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The world of mobile communications moves fast. With new mobile devices, new
applications and ever-growing and changing consumer demands the wireless
networks in use today have to evolve. Rather than take an incremental approach
to meet these challenges, Bell Labs took a leap and developed a radically new
approach to wireless technology. In order to do this, Tod Sizer, head of Bell
Labs Wireless Research, challenged his team to think not just “outside the
box,” but to think “inside the cube.” In six short months, the team developed a
cube-shaped antenna that would fit in the palm of a hand - and was ready
to test it with customers.
“There are many different types and sizes of base stations, from very small
to very large, depending on where they are located, such as in an urban or
rural area,” explained Sizer. “I realized that we needed to design a new and
flexible type of antenna array for different environments - including one
designed to the smallest possible size – ‘invisible antennas’ - in order to be
flexible enough to meet the growing needs of all of our wireless service
provider customers.”
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( Watch the
video)
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A radio antenna element is a component of an antenna system that transmits
signals from the wireless base station to a wireless end-user using a mobile
phone, smart device or laptop. By reducing the size of the element itself, an
antenna array can be scaled to fit any wireless need simply by adding more of
these elements to the array.
Bell Labs wireless researchers weren’t daunted by the challenge of building
something that was roughly ten percent of its current size. Several wireless
research teams in Stuttgart and Ireland focused on different aspects of the
problem, combining their unique areas of expertise to quickly resolve a myriad
of technical challenges to reduce the antenna element’s size, improve energy
efficiency and lower manufacturing expenses. The clever architecture of this
new antenna is but one of the innovations critical to realizing
Alcatel-Lucent’s unique lightRadio portfolio.
“We believe this unique antenna - as part of the lightRadio solution
- will have a significant impact in the wireless space,” concluded
Sizer.
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