NIST Teams with Industry and Academia to Tackle Next-Generation Wireless Channel Challenges

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has formed an international alliance with about a dozen telecommunications companies and universities to model and measure wireless channels at much higher frequencies than those used today to hasten the development of future cellphones and other devices. NIST created the group to help meet a global surge in demand for wireless data transmission and capacity. As telecommunication frequencies go higher, the behavior of wireless signals changes. Different factors, like structures in the way, affect signal loss and distortion. Accurate models based on real-world measurements are needed to design not only the optimum system hardware but to develop standards that drive the underlying protocols for handling the transmissions. The work is challenging, in part because the technologies don't exist yet.

The 5G mmWave Channel Model Alliance will focus on 3D channel modeling at high frequencies, or millimeter wavelengths, addressing how a wireless signal would propagate in different bands of the spectrum. The alliance will also focus on directional channel sounding, which involves measuring whether signals are distorted or lost in a given channel. NIST and others in the global community are developing mmWave measurement tools.* Leveraging measurements from multiple research groups could enhance the value of channel models for predicting device performance in this as-yet untouched frequency spectrum.