National Instruments in S$2 million Wireless Collaboration

  • Posted on 11 March 2010

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National Instruments (NI) and Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) are collaborating in an effort to develop next-generation wireless communication technologies, which are cheaper, faster, more reliable and more pervasive. Both parties formalised the partnership by inking a memorandum of agreement (MOA) at NTU on March 10.

Under the NTU-NI Wireless Research Programme, NI is providing S$2.07 million (US$1.48 million) worth of equipment – including PXI hardware and LabView software –to be installed at the Positioning and Wireless Technology Centre (PWTC), a centre under NTU’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE).

With one key goal of the NTU-NI Wireless Research Programme being to develop future wireless communication protocols, the research team will be using the equipment to research into the practicality and performance of various wireless techniques.

“Wireless communication research is gaining tremendous interest from the industry and NTU is a top-notch technological university with strong international standing in this field,” said Chandran Nair, managing director for NI ASEAN. “We are pleased to equip PWTC with NI’s technologies and support NTU’s research efforts towards developing wireless technologies that will impact everyday life.”

PWTC’s programme director for wireless network research, assistant professor Ting See Ho, explained, “One of the major problems faced worldwide currently is the increasing shortage of usable frequency spectrum, which is further aggravated by current spectrum allocation regulations.

“My research team aims to address these issues by developing the next generation of wireless communication technologies that are able to relay radio signals and scan for available ‘holes’ in airwaves without interfering with the incumbent users. This would mean that users can enjoy the highest quality, best performance and most cost-efficient networks.”

Also present at the signing ceremony was Victor Mieres, NI’s vice president of sales for Asia, who noted: “The NTU-NI collaboration is a testament to our long-term community engagement. We look forward to helping enhance science, technology and engineering education and research through partnerships that will take academic research to a whole new level.”