Microwave Engineering Europe - January/February 2009 - (Page 5)

NEWS 5 Andrew wins radio coverage contract from Alcatel-Lucent for world’s longest rail tunnel trol centers for smooth and safe operation,” said Markus Kalt, vice president of business operations, EMEA, Wireless Innovations, Andrew. Unique challenges in supporting railway communications in tunnels include the highspeed handoffs that are required as passengers zip through the tunnel. Gotthard Base Tunnel commuters will travel at speeds of up to 250 kilometers per hour. Andrew’s ION-M solution, which includes over 600 remote units for this project, is tuned to handle such quick handoffs. In addition to the Gotthard Base Tunnel’s main carriageway tunnel tubes, the railway system consists of numerous access and service tunnels totaling 153 kilometers in length. The company’s RADIAX radiating cables will support the entire tunnel system. AlpTransit Gotthard, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Swiss Federal Railways, is constructing the Gotthard Base Tunnel as part of a new ﬂat rail link through the Swiss Alps. With a length of 57 kilometers, the world’s longest tunnel should become operational at the end of 2017. Transtec Gotthard, a consortium of four industry leaders, has been contracted for the provisioning of the complete railway technology. Alcatel-Lucent Switzerland is the partner responsible for furnishing telecommunications and tunnel control technology. www.mwee.com/212902732 IN BRIEF Anritsu embeds AWR’s Microwave Ofﬁce into VNA Developed by AWR and Anritsu, AWR Connected™ for Anritsu makes the Microwave Ofﬁce high-frequency design software a standard component of Anritsu’s latest VectorStar MS4640A vector network analyzer (VNA). The MS4640A the ﬁrst microwave instrument to physically integrate a full suite of design tools within its ﬁrmware. Microwave Ofﬁce software provides all the tools necessary for high-frequency IC, printed circuit board, and module design, including linear circuit simulators, electromagnetic (EM) analysis tools, and integrated schematic and layout — without leaving the measurement environment. The VectorStar MS4640A delivers best-in-class frequency coverage of 70 kHz to 70 GHz, dynamic range of 100 dB at 70 GHz, and measurement speed of 20 ms/point, establishing a new performance benchmark for S-parameter measurements on RF, microwave, and millimeter-wave devices. www.mwee.com/212900902 Andrew, a CommScope division, has signed a contract with Alcatel-Lucent Switzerland for providing radio frequency (RF) coverage solutions in the world’s longest railway tunnel, the Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland. Andrew will provision its ION™-M multiband, multi-operator ﬁber distributed antenna system and RADIAX® radiating cables to spread reliable, high-performance wireless coverage throughout the tunnel. Railway operators and emergency personnel will be primary users of the system with GSM-R and PMR communications standards supported, while public 2G and 3G mobile network customers will also beneﬁt with improved coverage. “Railway systems rely on clear and constant communication among train engineers and con- Bluetooth comes to digital televisions Broadcom and Sharp Electronics have teamed up to deliver Bluetooth® technology for next generation digital television (DTV) products. As a result of this collaboration, Sharp is now shipping its new AQUOS® XS1 series of digital televisions with built-in Bluetooth from Broadcom featuring the BCM2046 single-chip Bluetooth receiver in both the television and the remote control. Drawing on the leadership and technological expertise of both companies, the integrated Broadcom® solution further enhances the user experience and helps position Bluetooth as an increasingly important technology in consumer electronics (CE) devices. Bluetooth fulﬁlls two key roles in next generation digital TV designs, the remote control and the media transfer interface. www.mwee.com/212800014 ● RF4CE-based RF remote controls demonstrated by TI and Hillcrest Labs Hillcrest Labs and Texas Instruments (TI) have unveiled some of the ﬁrst remote controls to utilize the new “Radio Frequency for Consumer Electronics” (RF4CE) standard. By combining Hillcrest’s Freespace® technology and Texas Instruments’ RemoTI™ network protocol, the companies have demonstrated how consumer electronic companies can create pointer-based remote controls for various A/V devices such as televisions or DVD players. Together, these technologies eliminate the line-ofsite limitations of infrared (IR) devices and dramatically reduce the number of buttons needed on a remote control. The RF4CE standard is backed by the RF4CE consortium whose members include Panasonic, Philips, Samsung Electronics, Sony, Freescale Semiconductors, OKI, and Texas Instruments. Hillcrest’s Freespace technology enables consumer electronics manufacturers and service providers to embed pointing and motion control into a wide range of hand-held devices, including TV remote controls, game controllers, and PC accessories. The company’s iconic device is the Loop™ Pointer — that uses just two buttons and a scroll wheel to control on-screen applications. www.mwee.com/212700790 Microwave Engineering Europe ● January/February 2009 www.mwee.com http://www.mwee.com/212900902 http://www.mwee.com/212902732 http://www.mwee.com/212700790 http://www.mwee.com/212800014 http://www.mwee.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Microwave Engineering Europe - January/February 2009

Microwave Engineering Europe - January 2009 News Contents Comment Using KPIs to Ensure Quality in a Converging Network Amplifier Error Vector Magnitude Characterisation Using High-Speed Modular PXI Instruments GPS: Making a Play for Femtocells Accelerating Global WiMAX Adoption: The Move to Picocell and Femtocell Base Stations Addressing PA Efficiency for Multi-Mode Wideband Handset Applications Wi-Fi: Mobile Feature or Fundamental RAN? Products Calendar

Microwave Engineering Europe - January/February 2009

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