News Release

Paris studying adaptive interference rejection for wireless communications

Grant and Award Announcement

George Mason University

Bernd-Peter Paris, Associate Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is developing a novel radio receiver architecture capable of operating across a large portion of the wireless spectrum while simultaneously being capable of adaptively suppressing interferences as they arise. This is a collaborative effort with researchers at Cornell University.

Since interference may change as a function of time and location, Paris will develop an algorithm to help the receiver adaptively adjust its response to one or more of these interferers so that the system can take advantage of the wireless spectrum whenever and wherever there is a need.

The project will horizontally integrate signal processing and algorithm development, circuit design and optimization, and radio frequency (RF) component design and tuning to create a new class of receivers able to identify, adapt to, and suppress interference effects while maintaining maximum frequency agility.

Paris and his collaborators will focus their research on three integrated and interdependent thrust areas. One of those areas will be the design of receiver front-ends that use passive networks (of inductors, capacitors, and other electromagnetic elements) to diversify the inputs from one or more antennas into a larger number of output taps, which then feed into a bank of reduced-power sub-receivers. Another area will be the development of digital-domain algorithms to provide control feedback to the front-end to enhance the required diversity for proper suppression. The third area will be the development of adaptive RF magnetic devices to provide real-time tunability of the passive network.

The proposed new receivers have the potential to enable significant enhancement in adaptive interference mitigation and improve the robustness of future wireless systems.

This project will also help educate and train rising engineers, at both the graduate and undergraduate level, to think holistically about the components and operation of wireless systems and establish robust receivers for the future.

Paris received $220,000 from the National Science Foundation for this work. Funding began in September 2020 and will end in late August 2023.

###


Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.