A 5G Communications Tower
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Kumu Networks has developed a means of significantly reducing latency in 5G networks that has the result of also improving throughput. It does this by allowing signals to be transmitted and received on the same or near adjacent channel without self-interference. Self-interference happens when the signal being transmitted by a radio blocks a signal being received at the same time.
What Kumu Networks has done is develop a way to cancel out the interference from its own transmitter, so that it doesn’t block reception. Using a technique first described by author Arthur C. Clarke in his 1950 short story, “Silence Please” Kumu cancels out interference by reproducing a signal out of phase, so that it cancels out any interference. The result is that the radio’s receiver circuitry doesn’t receive the interference at all.
This technique has been used to a limited extent in audio technology, but Kumu has taken it to radio to solve a similar problem.
Self Interference
In a wireless environment, this self-interference can cause latency, because the radio has to slow down to wait while it receives a signal. The reason it must wait is because its transmitted signal is interfering with reception. By cancelling that interference, the radio can transmit and receive at the same time.
“Latency effectively eliminates throughput,” explained Kumu CEO David Cutrer. “If we’ve got great throughput, we can go a gigabit per second, but if you got high latency, your actual throughput is maybe half last, or maybe a third of that.”
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5G Communications
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To combat that latency problem with 5G networks, Kumu just announced an advanced chipset that will handle the problem if eliminating the self-interference that causes latency. Cutrer called the development a foundational technology.
Cutrer pointed out that the problem with self-interference can be dealt with by simply transmitting and receiving on different channels that are separated far enough in frequency to avoid interference. But he noted that this requires significant bandwidth.
“We take a sample of the transmit radio signal and we produce what we call it the antidote signal, that’s 180 degrees out of phase from what you receive and you cancel at the receiver.”
Full Duplex
“If they’re on the same channel, that would be single frequency full duplex, which is the holy grail of spectral efficiency,” Cutrer explained. He noted that while Kumu hasn’t quite achieved total cancellation of the signal, they’ve achieved a 100 dBm reduction, which is quite good.
Wireless communications
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Cutrer said that while people think of 5G in relation to cell phones and cellular carriers, the real application for this capability is really private 5G networks used in applications such as factory automation. There even small reductions in latency can make a huge difference in the efficiency of a private network.
Kumu already has a functional chipset, and is showing it in demonstrations at Mobile World Congress currently taking place in Barcelona, Spain. He said this would allow customers, “To move with this technology lead and quickly let this stuff move forward so people can get samples of these chips and start building them into the products they want to make.”
Cutrer said that he expects to see companies start using this technology later this year. With it, 5G can operate faster with less latency than it currently does, which in turn helps realize the promise of 5G, and eventually speed the move into 6G.
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