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DoD Dreams of Efficient Spectrum Usage
Unstrung writes "US Military research agency DARPA is sick of all those static-filled cellphone calls and dropped connections too. The shadowy eggheads are working on a way of using the bandwidth available today more efficiently."
DoD reports that they have fortified the radio spectrum with "stuff" for more "goodness." They declined further comment.
After ten years active duty, and one in the Reserves, I can attest that the DOD has few, if any, dreams of efficiency. Keep trying.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Does this mean I'll be able to d/l hi-res pr0n onto my cellphone-pda-in-one device? Mmm, I can almost see it now. What about live sex-streams? That'd make cellphone companies big $$!
The DOD and DARPA have a long history of bringing about technical innnovation, regardless of how slowly it comes into actual being, the very medium we are using (or abusing) right now is a result of that... unfortunately given the fact that i am at "work" right now, i can attest that they are not interested in efficency, mine is dropping like a rock... TGIF
Sadly the article offers very little insight into how they will actually use this extra bandwidth.
The agency you diss so arrogantly is (Al Gore to the contrary) the agency that developed what became the original internet. Quite a few "shadowy eggheads" are funded by them. They used to have quite clueful PR whores at HQ, but I'm not sure who's minding the store these days.
Sigs were good when email addrs had !
This is nothing very expectional.
People in research always get some grants and think that they'll get some results in some time.
But often they get only one result: Is doesn't work. Or it does the same as the old stuff but more expensive.
If often wonder if anyone has tried to get a grant for "the development of a disc-shaped flying object" yet.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
They developed the routing system and it works very well. However he is one of three people working for them and "dissing" them thus far. I think a lot has changed with all companies and government agencies since the 60's.
Why not just convert everything to GSM? it works fine for the rest of the world. You never get static (digital transmission), and the call drop rate is a lot lower than analogue
.. Cool now I can get even more SPAM sent to me more efficiently. I'll sleep better tonight. *turns the auto email bouncer to MAX*
----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong
Give me a couple of RDF (radio direction finding) stations and an 8" howitzer and I will eliminate all of your interference and congestion problems.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Bringing to terrestrial communications what satellite comms have had for years: Demand Assigned Multiple Access. The article is a bit short on technical details, but it sounds like a very similar concept.
For all we know, this project description might actually MEAN something.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
What people don't understand is that with the system used by Arraycomm allows better precision mapping of the wireless user. Sure, these days with our current cellular system we can triangulate a persons coordinates but this system could allows on-the-fly tracking since its built into the system. This is something for you privacy expertst to chew on.
My understanding is that part of the problem in the US is that the military is hogging much of the radio spectrum, much more-so than the military in other countries.
Will they provide channels for watchdog software whose data is generated by govt-mandated circuitry on the mobo?
It's a smilling cartoon cellphone, in front of a burning WTC, encased in the Pentagon.
Cache Rules Everything Around Me
what the crap does this have to do with DoD research
Times they are a changing. More and more of their money is going towards inter-division initiatives that are run by a few big thinkers in DC, some military brass in NY, and absolutely nobody with any domain expertise holding the purse strings. It's getting real frustrating putting things out but not having anyone competent to look over them or direct the groups involved. They hit the jackpot with the Internet but the Next Big Thing may come out of one of their programs only to disappear into history for being overlooked. Hence, the "clueless".
07.26.02
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is working on technology to improve bandwidth use in wireless communications systems by a factor of twenty.
Details on the XG Communications Program are still sketchy. However, a spokesperson for the agency said that it is looking at systems that can redistribute existing wireless capacity on the fly. This would enable more efficient use of currently available bandwidth as devices could "share" spectrum more efficiently.
"This is a program to develop a radio frequency system to dynamically assign existing spectrum," DARPA spokesperson Jan Walker told Unstrung.
The eventual aim, she says, is to create technology that will allow individual wireless devices to "listen" and grab chunks of existing bandwidth that weren't being used by other devices.
This approach is quite different from conventional third-generation (3G) cellular systems, which take what might be termed a 'scattergun' approach to delivering bandwidth to users. Conventional cellular systems transmit signals in all directions to all the users in the range of a particular cell. In other words, along with the right signals hitting the user, the system is also pumping lots of "noise" or "electro-smog" into the radio frequency environment.
The DARPA project, on the other hand, seems like it might have some commonality with systems like those developed by ArrayComm Inc. The ArrayComm system uses software and an array of antennas to continually map the RF environment, allowing it to create a "personal cell" link with each user (see ArrayComm Has Its Chips). The difference is that the DARPA technology would be mapping the environment from the device side rather than from the base station, seeking chunks of available spectrum to use.
Also, Arraycomm is interested in using time-division duplex (TDD) or "unpaired" spectrum, whereas the DARPA project is intended for use over standard "paired" spectrum, which is also called frequency-division duplex (FDD) spectrum.
Walker says that any technology resulting from the XG Communications program could have commercial as well as military applications. However, she stresses that DARPA is currently merely interested in developing technology.
"We want to look at the technology and see what's possible," Walker says. "That will allow the policy makers to decide what they want to do and commercial operators to see if they're interested."
We tried to link to the blurb about this program on the DARPA site, but the URL doesn't work, so we've excerpted it here:
The XG Communications Program is intended to demonstrate enabling technologies and system concepts to improve spectral utilization of military radio frequency emitters by a factor of 20. These demonstrations will include demonstrating a low power/wideband spectrum sensor, time/frequency agile waveforms, and dynamic spectrum access and control. At its completion, the Program will have developed and demonstrated an appliqu? [sic] for legacy and future emitter systems for joint service utility. The Program will develop enabling technologies and system concepts to provide assured military communications and sensors in support of worldwide, short notice deployments through the dynamic redistribution of allocated spectrum. This research will have significant impact on a wide variety of existing and future communications and sensors systems in DoD and commercial environments. This research is also expected to provide a common technical architecture that can meet the needs of both military and civilian future (beyond 3G) mobile communications systems. This Program will require the involvement of a variety of Government (Joint and Service Laboratories) and commercial technology development centers.
-- Dan Jones, Senior Editor, Unstrung http://www.unstrung.com
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Ironically, I WOULD trust them more than any "joint industry task force" put together to decide how best to organize radio spectrum. I'd rather have a big portion that's mysteriously ignored by most new radios than have a sysem in place for charging by-the-second for a sweep across the newly-digital dial.
Ryan Fenton
Why the hell has this been put under the "Handhelds" category? What have long-distance communications got to do with them?
You want to know is the biggest spectrum hog in the USA? The television broadcasting industry. We could recover huge amounts of spectrum if we killed over-the-air television distribution.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
I cant find a diagram showing how all the frequemcies are currently divided up. anyone havea link I can follow?
We used to have a big poster of it on the wall at a VOIP company I worked at - know of an online version?
This is for the US military, dont expect your tax dollars to give you better phone calls personally.
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Can you imagine a beowulf cluster of these? Multiple personality disorder anyone?
At least you know that when the military gets involved in something, endless piles of money are unquestioningly thrown at it.
So, this can only be a good thing in the end.
-Nano.
So what they're trying to do if I understand it correctly is to get the location of the person using the mobile and only tansmit the signal in his direction, unlike the normal 360 degrees done by other systems. It sounds nice, if they can do it. It would mean a lot less 'un-needed' signals through the air. It's like using a satelite dish for an uplink to the satelite.
George Gilder has been talking about this for years. He gets your attention by making statements like, "available bandwidth is infinite." His basic point is that if the whole spectrum was available and if communicating entities continually adjusted their power levels and frequency to just what's necessary to communicate, the reuse of the spectrum could make it seem nearly infinite. I think he's probably right; I've seen some special radios designed on this principle, and their ability to communicate great distances with teensy power levels was nothing short of phenomenal.
deport all socialists to europe, where they belong.
While his comment was a claim to be a troll, his remark was more offtopic than troll. You have a lot of work to do. I will be very upset if this comment is modded as troll; it is just offtopic.
After all it is bandwidth efficient and is the most effective in low signal to noise ratio applications.
What is pirate software? Software for inventory of stolen treasure?
This technology may be good for a spectrum where all the devices have the 'sharing' capability, but how are they going to make existing spectrum like the wireless network 'dynamic' without making everyone buy new equipment?
Click here or here.
Yes, In fact with the Sprint PCS 3G 1xRTT bandwidth, you will be able to stream wmv, asf, play small mpeg movies and even go to websites on your phone/PDA with such interactive features as regular HTML, XTML, Javascript, Flash and everything else a normal browser will allow...(probably short of running active-x and similar programs). Be prepared for Hi-Res color full matrix displays with 64,000+ colors and high storage for cache and stuff...operating at speeds up to 144kb/s, anywhere on Sprints network, nationwide.
:)
I'm gonna jump in the boat as soon as it launches nationwide within the next month.
After they figure this efficiency thing.. people will be asking can you hear me now? and in a shady corner in a dark room, a DOD guy has a sinister laugh... yes
> If often wonder if anyone has tried to get a grant for "the development of a disc-shaped flying object" yet.
...
If they do, they'll probably apply for a patent, and the US patent office will approve it. Then they'll charge manufacturers of frisbees with patent infringement. A call will go out for people who have knowledge of any prior art, but few people will respond, only a few geeks and we know how reliable they are. The frisbee manufacturers will attempt to show that they manufacturer their products before 2002, but the patent office and courts will have machines whose software treats all 2-digit dates as having an initial "20". As a result, the courts will conclude that frisbees won't be manufactured for another 60 years or so, and the manufacturers will be ordered to pay royalties.
Hey, maybe I can turn it into a short story and get it published
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Cynicism aside, though, a lot of their existing communications tools are really expensive, and use old technology or newer technology that's made extra-complex to retain compatibility with older technology, and new equipment made with new commercially-viable parts can be *much* less expensive, often less expensive than maintaining existing equipment. For a computer example, compare the cost of buying a 1GHz 256M RAM 20GB disk machine today (about $400) with the cost of replacing fixing your 486 (which used different memory technology, EGA video, 5.25" disk drives, backup tape drives, no CDROMs, etc.) In some cases, the military does need militarized equipment (throwing radios around in trucks and dropping them off airplanes can be a bit rough), but often it's cheaper to buy 10 commercial units and have 8 of them break.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If this program gets anywhere, it can help the military retire a bunch of the old equipment that's hogging lots of that spectrum, and replace it with more flexible stuff that's less expensive, and can reduce the extent to which they're blocking development of new technologies (ultrawideband, etc.) that might interfere with their hogged spectrum.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If advanced(?) civilizations eventually spread their broadcast information content (e.g. cell phone calls) evenly across the radio spectrum, does that mean that if we were to tune into the radio emissions from such a planet (e.g., earth in 20 years as observed from the moon) that there would be no readily discernable signals, but rather the planet's radio signature would appear to be just a bunch of evenly distributed radio noise,-- since broadcasters would dynamically fill any frequency "holes" that might appear?
;-) civilization?
Turning our attention to observing planets outside our solar system: would our current SETI searches be able to tell that such a radio spectrum represented information content? If not, how would a SETI search have to be organized to recognize this signature of a radio-active
--Forgotten Password
The DoD no doubt wastes a vast amount of money - however that has very little to do with DARPA, which is a research agency funded by the DoD. Of course, ARPANET came from DARPA and was the essential precursor to the Internet. In any case, the DoD has good reason to use spectrum more efficiently - the less spectrum each person uses, the more people can communicate with high-bandwidth data in the same limited chunk of spectrum.
Efficient spectrum usage is probably more useful for civilian use, though - imagine thousands of people trying to meet up with friends at a football match. Typically, cell phones don't work at all well in such huge densities - efficient spectrum would help in this scenario.
GSM does not make very efficient use of spectrum - while it is very handy to be able to use my GSM phone almost everywhere in the world, most GSM operators are having to upgrade to the CDMA-based UMTS (aka W-CDMA) in order to use spectrum more efficiently.
GSM works well, but suggesting it as a solution for spectrum efficiency is quite bizarre, particularly when cdmaOne (used by Sprint PCS and Verizon in the US) is more spectrum-efficient.
You will need new kit, but real soon now it should be possible to implement 'software radio', in which you can download new software to implement whatever new radio interface someone has dreamt up. May take a few years, but in the longer term you could just download a GSM or UMTS module to your cell phone before travelling to Europe.
UK spectrum, for us over here :
:o)
http://ukspec.tripod.com/spectrum.html
Score +5, informative
i personally enjoy slapping sovietski sausage to paulina porizkova in company stall but would enjoy many new but too slow
"Indeed, the ideal for a well-functioning democratic state is like the ideal for a gentleman's well-cut suit- it is not
Disclaimer: I work for a very very tiny DoD group. By now, I'm expecting at least one post to mutter about how much radio spectrum the Federal Government is using. This has been the subject of many poorly done news reports ("We're running out of spectrum? Get some from the DoD!").
The truth of the matter is that the Feds don't get that much spectrum to play with. Quoting an unclassified, cleared-for-public-release presentation (ideally, anyway; it was a public presentation), the United States' Federal Government as a whole only has exclusive access to 7% of the available radio spectrum used in the U.S. This includes all military, police, national parks, etc. Over 30% is claimed exclusively for commercial interests (this may be as high as 43%; I do not have the presentation in front of me).
The rest of the spectrum (the majority) is shared for both commercial and government use. So please, everyone, do not complain that the military, Federal government, etc., is using up your spectrum. As the above figures show, we most definitely are not :)
As the linked article clearly states, it's not about the bandwidth. Rather, interference is reduced by using adaptive directional antennas.
Eliminiate VHF and use it for wireless data transfer!
Indeed, cellphones like internet-over-cable-tv, works fine if no-one is using it. In crowd scenes and disasters, it just gets jammed. Which is why at futbol/soccer matches, our family uses a mix of FRS, ham radio, and cellular SMS. SMS is much more efficient of spectrum than voice, much as UDP is more efficient than TCP.
Adaptive spectrum use is exactly what hams and other trained radio operators do manually -- and most radio users are prohibited from doing by single-channel licensing. (FRS, GMRS, MURS, CB have a lesser but significant ability to change frequency -- hams uniquely have multi-band and multi-channel, often in the same radio.)