Wireless technology plays a key role in today’s communications, and new forms of it will become central to emerging technologies including robots, drones, self-driving vehicles and new medical devices over the next five years.
The top wireless technologies are:
1. 5G Cellular:
In some cases, the 5G technology may supplement Wi-Fi, as it is more cost-effective for high-speed data networking in large sites, such as ports, airports and factories. “5G is still immature, and initially, most network operators will focus on selling high-speed broadband. However, the 5G standard is evolving and future iterations will improve 5G in areas such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and low-latency applications.
2. Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Wireless:
Both conventional and self-driving cars will need to communicate with each other, as well as with road infrastructure. This will be enabled by V2X wireless systems. In addition to exchanging information and status data, V2X can provide a multitude of other services, such as safety capabilities, navigation support and infotainment.
“V2X will eventually become a legal requirement for all new vehicles. But even before this happens, we expect to see some vehicles incorporating the necessary protocols,” said Mr. Jones. “However, those V2X systems that use cellular will need a 5G network to achieve their full potential."
3. Low-Power Wide-Area (LPWA) Networks:
LPWA networks provide low-bandwidth connectivity for IoT applications in a power-efficient way to support things that need a long battery life. They typically cover very large areas, such as cities or even entire countries. Current LPWA technologies include Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), Long Term Evolution for Machines (LTE-M), LoRa and Sigfox. The modules are relatively inexpensive, so IoT manufacturers can use them to enable small, low-cost, battery-powered devices such as sensors and trackers.
4.Wireless Sensing:
The absorption and reflection of wireless signals can be used for sensing purposes. Wireless sensing technology can be used, for example, as an indoor radar system for robots and drones. Virtual assistants can also use radar tracking to improve their performance when multiple people are speaking in the same room.
“Sensor data is the fuel of the IoT. Accordingly, new sensor technologies enable innovative types of applications and services,” Mr. Jones said. “Systems including wireless sensing will be integrated in a multitude of use cases, ranging from medical diagnostics to object recognition and smart home interaction.”
5. Software-Defined Radio (SDR):
SDR shifts the majority of the signal processing in a radio system away from chips and into software. This enables the radio to support more frequencies and protocols. The technology has been available for many years, but has never taken off as it is more expensive than dedicated chips. However, Gartner expects SDR to grow in popularity as new protocols emerge. As older protocols are rarely retired, SDR will enable a device to support legacy protocols, with new protocols simply being enabled via software upgrade.
6. Millimeter Wave Wireless:
Millimeter wave wireless technology operates at frequencies in the range of 30 to 300 gigahertz, with wavelengths in the range of 1 to 10 millimeters. The technology can be used by wireless systems such as Wi-Fi and 5G for short-range, high-bandwidth communications (for example, 4K and 8K video streaming).
7. Enhanced Wireless Location Tracking:
A key trend in the wireless domain is for wireless communication systems to sense the locations of devices connected to them. High-precision tracking to around one-meter accuracy will be enabled by the forthcoming IEEE 802.11az standard and is intended to be a feature of future 5G standards.
The 802.11az standard , commonly referred to as next generation positioning (NGP), enables a STA to identify its position relative to multiple access points (APs). This standard supports two high-efficiency (HE) ranging physical layer (PHY) protocol data unit (PPDU) formats:
HE ranging null data packet (NDP)
HE trigger-based (TB) ranging NDP
The HE ranging NDP and HE TB ranging NDP are the respective analogues of the HE sounding NDP and HE TB feedback NDP PPDU formats, as defined in the 802.11ax™ standard. For more information on these HE PPDU formats,
The HE ranging NDP supports the positioning of one or more users with an optional secure HE long training field (HE-LTF) sequence. The single-user HE ranging waveform contains HE-LTF symbols for a single user, which also support an optional secure HE-LTF sequence. The multi-user HE ranging waveform permits only secure HE-LTF symbols for multiple users. To improve position estimation accuracy, single-user and multi-user waveforms can contain multiple repetitions of the HE-LTF symbols. To parameterize and generate HE ranging NDPs.
In conclusion, wireless communications globally is something that people can expect as technology advances. Wireless communications has a lot of benefits and can make the world a lot more efficient. It does have concerns though as with every other new advancement that is made in today's world. Wireless technology will be very important in the near future where the need for wires connecting individual devices seems to be coming to an end.
