“WiMAX: Technology for Broadband Wireless Internet”

(Half-day tutorial)

Abstract

Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a technology that provides mobile broadband Internet access anywhere, anytime in a cost effective manner. The objective of this tutorial is to provide an in-depth technical knowledge about WiMAX technology as well as information about its current standardization and deployment status. The tutorial is intended for those who want to learn the technical details of WiMAX and explore the research challenges as well as to the professionals who are interested in understanding the technical and the market aspects. The tutorial’s objective is making the audience knowledgeable about the salient features of WiMAX technology, WiMAX standardization as well as WiMAX industry forces that are driving the technology. The tutorial is divided into the following sections: introduction to WiMAX, WiMAX air interface, WiMAX core network architecture, WiMAX system performance, present status of WiMAX deployments as well as the future of WiMAX.

The introduction covers the history of WiMAX, the standardization of WiMAX technology and overview of its key differentiating features that enable mobile broadband Internet. Following the introduction, the air interface section of tutorial covers the technical details of the PHY and MAC layers of WiMAX technology standardized by the IEEE 802.16 family of specifications. The PHY layer includes the advanced features of WiMAX air interface, such as scalable OFDMA based channel access, adaptive antenna systems (AAS) (such as MIMO, beam forming), and advanced coding and modulation. The MAC includes QoS support, security, support for reliable data transfer, enhanced mobility support as well as improved power saving mechanisms. The WiMAX core network architecture section describes the end-to-end IP-based network architecture for WiMAX standardized by the Network Working Group (NWG) of WiMAX Forum. Following the description of WiMAX specifications, the tutorial looks at the system performance aspects of mobile WiMAX . The tutorial concludes with the current status of WiMAX deployments as well as its future trends.

Biography

Shailender Timiri is a Senior Systems Engineer in the Wireless Standards and Technology (WSaT) division of Mobility Wireless Group at Intel Corporation. He has been with Intel since Feb 2005 working on WiMAX link and system performance analysis. Prior to joining Intel, he was with AT&T Wireless Services for 10 years where he was actively involved in cellular air-interface standards development in for IS-136, GSM/GPRS/EDGE, UMTS and various other wireless technologies. He also has 10 years experience at AT&T (currently Lucent) where he was involved with circuit board development and device modeling/simulation for network switching and wireless base station products. Overall, he has 22 years of professional engineering experience, 16 years in cellular wireless radio standards, systems engineering, performance analysis, and 5 years in digital circuit design, VLSI/FPGA device modeling and fault simulation, and instrumentation. He received his B.Tech in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay in 1982 and a MSEE from the University of Toledo in 1985.

Shantidev Mohanty received the BTech (Hons.) degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, in 2000. He received the MS and PhD degrees from the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, in 2003 and 2005, respectively, both in electrical engineering. He is currently working with Intel Corporation, Portland, Oregon. His current research interests include wireless networks, mobile communications, mobility management, WiMAX networks, and cross-layer protocol design. He is involved in the development and standardization of WiMAX networks. In particular, he develops algorithms for efficient mobility management and power saving in mobile WiMAX networks. From 2000 to 2001, he worked as a mixed signal design engineer for Texas Instruments, Bangalore, India. He worked as a summer intern for Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies, Holmdel, New Jersey, during the summers of 2002 and 2003 and for Applied Research, Telcordia Technologies, Piscataway, New Jersey, during the summer of 2004.