1,239 research outputs found
HopScotch - a low-power renewable energy base station network for rural broadband access
The provision of adequate broadband access to communities in sparsely populated rural areas has in the past been severely restricted. In this paper, we present a wireless broadband access test bed running in the Scottish Highlands and Islands which is based on a relay network of low-power base stations. Base stations are powered by a combination of renewable sources creating a low cost and scalable solution suitable for community ownership. The use of the 5~GHz bands allows the network to offer large data rates and the testing of ultra high frequency ``white space'' bands allow expansive coverage whilst reducing the number of base stations or required transmission power. We argue that the reliance on renewable power and the intelligent use of frequency bands makes this approach an economic green radio technology which can address the problem of rural broadband access
RF-Powered Cognitive Radio Networks: Technical Challenges and Limitations
The increasing demand for spectral and energy efficient communication
networks has spurred a great interest in energy harvesting (EH) cognitive radio
networks (CRNs). Such a revolutionary technology represents a paradigm shift in
the development of wireless networks, as it can simultaneously enable the
efficient use of the available spectrum and the exploitation of radio frequency
(RF) energy in order to reduce the reliance on traditional energy sources. This
is mainly triggered by the recent advancements in microelectronics that puts
forward RF energy harvesting as a plausible technique in the near future. On
the other hand, it is suggested that the operation of a network relying on
harvested energy needs to be redesigned to allow the network to reliably
function in the long term. To this end, the aim of this survey paper is to
provide a comprehensive overview of the recent development and the challenges
regarding the operation of CRNs powered by RF energy. In addition, the
potential open issues that might be considered for the future research are also
discussed in this paper.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, Accepted in IEEE Communications Magazin
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