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MIT Researchers Triple Wireless Speeds
August 29, 2016 by admin
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MIT researchers have uncovered a way to transfer wireless data using a smartphone at a speed about three times faster and twice as far as existing technology.
The researchers developed a technique to coordinate multiple wireless transmitters by synchronizing their wave phases, according to a statement from MIT on Tuesday. Multiple independent transmitters will be able to send data over the same wireless channel to multiple independent receivers without interfering with each other.
Since wireless spectrum is scarce, and network congestion is only expected to grow, the technology could have important implications.
The researchers called the approach MegaMIMO 2.0 (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) .
For their experiments, the researchers set up four laptops in a conference room setting, allowing signals to roam over 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi. The speed and distance improvement is expected to also apply to cellular networks. A video describes the technology as well as a technical paper (registration required), which was presented this week to the Association for Computing Machinery’s Special Interest Group on Data Communications (SIGCOMM 16).
The researchers, from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, are: Ezzeldin Hamed, Hariharan Rahul, Mohammed Abdelghany and Dina Katabi.
Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/mit-researchers-develop-technique-to-triple-wireless-speeds.html
Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/mit-researchers-develop-technique-to-triple-wireless-speeds.html
Graphene May Give Processors A Boost
Researchers at MIT have figured out that graphene, sheets of atom-thick carbon, could be used to make chips a million times faster.
The researchers have worked out that slowing the speed of light to the extent that it moves slower than flowing electrons can create an “optical boom”, the optical equivalent of a sonic boom.
Slowing the speed of light is no mean feat, but the clever folks at MIT managed it by using the honeycomb shape of carbon to slow photons to slow photons to several hundredths of their normal speed in a free space, explained researcher Ido Kaminer.
Meanwhile, the characteristics of graphene speed up electrons to a million metres a second, or around 1/300 of the speed of light in a vacuum.
The optical boom is caused when the electrons passing though the graphene reach the speed of light, effectively breaking its barrier in the carbon honeycomb and causing a shockwave of light.
As electrons move faster than the trapped light, they bleed plasmons, a form of virtual particle that represents the oscillation of electrons on the graphene’s surface.
Effectively, it is the equivalent of turning electricity into light. This is nothing new – Thomas Edison did it a century ago with fluorescent tubes – but it can efficiently and controllably generate plasmons at a scale that works with microchip technology.
The discovery could allow chip components to be made from graphene to enable the creation of light-based circuits. These circuits could be the next step in the evolution of chip and computing technology, as the transfer of data through light is far faster than using electrons in today’s chips, even the fast pixel-pushing ones.
So much faster that it’s “six orders of magnitude higher than what is used in electronics”, according to Kaminer. That’s up to a million times faster in plain English.
“There’s a lot of excitement about graphene because it could be easily integrated with other electronics,” said physics professor Marin Soljačić, a researcher on the project, who is confident that MIT can turn this theoretical experiment into a working system. “I have confidence that it should be doable within one to two years.”
This is a pretty big concept and almost sci-fi stuff, but we’re always keen to see smaller and faster chips. It also shows that the future tech envisioned by the world of sci-fi may not be that far away.
Courtesy-TheInq
MIT Develops Inflatable Antenna
September 17, 2013 by admin
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Satellites the size of shoe boxes, which are expected to one day allow researchers to explore space more efficiently, will soon have greater range.
MIT researchers have built and tested an inflatable antenna that can fold into such a satellite, then inflate in orbit to enable long range communications — from seven times the distance possible today.
The technology will let the small satellites, called CubeSats, move further into space and send valuable information to scientists back on earth.
“With this antenna, you could transmit from the moon, and even farther than that,” said Alessandra Babuscia, a researcher on the inflatable antenna team at MIT, in a statement. “This antenna is one of the cheapest and most economical solutions to the problem of communication. But all this research builds a set of options to allow the spacecraft … to fly in deep space.”
The MIT effort comes as engineers at the University of Michigan work on ways to propel such small spacecraft into interplanetary space. The team is building a plasma thruster that could fit in a 10-centimeter space and push a small satellite-bearing spacecraft into deep space.
The university researchers using superheated plasma that would push through a magnetic field to propel a CubeSat.
The MIT researchers are seeking to solve the communications problems and enable far-afield CubeSats to send data to and receive instructions from Earth.
The CubeSat devices cannot support radio dishes that are used today to let spacecraft communicate when far from Earth’s orbit.
The inflatable antennas significantly amplifies radio signals, allowing a CubeSat to transmit data back to Earth at a higher rate, according to the university.
MIT engineers have built two prototype antennae, each a meter wide, out of Mylar, which is a polyester film known for its strength and use as an electric insulator. One antenna was a cone shape, while the other looks more like a cylinder when inflated. Each fits into a 10-cubic-centimeter space within a CubeSat.
Each prototype contains a few grams of benzoic acid, which can be converted to a gas to inflate the antenna, MIT noted.
In testing, the cylindrical antenna performed “slightly better” than the cone shaped device, transmitting data 10 times faster, and seven times farther than existing CubeSat antennae.
Anonymous Attacks MIT
January 23, 2013 by admin
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Anonymous goes after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) website after its president called for an internal investigation into what role it played in the prosecution of web activist Aaron Swartz.
MIT president Rafael Reif revealed the investigation in an email to staff that he sent out after hearing the news about Swartz’s death.
“I want to express very clearly that I and all of us at MIT are extremely saddened by the death of this promising young man who touched the lives of so many. It pains me to think that MIT played any role in a series of events that have ended in tragedy,” he wrote.
“I have asked Professor Hal Abelson to lead a thorough analysis of MIT’s involvement from the time that we first perceived unusual activity on our network in fall 2010 up to the present. I have asked that this analysis describe the options MIT had and the decisions MIT made, in order to understand and to learn from the actions MIT took. I will share the report with the MIT community when I receive it.”
Hacktivists from Anonymous defaced two MIT webpages in the wake of the announcement and turned them into memorials for Swartz.