Propagation

Understanding how wireless (also called radio or electromagnetic wave) travels from a transmitting antenna to a receiving antenna is fundamental in maximising the performance of any wireless systems. The science of understanding the phenomena and engineering approximation of modelling them are the research field known as radio propagation, or simply propagation.
Data61 has an extensive capability to perform propagation measurement, analysis and modelling, ranging from a simple field spectrum monitoring using standard off-the-shelf portable spectrum analyser to a complex multi-antenna multi-frequency channel measurement and modelling.
Some of the capabilities are as follows:
• Portable spectrum analysers from 9 kHz to 26.5 GHz.
• In-house built geometric optics based software channel simulator for indoor environment.
• ITU-R standard based path loss models implemented on MATLAB.

Past custom channel measurement equipment developed by CSIRO Radiophysics Laboratory are as follows

This demonstrator was used in developing the well-known CSIRO’s patent on wireless local area network.  The equipment is currently on display at the Australian National Museum.

CDMA Scanner developed in 2000’ in collaboration under Australian Telecommunication Collaborative Research Centre. It can estimate channel impulse response from multiple CDMA base stations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Multi-antenna (equipped with 4 transmitters and 4 receivers, expandable to 8 transmitters and 8 receivers) software defined radio demonstrator developed in 2005. The equipment was used to demonstrate the world-first wireless packet transmission at 600 Mb/s with 15 b/s/Hz spectral efficiency in 2005 and received the Engineers Australia Sydney Division Engineering Excellence Awards, Finalist, in 2006.

 

Multi-antenna software defined radio demonstrator with twelve antenna central node and six single antenna remote nodes developed in 2010 supported by the Science and Industry Endowment Fund. The equipment was used to demonstrate high spectral efficiency wireless broadband access for rural areas in Smithton, Tasmania, in 2010.

 

Multi-antenna software defined radio demonstrator with 32 antenna central node with 18 single antenna remote nodes developed in 2012 supported by the Science and Industry Endowment Fund. The equipment was used to demonstrate 67 bit/second/Hertz spectral efficiency in 2012.