual wireless devices have improved dramatically in recent years. The problem is that there is a mismatch between the way user demands scale and network throughput scales; user demands scale with the number of devices in the network but network throughput does not. Unless network throughput also scales with the number of devices, wireless networks will always find it hard to keep up with their demands, and the projected demands will keep exceeding the projected capacity. This project will present the first practical system that can enable a wireless LAN to keep increasing its throughput simply by adding additional access points (APs) on the same channel. It will work with existing unmodified end-user devices, and demonstrate throughput gains of 10x compared to today's wireless technologies. The broader impact/commercial potential of this project will be the development of new minimal interference, graceful degradation wireless systems and broadband solutions, and the financial, social, and productivity benefits accruing from the resulting improvement in spectrum utilization. High speed wireless access plays a key role in the modern economy, and is indispensable for every sector of society: businesses, schools, homes, public safety workers etc. The need to support the continued growth of wireless even in the face of the current capacity crunch has made the efficient use of spectrum a national priority, and led the government to start a National Wireless Innovation and Infrastructure Initiative. A new technology that can enable wireless networks to scale their capacity to keep up with burgeoning demand, and provide 10x throughput gains compared to today, can provide improved access to existing applications like medical tests, online courses, high speed video, cloud based services etc., and enable new classes of applications, devices, and services. It will advance the government's goals of enabling American economic growth and competitiveness through homegrown innovation in the $40 billion enterprise wireless, carrier Wi-Fi, and cellular markets.