Cognition Coming Home
Written by Dave Burstein   
95% of spectrum is unused at any given moment, Dave Farber believes, allowing for a massive increase in wireless usage if properly managed. The available portion is even higher in many places. Most of this spectrum can be put to use if the radio has the ability to test before sending data and make sure the frequency is clear. That's cognitive radio, the best hope for increasing performance beyond 4G levels. It's high on the U.S. technical agenda, with support from Chief Technologist Jon Peha. The Technical Advisory Committee pressed hard for the rule change several years ago, but Martin didn't want to deal with industry opposition. Soon after, TAC meetings ended. Technologists were outraged, but who listens to engineers in D.C.? Michael Copps does, and one of the many improvements he's brought to the FCC is reviving the TAC.

Ahmed Zeddam of France Telecom Labs has now written a paper on how similar techniques can apply in-home as well. HD TV around the house stretches the state of the art of wireless transmission, with MIMO, cognition and other techniques becoming crucial. Here's the abstract.

Electromagnetic environment and telecommunications: towards a cognitive electromagnetic compatibility

This article deals with the electromagnetic environment management problem within the context of high speed digital transmissions deployed in wired telecommunication networks. Traditionally, Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) is assured by filtering for better electromagnetic immunity, and by cable shielding for emission limitation. However, like cognitive radio, we can also, for high speed wired transmissions, treat the EMC as an intelligent and autonomous system capable of perceiving its environment, interpreting it, making suited decisions, and reacting according to the constraints related to the electromagnetic environment. In this context, some application examples are here given in order to illustrate this evolution towards a cognitive EMC in wired networks. To cite this article: A. Zeddam et al., C. R. Physique 10 (2009).