UT engineers receive military research grant $1.2 million funding to aid in development of wireless devices

By: Lauren Winchester
Posted: 1/14/08

A government defense bill appropriated $1.2 million to a team of UT engineering researchers to develop wireless communication devices with military and civilian uses.

Congressman Lamar Smith, R-Texas, made a formal announcement Friday. Smith helped approve the Defense Appropriations Bill, passed in the U.S. House of Representatives, which funds the research. The project, Smith said, is clearly in the interest of academia and the public.

"It's a special feather in my cap to represent UT," the congressman said. "I try as a member of Congress to help constituents get the funds needed to pursue projects that are important to them."

Theodore Rappaport, Sriram Vishwanath, Jacob Abraham and Ranjit Gharpurey - all members of UT's Electrical & Computer Engineering department - hope to research and develop massive broadband wireless communication devices that can be used to communicate high-quality video and multimedia in homes, offices, outdoors and on the battle field.

On the battle field, the portable content would be accessed via rugged, lightweight devices that use massive local-area bandwidth connectivity, according to Rappaport's Web site.

"The Army, instead of relying upon printed books or heavy computing equipment, could instead rely upon massively broadband data links and lightweight viewers to transport content from a single source, such as a server, or from a passive RFID tag," according to the Web site. "Equipment for the battle field will be substantially lighter in weight and more rugged, as integrated circuits replace magnetic drives and hard text media."

This project will result in significant benefits for the state and local industry, Vishwanath said. Companies with a need to remain competitive in the future of broadband wireless - such as AT&T, Freescale Semiconductor, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and many others - will work closely with faculty in the engineering department at the University and will thus leverage this funding and research results generated by the effort, Vishwanath said.