Virginia Tech and The Mitre Corporation are primary sponsors of this event, focusing on the intersection of research and IP commercialization. October 29th at the Ritz-Carlton Tysons Corner Hotel in Northern Virginia.
The event will feature case studies, panel discussions and research demonstrations from Virginia Tech.

Volume One Issue Three - March 2003

Volume One Issue One - October 2002

 MPRG Announces the Release of "WCDMAsim" - A Matlab Based Simulator of a WCDMA System

BLACKSBURG, VIRGINIA The Mobile and Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG) of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) announced today the release of WCDMAsim^TM: a Matlab^TM based simulator that emulates the behavior of WCDMA base and mobile stations in specular multipath fading environments. WCDMAsim^TM was specifically developed to provide the 3G wireless industry with a suite of simulation tools that conform to the European Telecommunication Standards Institute (ETSI) developed standards for the WCDMA air interface.
 
WCDMAsim^TM provides a technically accurate and detailed emulation of a WCDMA system. Accordingly, users can simulate a base station that employs Space Time Transmit Diversity (STTD) in the downlink and a mobile terminal that uses up to six Dedicated Physical Data Channels (DPDCH) in the uplink, a feature that mobile terminals use to support the transmission of broadband data. Users can also configure the base station by selecting the number of channels, the types of channels (data channels, control channels, pilot channels, etc.), and the specific format for each channel. Users can also select the number of channels used at the mobile terminal and the specific format for each channel.
 
Unlike most communication simulators that produce average Bit Error Rate (BER) statistics, WCDMAsim^TM provides users with an error length sequence that contains not only the number of errors but the location of each error in the data sequence. This additional level of detail allows users to compute high order BER statistics and to determine how error events are clustered. Such information is crucial for the development of computationally efficient Hidden Markov Model (HMM) simulations of large-scale wireless networks.
 
"We made every effort to model the behavior of both the base station and mobile terminal in accordance with ETSI's WCDMA standards," said Robert Boyle, developer of WCDMAsim^TM. "Our objective here is to develop a collection of accurate and useful research tools, and to provide these tools to the wireless industry free of charge, in order to support their research endeavors. It is our hope that WCDMAsim^TM, as well as other tools that MPRG will provide in the near future, will become a valuable component of wireless research programs in both academia and industry."
 
Contingent upon the acceptance of a license agreement, WCDMAsim^TM is available free of charge. The executable code, source code, and user's manual are available. Users are free to modify the code in accordance with the terms and conditions set forth in the license agreement. To download WCDMAsim^TM, simply point your browser to http://www.mprg.org.
 
Founded in 1990, the MPRG at Virginia Tech is one of the first research programs in the country to dedicate itself to wireless research issues. MPRG's mission is to provide design and analysis tools and techniques for manufacturers, government and consumer service providers, and regulatory agencies, while providing a high caliber educational experience for graduate and undergraduate engineering students pursuing careers in wireless communications.