Top News Stories of the Week : 19th Feb, 2016

Empower RF Partners with TEVET for RF Amplifier Sales

Empower RF Systems has announced that TEVET has become a value added reseller of Empower’s RF and microwave amplifier modules and systems. TEVET is an established nationally recognized technology driven Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned and HUBZone Small Business (SDVOSB) with exemplary performance servicing the Aerospace, Defense and Energy markets.

Empower’s Next Generation rack-mount amplifiers deliver performance and portability with excellent performance, which simplify and future-proof complex systems designs.  Their “smart” amplifier family offers user selectable configuration modes making these newest units the most flexible RF amplifier products in the industry.

TEVET provides technology and solutions from industry leading test and measurement, life science, and embedded manufacturers into the Federal Government, Defense Agencies (DOD / DOE) and major Federal Prime Contractors on a national basis. Read More

Hack-Proof RFID Chips to Prevent Side Channel Attacks

MIT researchers have developed a new type of radio frequency identification (RFID) chip that is extremely difficult to hack. The chip has been designed to prevent so-called side channel attacks – which analyze patterns of memory access or fluctuations in power usage when a device is performing a cryptographic operation, in order to extract its cryptographic key.

If such chips were widely adopted, it could mean that an identity thief couldn’t steal your credit card number or key card information by sitting next to you at a café, and high-tech burglars couldn’t swipe expensive goods from a warehouse and replace them with dummy tags. Read More

Injectable Radios Sends Strong Signals from Inside the Body

Implantable medical devices usually have to trade functionality for size. Pacemakers and other active devices with processors on board are typically about a cubic centimeter in size, and must be implanted surgically. Smaller implantable electronics tend to be passive, lacking computing capability and the ability to actively broadcast signals, says David Blaauw, a professor of electrical engineer and computer science at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The hardest thing to shrink isn’t the processor. It’s actually the radio, says Blaauw.

Last week at the IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, Blaauw and fellow engineers David Wentzloff and Yao Shi showed a prototype injectable radio with a volume of just 10 cubic millimeters (1 mm x 1 mm x 10 mm) that can send powerful radio signals 50 centimeters away, including through 3 centimeters of tissue. Read More

Centimeter-level Precision GNSS Technology Finally Comes to Mass Market

u‑blox has launched the NEO‑M8P GNSS receiver modules delivering high performance down to centimeter‑level accuracy. Measuring only 12.2 x 16 x 2.4 mm, this module is the smallest high precision GNSS RTK (real time kinematic) module available on the market based on GPS and GLONASS satellite‑based navigation systems.

The rover with the u‑blox NEO‑M8P­‑0 receives corrections from the u‑blox base receiver NEO‑M8P‑2 via a communication link that uses the RTCM (Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services) protocol, enabling centimeter‑level positioning accuracy. The RTK algorithms are pre‑integrated into the module. As a result, the size and weight are significantly reduced, and power consumption is five times lower than existing solutions, thus cutting costs and improving usability dramatically. Read More

Qorvo 802.11 ac Power Amplifier Integrated in Linksys Routers

Qorvo has recently launched the RFPA55X2 Wi-Fi power amplifier (PA) family. This family of power amplifiers include the RFPA5512, RFPA5522, RFPA5532 and RFPA5542. These amplifiers offer high power outputs and low power consumption in an innovative design that enables 802.11ac Wave2 features such as eight 80 MHz streams, 160 MHz streams and multi-user multiple input/multiple output (MIMO) technology supporting a variety of devices simultaneously. This allows wireless devices to connect across longer-range access points with ultra-increased data throughput in a high-density user environment under a variety of operating conditions.

Linksys has integrated the RFPA5522 in to its WRT1900ACS dual-band Wi-Fi Router. This amplifier provides superior power-added efficiency of 17% for 802.11ac and more than 20% for 802.11n, resulting in a PAE savings of 4-5% that significantly reduce thermal issues in MIMO applications. Read More

MAX4G to Showcase New NLOS Backhaul Product at MWC 2016

MAX4G has announced that it will unveil its new M4-2000 NLOS backhaul product at Mobile World Congress 2016, Barcelona.

The Company’s latest NLOS backhaul solution offers excellent performance with up to 900 Mbps capacity and sub 1 ms latency. It features carrier aggregation of both licensed and unlicensed spectrum, adaptive interference management, F-TDD and dynamic uplink-downlink optimization. Read More

Scientists Train Electrons with Microwaves

In what may provide a potential path to processing information in a quantum computer, researchers have switched an intrinsic property of electrons from an excited state to a relaxed state on demand using a device that served as a microwave “tuning fork.” The team’s findings could also lead to enhancements in magnetic resonance techniques, which are widely used to explore the structure of materials and biomolecules, and for medical imaging.

The international research team, which included scientists at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), demonstrated how to dramatically increase the coupling of microwaves in a specially designed superconducting cavity to a fundamental electron property called spin—which, like a coin, can be flipped. Read More

Qualcomm Announces Next Generation Platform for Wearable Devices

Qualcomm has introduced Snapdragon™ Wear, a new platform for next generation wearable devices, and the Snapdragon Wear 2100 system-on-chip (SoC), the first in a new product family designed to bring new and enhanced wearable experiences to consumers.

The Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor currently powers most of the Android Wear smart watches. With the introduction of the Snapdragon Wear platform and Snapdragon Wear 2100 SoC, Qualcomm Technologies is well-positioned to extend its progress in wearables technology by enabling sleek designs, long battery life, smart sensing, and always- connected experiences in the next generation of wearable devices. These benefits are expected to have widespread appeal across the mobile, fashion and sports ecosystems in the wearables space. Read More

Anritsu to Showcase 5G & IOT Solutions at the Mobile World Congress

Anritsu will be demonstrating a wide range of test and measurement solutions at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona at Hall 6 Stand 6F40. Mobile. In particular they will be focusing on 5G, LTE-A Pro, IOT, the connected home and M2M device testing.

5G Devices and Infrastructure

A key discussion point in the mobile industry, and especially in the test and measurement segment, will be the emergence of new technologies to enable the next generation 5G networks. Although much of the headline discussion is on the implementation of a new air interface, the 5G network will have an impact across the whole “end to end” network and service domains. Read More

R&S Introduces New Mobile Network Testing Solution

Capacity demand and quality of experience expectations in mobile networks are increasing dramatically. Mobile network operators need to look for innovative approaches to verify current network performance and to design and roll out network expansions.

Rohde & Schwarz has announced its new network performance test for mobile network testing. The innovative and patent-pending solution enables users to simultaneously measure the maximum data capacity and minimum continuous connectivity in a mobile network. Mobile operators have immediate insight into the network capacity available to end users. It is also easier and more affordable to carry out benchmark comparisons with competitor networks. This new procedure overcomes the disadvantages of traditional capacity testing using plain file uploads and downloads. Read More

Study Explains How Electromagnetic Fields Amplify Pain in Amputees

An Iraq War veteran, David Underwood for years has noticed that whenever he drove under power lines and around other electromagnetic fields, he would feel a buzz in what remained of his arm. The intensity of the pain became more significant when he was traveling by car through open spaces in Texas, so much so that he felt like his arm was blown off again.

Until a recent study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas was published online last month in PLOS ONE, there was no scientific evidence to back up the stories of people, such as Underwood, who reported aberrant sensations and neuropathic pain around cellphone towers and other technology that produce radio-frequency electromagnetic fields. “Our study provides evidence, for the first time, that subjects exposed to cellphone towers at low, regular levels can actually perceive pain,” said Dr. Mario Romero-Ortega, senior author of the study and an associate professor of bioengineering in the University’s Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science. “ Read More

GNSS Module Provides Untethered 3D Dead Reckoning

u-blox has announced the release of NEO-M8U, the industry’s first Untethered 3D Dead Reckoning (UDR) module. Combining multi-GNSS (GPS, GLONASS, BeiDou, Galileo) with an onboard 3D gyro/accelerometer, the NEO-M8U provides accurate positioning even where GNSS signals are weak or not available. It achieves this without any connection to the vehicle other than power.

The u-blox NEO-M8U module provides superior multipath suppression, which improves position accuracy even in tough environments, such as urban canyons, tunnels, or parking garages. For example, in London’s city center area, NEO-M8U is typically three times more accurate than a traditional GNSS receiver. In addition, NEO-M8U offers instantaneous position immediately after power-up, without the need to wait for a first fix as with regular GNSS receivers. Read More

Google is Secretly Testing 5G Internet Drones

Google is reportedly testing a new 5G internet connectivity program called Project Skybender. The project involves solar drones that use millimeter radio waves to allow the transmission of gigabits of data. These solar-powered drones are getting tested at the New Mexico Spaceport Center, where the search giant had built several prototype transceivers at the isolated spaceport last summer, and is testing them with multiple drones, according to documents obtained under public records laws.

Under this secretive project, solar drones stay afloat for long periods of time and use millimeter radio waves to transmit gigabits of data – which is potentially up to 40 times more than today’s 4G LTE systems. Google is temporarily using 15,000 square feet of hangar space in the glamorous Gateway to Space terminal designed by Norman Foster for the much-delayed Virgin Galactic spaceflights to house the drones and support aircraft. It has also installed its own dedicated flight control centre in the nearby Spaceflight Operations Center, separate from the terminal. Read More