Description:
Reference #: 01477
The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for Heat Dissipation for Millimeter-Wave Devices with Antenna Switching
Background:
Millimeter-wave is the core technology for 5G and beyond wireless systems; it enables use cases that demand multiple Gbps throughput and ultra-low latency connectivity, such as immersive virtual and mixed reality, tactile internet, telesurgery, control for smart infrastructures, and autonomous vehicles safety. The devices need to operate at very high frequency and bandwidth; so, they consume more energy, dissipate more power, and subsequently heat up faster.
Invention Description:
A temperature-aware scheduler that maintains relatively high throughput performance but cools down the devices substantially by switching between multiple antennas in a millimeter-wave device.
Potential Applications:
Increase in device temperature not only affects the hardware but also is disconcerting to the users, especially when devices are small, e.g., smartwatches, hand-helds, 5G smartphones [6–8], body-worn [9; 10], and near to the face and brain, e.g., wireless VR and AR platforms [11–14]. Besides degrading the user experience, exposure to high device temperature also creates discomfort. Device overheating is a common concern of many users, and millimeter-wave (mmWave) would exacerbate the problem. While existing research and products have characterized and solved challenges in mmWave channel, link, network, and applications, to the best of our knowledge, none has looked at minimizing the system-level temperature
Advantages and Benefits:
The invention faces two challenges that are absent in multi-CPU systems: variable thermal behavior; and highly variable and unpredictable connectivity of the mmWave antennas. While there are existing works in micro-wave systems to minimize the power or energy consumption [40–45], to the best of our knowledge, none has looked at minimizing the system-level temperature of active mmWave antennas.