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Arogyaswami Paulraj[/caption]
An Indian-American engineer - Arogyaswami Paulraj (72), and his team has been nominated as one of three finalists for the European Inventor Award 2016 in the category "Non-European countries". European Inventor Award is organized each year by European Patent Office (EPO).
EPO has nominated Arogyaswami for his work in developing faster wireless connectivity. Arogyaswami's invention is essential for current 4G LTE networks and will be a central part of future 5G networks. He came up with this novel idea that dramatically improves the performance of cellular networks and wireless modems.
Arogyaswami is an electrical engineer from India who moved to the United States in 1991 to teach at Stanford University, came up with a way to cram more digital data into the radio waves that make up the wireless spectrum, it was a boon for both the network providers and their customers. Along the way he was supported by two of his post-doctoral students: David Gesbert and Robert Heath. The team helped transform Paulraj's ideas into one of wireless communications’ most successful and influential technologies.
"The technology developed by Paulraj and his team has contributed significantly to faster wireless data transmission, one of the cornerstones of the digital era.", said EPO President Benoît Battistelli.
The EPO will announce the winners of the 11th edition of its annual innovation prize at a ceremony in Lisbon on 9 June.
The idea was simple, yet ingenious: In order for devices at both ends of a wireless link to transmit data at a faster rate, additional antennae are required. The technique is known as spatial multiplexing, but it is more commonly referred to as MIMO, for "Multiple Input, Multiple Output". There was only one problem, one that had haunted radio communications since its inception: multipath propagation. Radio signals tend to bound around before reaching their target and when two discrete singles are transmitted over the same frequency, it is nearly impossible to distinguish them from each other using one antenna.
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Multiple antennae and receivers – the core of the MIMO invention[/caption]
By adding an additional receiving antenna and rethinking multipath propagation in order to use the distortions it produces to help distinguish between signal waves, Paulraj and his team were not only able to improve the bit rate, or connection speed – they also enlarged signal coverage areas. What's more: MIMO was able to achieve a higher rate of data transmission within the same channel bandwidth (frequency spectrum), meaning there was no need for extra power or coveted bandwidth.
"Once you have a two-by-two system [four antennae] you get twice the throughput,” explains Paulraj. “A four-by-four system creates four times the throughput. In cellular communications or in Wi-Fi, where spectrum is very, very limited, if you have multiple antennae you can increase the speed of the link."
Paulraj, who served in the Indian Navy for 30 years, earning the rank of Commodore, developed the idea for MIMO in 1992 while at Stanford University, where he is now a professor emeritus of electrical engineering. The idea behind MIMO got its start when Paulraj set out to find a method for a US Airforce reconnaissance plane to listen in on multiple signals without interference – the solution, a multi-antenna array. After modifying this concept for wireless communications, he was awarded his first MIMO-related patent in 1994, but it would take nearly a decade for the first commercial applications of the technology to emerge. This delay was largely attributable to the fact that US wireless networks were still mostly analogue. Paulraj's technology required digital networks to function, and a wholesale infrastructure upgrade was not carried out until the early 2000s. Today, however, MIMO is ubiquitous.
Paulraj was born in southern India and joined the Indian navy at the age of 15. He obtained an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Naval College of Engineering and went on to earn a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1973. By the end of his 30-year career in the service, he had achieved the rank of Commodore, the Indian Navy's fourth-highest rank. He moved to the US in 1991 to teach at Stanford University, where he is currently a professor emeritus of electrical engineering, but not until after he had founded three national-level laboratories at Indian universities and headed the development of one of the Indian military's most successful R&D projects - an anti-submarine SONAR system for the navy.
Arogyaswami Paulraj[/caption]An Indian-American engineer - Arogyaswami Paulraj (72), and his team has been nominated as one of three finalists for the European Inventor Award 2016 in the category "Non-European countries". European Inventor Award is organized each year by European Patent Office (EPO).
EPO has nominated Arogyaswami for his work in developing faster wireless connectivity. Arogyaswami's invention is essential for current 4G LTE networks and will be a central part of future 5G networks. He came up with this novel idea that dramatically improves the performance of cellular networks and wireless modems.
Arogyaswami is an electrical engineer from India who moved to the United States in 1991 to teach at Stanford University, came up with a way to cram more digital data into the radio waves that make up the wireless spectrum, it was a boon for both the network providers and their customers. Along the way he was supported by two of his post-doctoral students: David Gesbert and Robert Heath. The team helped transform Paulraj's ideas into one of wireless communications’ most successful and influential technologies.
"The technology developed by Paulraj and his team has contributed significantly to faster wireless data transmission, one of the cornerstones of the digital era.", said EPO President Benoît Battistelli.
The EPO will announce the winners of the 11th edition of its annual innovation prize at a ceremony in Lisbon on 9 June.
Invention - Multiple Input, Multiple Output (MIMO)
The idea was simple, yet ingenious: In order for devices at both ends of a wireless link to transmit data at a faster rate, additional antennae are required. The technique is known as spatial multiplexing, but it is more commonly referred to as MIMO, for "Multiple Input, Multiple Output". There was only one problem, one that had haunted radio communications since its inception: multipath propagation. Radio signals tend to bound around before reaching their target and when two discrete singles are transmitted over the same frequency, it is nearly impossible to distinguish them from each other using one antenna.
[caption id="attachment_105408" align="aligncenter" width="556"]
Multiple antennae and receivers – the core of the MIMO invention[/caption]By adding an additional receiving antenna and rethinking multipath propagation in order to use the distortions it produces to help distinguish between signal waves, Paulraj and his team were not only able to improve the bit rate, or connection speed – they also enlarged signal coverage areas. What's more: MIMO was able to achieve a higher rate of data transmission within the same channel bandwidth (frequency spectrum), meaning there was no need for extra power or coveted bandwidth.
"Once you have a two-by-two system [four antennae] you get twice the throughput,” explains Paulraj. “A four-by-four system creates four times the throughput. In cellular communications or in Wi-Fi, where spectrum is very, very limited, if you have multiple antennae you can increase the speed of the link."
Paulraj, who served in the Indian Navy for 30 years, earning the rank of Commodore, developed the idea for MIMO in 1992 while at Stanford University, where he is now a professor emeritus of electrical engineering. The idea behind MIMO got its start when Paulraj set out to find a method for a US Airforce reconnaissance plane to listen in on multiple signals without interference – the solution, a multi-antenna array. After modifying this concept for wireless communications, he was awarded his first MIMO-related patent in 1994, but it would take nearly a decade for the first commercial applications of the technology to emerge. This delay was largely attributable to the fact that US wireless networks were still mostly analogue. Paulraj's technology required digital networks to function, and a wholesale infrastructure upgrade was not carried out until the early 2000s. Today, however, MIMO is ubiquitous.
Paulraj was born in southern India and joined the Indian navy at the age of 15. He obtained an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from the Indian Naval College of Engineering and went on to earn a PhD from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1973. By the end of his 30-year career in the service, he had achieved the rank of Commodore, the Indian Navy's fourth-highest rank. He moved to the US in 1991 to teach at Stanford University, where he is currently a professor emeritus of electrical engineering, but not until after he had founded three national-level laboratories at Indian universities and headed the development of one of the Indian military's most successful R&D projects - an anti-submarine SONAR system for the navy.
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