Toward an energy-efficient and eco-friendly wireless network
Adaptive transceivers typically modify their characteristics according to changes in the signal transmission environment to increase throughput. With this in mind, the EU-funded ATWC (Adaptive transceivers for wireless communications) project set out to implement adaptive optimisation. Overall, the aim was to meet user quality-of-service (QoS) requirements for broadband connection at any time and at any place while decreasing power consumption. The latter will reduce carbon dioxide emissions and minimise pollution associated with battery disposal. Work began with the definition of multi-standard terminal specifications and the reconfiguration strategy as well as the development of prototypes for system components. The second half of the project focused on prototype design. The architecture for a reconfigurable multi-standard receiver based on a filtering analogue-to-digital converter was proposed, and four receivers were designed. Three increasingly efficient multi-standard transmitters were designed to lower power use and out-of-band noise emission. Six voltage-controlled oscillators were also designed, and the team carried out an analysis to enable their measurement. All components were then integrated into standard complementary metal-oxide semiconductor technology. More than 20 papers were featured at key international conferences and in leading scientific magazines. Five were published in the influential IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits and six presented at the high-profile International Solid-State Circuits Conference. ATWC demonstrated the feasibility of an energy-efficient wireless terminal exploiting cross-layer optimisation for enhanced QoS and reduced environmental impact.
Keywords
Transceiver, wireless communications, environmental impact, multi-standard receiver, solid-state circuits
