Wireless Communications

The field of wireless communications has been in existence since the first humans learned to communicate. In early days of civilization humans would transmit notices of important events such as enemy invasions or royal births through the sounding of horns or the lighting of fires. While simple messages could be effectively transmitted in this manner, in order to communicate over long distances the manpower expense was great, since watchtowers had to be built within sight of each other and continually manned, and the number of messages was small. It was not until the 1800’s that wireless communications became what we know it a today. Now we are able to use radio frequencies to communicate information over long distances (think of the Cassini mission to Saturn), we can send voice or video at rates of hundreds of megabits per second, and technology has become so inexpensive that many people are able to afford a mobile phone in order to be in constant contact with others.