Concurrent Multi-Band Receiver

Hossein Hashemi (hashemi@caltech.edu)

We are proposing a completely new approach to design Concurrent Multiband Transceivers capable of operating at multiple frequency bands simultaneously with minimal overhead to the system resources. Concurrent Multiband Operation will be extremely useful to increase the bandwidth, add diversity to the receivers and allow for multiple applications to be integrated using the same hardware. 
Simultaneous operation at multiple frequency bands can be used to serve multiple purposes. Since concurrent multiband receivers are capable of operating at multiple frequency bands simultaneously, they automatically have access to more bandwidth. For example, the ISM band at 2.4GHz provides about 85MHz of bandwidth while the three ISM bands at 900MHz, 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz, combined with the 5.2GHz UNII band can provide more than 450MHz of bandwidth which can be used simultaneously. This significant increase in bandwidth is extremely valuable for wideband wireless systems. Furthermore, the extra bandwidth comes via bands at different frequencies. As the wavelength of the signal at different bands are different, they form multiple parallel channels with different fading properties. Such systems can operate as diversity receivers which are capable of reliable operation under harsh multipath fading conditions similar to that of in-door wireless applications, big cities or mountainous areas. They are also more robust to strong unintended or intentional jammers. Finally, the integrated multi-purpose transceivers are able to operate at different bands, using multiple communication standards for different applications. Mobile and portable systems built using these multiband transceivers will benefit a great deal from the improvement in the power dissipation and size of these concurrent multiband systems.