Ohio-based Battelle has demonstrated that the new RavenStar antenna technology can achieve ultra-wideband capabilities, according to the company. After years of research and prototyping, Battelle tested the first-ever broadband massive MIMO at the Virginia Tech Applied Research Corporation’s 5G/XG field site in Blacksburg, VA.
The test site provided “the optimal environment to demonstrate a standards-compliant interoperability, as well as end-to-end testing with the 5G network using the O-RAN alliance 7.2x split,” Doug Thornton, Technical Director for the RavenStar program, says, “We just accomplished something that no one has ever done.”
The digitally steered radio unit supports multiple protocols simultaneously from a single array, including 4G and 5G. The compact-size (less than one cubic foot) RavenStar, according to Battelle, is the first radio unit to cover 600 MHz to 7 GHz with a single aperture.
Some benefits of RavenStar, according to the company, include:
- “Reducing costs for the industry
- Replacing multiple boxes on towers
- Making shared sites viable in small cells, stadiums, urban environments, and rural areas
- Providing coverage over large land areas
- Streamlining installation timelines”
“This decade-long, internally funded system will provide owners of spectrum the ability to operate simultaneously in any bands they may own while making those bands capable of carrying four times as much data,” said Matt Vaughan, President of Battelle’s Applied Science and Technology business. “Battelle RavenStar will allow network operators to future-proof their capital expenditures as their spectrum ownership changes and allow a fast and seamless transition to different standards.”
Reader Interactions