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Zurich inventions in infrared products
In late May 1999, IBM announced the first family of high-speed,
low-cost, multipoint wireless networking products based on the Advanced
Infrared (AIr) connectivity standard. AIr technology enables users
to connect and collaborate instantly in a wireless environment via
mobile computers, printers, wireless modems, local area networks
(LANs), cell phones, and related home/office networking devices.
IBM's AIr products are expected to be available in the third quarter
of 1999.
The products comprise an AIr transceiver module and a single-chip
controller, which is also being marketed as a macro, as well as
device drivers and software support. These components have been
developed by IBM Toronto, Canada, in close collaboration with IBM
Research teams at the Zurich Research Laboratory and the T.J. Watson
Research Center. The AIr concept is based on a variable-rate transmission
scheme invented at Zurich, which significantly improves transmission
reliability in the presence of channel impairments, such as changing
ambient light conditions or transmission distance, or blocked line
of sight. Owing to its collision-avoidance properties achieved by
novel frame headers and transceiver parity, this transmission scheme
also allows many device to connect simultaneously without aiming.
The Zurich Infrared team of Fritz Gfeller, Walter Hirt, and Beat
Weiss demonstrated the concept with a prototype infrared modem and
worked closely with the Toronto development team, which implemented
the modem in its IBM AIr controller product, as well as with the
Watson research teams at Hawthorne, responsible for the development
of the multiple-access (MAC) scheme, and at Yorktown, responsible
for the design of the infrared transceivers.
Adoption of IBM's AIr transmission concept as a standard by the
Infrared Data Association (IrDA) earlier this year will ensure that
AIr devices will eventually be employed in a large variety of computing
and networking devices. In addition to the AIr standard, IrDA also
adopted a new 16 Mbit/s high-speed option for point-to-point transmission,
which employs a new coding scheme developed by the Zurich Infrared
team in cooperation with colleagues at IBM's Almaden Research Center.
More information on the products can be found at http://www.chips.ibm.com/news/.
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