UCL smashes speed record for wireless data transfer

Using a record frequency range of 5-150GHz, the UCL team hit wireless speeds of 938 Gigabits per second (Gb/s), nearly 10,000 times faster than the UK’s average 5G speed of 100Mb/s. The total bandwidth of 145GHz is over five times higher than the previous wireless transmission world record.

According to the UCL team, this wide bandwidth range was a key innovation, allowing data to be transferred by radio and optical technologies for the first time. The researchers used advanced electronics for the 5-50GHz range, relying on photonics to transfer data in the 50-150GHz range. If commercialised, the technology could transform public and home WiFi as well as industrial connectivity and IoT. The research is published in the Journal of Lightwave Technology. 

“Current wireless communication systems are struggling to keep up with the increasing demand for high-speed data access, with capacity in the last few metres between the user and the fibre optic network holding us back,” said senior author Dr Zhixin Liu, from UCL Electronic & Electrical Engineering.

“Our solution is to use more of the available frequencies to increase bandwidth, while maintaining high signal quality and providing flexibility in accessing different frequency resources. This results in super-fast and reliable wireless networks, overcoming the speed bottleneck between user terminals and the Internet.

“Our new approach combines two existing wireless technologies for the first time, high-speed electronics and millimetre wave photonics, to overcoming these barriers. This new system allows for the transmission of large amounts of data at unprecedented speeds, which will be crucial for the future of wireless communications.”

While the technology has so far been confined the laboratory, the UCL team is working towards a prototype system that can be used for commercial testing. If that is successful, it’s claimed the technology could filter into commercial equipment within three to five years.

“The beauty of wireless technology is its flexibility in terms of space and location,” explained study author Professor Izzat Darwazeh, director of UCL’s Institute of Communications and Connected Systems (ICCS). “It can be used in scenarios where optical cabling would be challenging, such as in a factory containing complex arrangements of equipment.

“This work brings wireless technology up to speed with the increased bandwidths and speeds that have been achieved with the radio frequency and optical communications systems within next-generation digital communications infrastructure.”