Even years into video chat being an everyday tool in office communication, many conversations are still laggy or plagued by delays. Engineers in the US say a new invention could fix that. — Sebastian Gollnow/dpa
WASHINGTON: Scientists and engineers at one of the world’s leading universities have come up with a wireless receiver that blocks interference and improves mobile phone call quality.
According to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the gadget "cancels out unwanted signals at the earliest opportunity" and "could help mitigate signal quality issues that can lead to slow and choppy Zoom calling or video streaming."
The MIT team's newly developed "millimeter-wave multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) wireless receiver" is able to more quickly "handle stronger spatial interference than previous designs" and "before unwanted signals have been amplified."
The technology is needed as airwaves have been made increasingly crowded by the "growing prevalence of high-speed wireless communication devices, from 5G mobile phones to sensors for autonomous vehicles," according to MIT, which was ranked top of the recently-published QS World University Rankings.
A "special circuit" in the device "can block up to four times more interference than some similar devices" and "can be switched on and off as needed to conserve energy."
The team said they aim to make the receiver work in 6G mobile devices, which could, if and when they become commercially viable, lead to data transmissions of up to 100 gigabytes a second. – dpa
