Simulation of the signal strength of a wireless local area network operating at 5 GHz (red is a stronger signal, blue is weaker).
Creating a wireless world
CSIRO is working on enabling technologies for future mobile and wireless communications networks and developing next generation imaging and sensing systems.
- 28 July 2011 | Updated 14 October 2011
We are entering the era of ubiquitous communications networks, where everything is always connected, and this means increased demand for reliable, wide bandwidth wireless connections.
CSIRO's wireless and networking technologies researchers (some 80 scientists and engineers) are working on innovative solutions to the problems of unreliability, incompatibility and low data rates associated with traditional wireless networks.
Our capabilities
Our research focuses on:
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antennas and propagation
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signal processing and communications
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network science.
Our Research
Our research is applied in areas such as:
Digital communication networks
We are investigating:
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increasing wireless network capacity, throughput and the robustness of signals by, for example, developing antennas that reconfigure themselves to make the most efficient and flexible use of the radio spectrum.
Read more in Antenna systems research.Our communications research aims to increase wireless network capacity, throughput and the robustness of signals.
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better utilising the microwave and millimetre-wave spectrum. The wider bandwidth at millimetre frequencies allowing data-rich information like video to be transmitted wirelessly at up to 20 gigabits per second.
Read more in Building high bandwidth wireless communications links.
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improving quality of service across networks with new network protocols and bandwidth optimisation techniques.
Read more in Improving quality of service across networks.
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new communication protocols for wireless sensor networks so they use less power but have improved coverage and higher data rates.
Read more in Wireless sensor networks: a new instrument for observing our world.
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new generation wireless backhauls for connecting a fibre backbone to a radio access node.
We are particularly interested in cognitive networks. In cognitive networks, intelligent nodes, equipped with technologies like those detailed above, cooperate among themselves to deliver information with improved link reliability, capacity and coverage – even in rural and remote areas.
Read more in Broadband to the bush.
Positioning and sensing
We are developing radio technology to locate and track people and assets in technically challenging environments, such as underground and in built-up areas.
Applications include monitoring:
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emergency services personnel
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elite athletes
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people and equipment in underground mines.
Read more in Wireless tracking for challenging applications.
Supporting radio astronomy
We are developing antennas and associated technology − in particular, electronic beamforming − for the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder radio telescope which CSIRO is building in Western Australia.
Read more in Antenna systems research.
Track record
Our major achievements include:
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the world's highest spectral efficiency for a wireless link greater than eight kilometres. We achieved 24 Megabits per second for six simultaneous users within one channel just 7 megahertz wide, which is an efficiency of 20 bits/s/Hz, 2011.
Read more in Fewer towers for CSIRO rural broadband wireless. -
Clunies Ross Award and CSIRO Chairman's Medal for our invention of high speed wireless computer networking technology now in laptops, games and phones all over the world, 2010 and 2009.
Read more in CSIRO wireless team wins top Aussie science award. -
our wireless ad hoc positioning system winning the research and development categories of the state sections of both the iAwards and the Engineering Excellence Awards, 2009.
Read more in Wireless tracking for challenging applications. -
NASA Space Act Board Award for research into the development of a novel ‘beamformer’ capable of providing a live video link from Mars.
Read more in CSIRO to help provide ‘live’ video of Mars mission (Media release 24 Sep 08). -
smart feed for Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder telescope, 2008 -
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world's first six Gigabits per second wireless link, for which we won the 2007 CSIRO Chairman’s medal and the Australian Engineering Excellence Award
Read more in World's fastest, most spectrally efficient wireless communications link. -
the most spectrally efficient and multi-user multiple input, multiple output system in the world, 2006
- two-way surface-to-underground mine safety communications, 2006, and technology transfer to MineSite Technologies
Read more in Emergency two-way communications for underground miners. -
invention and of non-contact radio frequency vital signs sensors licensed to HD Medical, 2005-2007
Read more in Wireless detection of the early signs of heart disease. -
Industry Innovators' Award of the Society of Satellite Professionals International for our MultiBeam antenna, 2004.
Read more in CSIRO’s MultiBeam satellite antenna.
See how some of our capabilities are applied in Broadband for Australia.
