Better mobile battery life with SA tech
Research conducted at the University of Pretoria (UP) could double the battery life of future devices that use the technology underpinning Long Term Evolution (LTE) and the broadcast standard adopted by South Africa.
This is according to Sunil Maharaj, a professor at UP and head of its department of electrical, electronic & computer engineering, and the Sentech Chair in Broadband Wireless Multimedia Communications.
Research conducted by Kahesh Dhuness as part of his PhD under Maharaj shows that using a technique known as offset modulation (OM), they can reduce the peak-to-average power ratio of orthogonal frequency multiplexing (OFDM) significantly.
If implemented in future versions of standards that use OFDM such as the digital terrestrial TV standard adopted in South Africa, DVB-T2, and the Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular standard, this could translate to less power usage by end-user devices, Maharaj explained.
For battery-operated devices such as mobile phones this means a longer battery life.
Maharaj said that a patent for this has been registered, but explained that it is not guaranteed that their technique would be adopted in OFDM-based standards.
It is too late to include OM-OFDM in version 2 of the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB-T2) standard, or in LTE.
However, the specification for LTE-Advanced is still underway and OM-OFDM could still be included in it.
LTE-Advanced is one of the two technologies which the International Communications Union considers “4G”, and the upgrade path to LTE.
Asked how they could get OM-OFDM included in LTE-Advanced, Maharaj said as researchers they are unfortunately not good at lobbying.
“We’re hoping an [original equipment manufacturer, such as Nokia, Samsung, Huawei, or ZTE] will come onboard and see the opportunity,” Maharaj said.
He said that they have been encouraged by recent interest in OM-OFDM as they published the work in January but saw a dramatic increase in hits on their research papers in the last 3 months.
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