MPRG Participates in Raytheon DARPA Project

The 10th Annual Virginia Tech Symposium on Wireless Personal Communications , held in Blacksburg June 14-16, featured what one participant described as " the strongest, most diverse technical program yet. " As always, the three-day event followed the MPRG's annual Industrial Affiliates Board meeting, in which industry representatives receive detailed briefings and demonstrations of current research and are invited to shape the MPRG's research agenda for the upcoming year. This year's symposium, which drew over 200 wireless professionals to the Virginia Tech campus, featured a tutorial and panel session on the emerging Bluetooth standard, an expanded poster session, a keynote address by one of the nation's leading telecommunications policymakers, and a panel session on entrepreneurial ventures in wireless communications. The symposium kicked off on Wednesday afternoon with a packed tutorial session on Bluetooth technology, led by Virginia Tech researchers Dr. Dennis Sweeney and Max Robert. Named in honor of a Danish king who helped unite that nation, Bluetooth aspires to provide an open industry standard for wireless interoperability between data communications devices. By providing self-configuring communications between, for example, a laptop, a printer, a handheld scanner, and a pocket calendar, Bluetooth may be a key enabling technology for the wireless office of the future. Given recent product announcements by Ericsson and Motorola among others, the subject matter of the tutorial and subsequent panel session were particularly timely. Due to the exceptional number of requests for the Bluetooth tutorial presented during the symposium, MPRG is pleased to make this presentation available on its website at http:// focused on a discussion of the future applications of Bluetooth. The panel included Mr. Phillip M. Sher with Analog Devices and Dr. Carl Panasik with Texas Instruments, in addition to Sweeney and Robert. Although panelists warned against unrealistically high expectations, noting in particular the band-width and interference limitations of the present standard, the tone was generally upbeat on Bluetooth's potential. During discussions, a few audience 'dentists' raised the possibility of a 'Bluetooth 2' or 'Bluer-tooth' standard emerging in the future. The technical portion of the program began on Thursday morning and featured a large and diverse program, with presenters from as far away as Some of the many highlights included a peek at ultra-wideband wireless propagation from David J. Hall of Time Domain Corporation, a survey of smart antennas for cellular and PCS networks by Donn Harvey of Metawave Communications, a look at optimization Continued …