Overview

Overview

Objective

Internet and mobile communication are the key focus of today’s Information Communications Technology. The former yields many new revolutions in our social life and the latter provides a pervasive communication media by which people can communicate with each other anytime and anywhere. However, current mobile communication systems only render limited access to the services of the Internet due to their limited bandwidth,  a typical characteristic of wireless media.

The Internet’s abundance of services and growing  repository of knowledge should be also accessible wirelessly in an advanced ICT society. Realization of such accessibility through ubiquitous broadband communication is the objective of the MIMO-MESH Project.

Overview of MIMO-MESH project

Wireless Mesh NetworkWireless Mesh Network

As data rates increase, the range of wireless network coverage is reduced, raising investment costs for building infrastructure with access points to cover service areas. Mesh networks are unique enablers that can reduce this cost due their flexible architecture.

With mesh networks, access points are connected wirelessly and exchange data frames with each other to forward to/from a gateway point. Since a mesh requires no costly cable constructions for its backhaul network, it reduces total investment cost. Mesh technology’s capabilities can boost extending coverage of service areas easily and flexibly.

For further cost reduction, a large-scale mesh is desirable. To meet this challenge, development of a high capacity mesh is strongly demanded. The MIMO-MESH project aims at developing palm-sized mesh points with high capacity wireless relay interfaces.

■Technologies to be applied
IPT forwarding
（Intermittent Periodic Transmit）		 IPT is an original packet-forwarding scheme cable of reducing radio interference in the forwarding path. IPT forwarding enables high throughput in long hop relays whereby a large scale mesh is enabled.
MIMO Relay wireless interfaces can be improved by applying MIMO. We aim to create MIMO relays with low power consumption.
Antenna Small form-factor is an essential requirement in the development of our mesh points. High gain antennae are desirable to obtain long reach of relay radio signals, however their use increases the size of the AP. We pursue our objective employing small antennae with high gain using our unique design skills.