TECHNOLOGY HORIZONS|WIRELESS NETWORKS
Generation
games
Graduate Julie Bradford is working at the cutting edge of the communications
industry helping develop the fourth generation of wireless technologies
In just 10 years mobile
telecommunications devices have
evolved from simple, first-generation
phones into powerful, multimedia
platforms. These third-generation, or 3G,
digital devices now offer a plethora of
functions — in addition to making calls,
users can receive and send emails, surf
the internet and watch film clips.
But even as these 3G technologies
are being rolled out, some engineers are
lucky enough to be involved in the
development of the fourth-generation
(4G) of wireless technologies. Julie
Bradford, an engineer with an MEng
degree in electronic engineering with
business management from York
University, is one of them.
As an electronic engineer
working in the signal processing
group at PA Consulting’s
Cambridge-based Wireless
Technology Practice, she is
actively involved in
sketching out ideas for new products and
determining the requirements of the 4G
marketplace.
The capabilities of today’s mobile
devices can be attributed to the
revolution that has taken place in the
microelectronics and software industries.
The evolution of powerful processors has
allowed designers such as Bradford to
pack more functionality into them than
ever before. This capability is
complemented by fast transmission
schemes, such as code division multiple
access, that allows them to operate at
data rates in the Mbit/sec range.
At PA Consulting, however, Bradford
is looking at a future when devices will
be able to transmit and receive data an
order of magnitude faster than they can
today, and when even more powerful
integrated circuits will be able to
process it in the handset.
‘Next-generation 4G devices will
work on newer transmission schemes
such as orthogonal frequency-division
multiplexing (OFDM) and will operate at
data rates at around 100 Mbit/sec,’ said
Bradford.
‘That means that the systems we
design and develop must be capable of
transmitting and receiving data at this
speed while conforming to the OFDM
specification.’
In order to simplify the development
of 4G devices, Bradford must first
define at system level the operation of
the various functional blocks that make
up the signal processing chain. The
work involves algorithm development
for receiver functions such as timing
recovery, channel estimation,
demapping and forward error
correction.
This is followed by a simulation
campaign to prove the design before it
is taken forward for implementation.
Such complicated designs take a
multi-skilled approach so the wireless
technology group at PA consulting is
comprised of engineers with expertise
in software, hardware and signal
processing.
TECHNOLOGY HORIZONS SUMMER 2008
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