An overview of UCSD´s Center for Wireless Communications

UCSD´s Center for Wireless Communications was founded in March 1995 as a partnership between the University and the wireless communications industry. Its goals include the definition and pursuit of a cutting-edge program of precompetitive, multidisciplinary research focused on wireless access systems, technologies, and applications; the creation of a relevant base of new knowledge with high commercial impact potential; and the production of graduates at all degree levels trained to meet industrial human resources needs. Of paramount importance to the achievement of these goals are the involvement, collaboration, and financial support of the CWCs industrial participants. Working in close cooperation with its industrial participants, the theme of broadband wireless access to the Internet was chosen as the unifying focus for the Center´s programs, and five thrust areas have been defined: circuits, signal processing (smart antennas and compression), communication theory, networks, and software to wirelessly support multimedia applications. Seven specific goal-oriented projects are currently underway, each intended to meet the long-term interests of a subset of our industrial participants. These seven projects focus, respectively, on ad hoc home networks, universal wide-area wireless service, space-time processing, modulation/coding for enhanced coverage, linear power amplifiers, RF receivers, and changes to the Internet infrastructure needed to support ubiquitous broadband wireless access. Among the many issues being addressed are agent-based computing, division of responsibilities between the tetherless information portal and the infrastructure-based agents, battery-conserving protocols for the air interface, quality of service at the wireless networking layer, capacity enhancement and interference suppression on the radio air interface, modulation and coding, image and video compression, and low-power RF and integrated circuits for the handheld device