Transmission Concepts and System Realization for Terahertz Wireless Communications

• Applicants: Professor Wolfgang Gerstacker; Professor Dr.-Ing. Robert Schober; Professor Dr.-Ing. Martin Vossiek
• Subject Area: Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 389189659

The objective of this project is the design and realization of a system for wireless communications in the THz range, with maximum transmission frequencies of up to 1 THz and a signal bandwith of up to several tens of GHz. Due to significant recent progress in device technology, it is anticipated that the THz range, which was previously referred to as radio frequency ''no man's land", can be utilized for wireless communications in the future. THz communications has the potential to provide ultra-high data rates for applications such as short-range indoor transmission, fixed wireless access, and transmission within femtocells. However, such transmission systems are still in their infancy, and much more research is needed in order to optimize transmission concepts and to develop system realizations. This project targets both of these aspects and will be carried out in close collaboration between the Institute of Microwaves and Photonics (LHFT) and the Institute for Digital Communications (IDC) of the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. The institutes can draw from a rich expertise in realizing systems operating in higher frequency bands (LHFT) and designing communication systems based on concepts from communications theory and signal processing (IDC), respectively. Such a combination of expertise is rare and will be very beneficial for realizing the objectives of the project. In the THz range, impairments and realization effects play a much more pronounced role compared to lower frequency ranges, and theoretical system optimization and system realization have to be jointly considered in order to obtain meaningful results. In particular, in this project, a flexible and portable THz channel sounder with unprecedented measurement precision and ultra-high frequency range will be developed and used for the acquisition of the THz channel characteristics. Based on the measurements, channel models will be developed which will be used for the design of transmission schemes. Furthermore, a hardware platform with improved frequency range and bandwidth compared to state-of-the-art schemes will be realized, and hardware impairments such as phase noise will be characterized. This information will be used to further improve the designed transmission schemes in order to make them robust against hardware impairments. Real-time transmission expertiments will be conducted to verify the system performance based on the developed hardware platform.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants