The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) has awarded almost $5.5 million in the first grant awards announced through the Public Wireless Supply Chain Innovation Fund.
The $1.5 billion Wireless Innovation Fund is aimed at the development of open and interoperable wireless networks that the NTIA says will drive competition, strengthen global supply chain resiliency and lower costs for both consumers and network operators.
This round of funding will support R&D and testing activities that will evaluate energy efficiency, measure the performance of interoperable equipment and test methods for sharing spectrum.
The grant winners:
- Northeastern University: $1,989,783 in funding for automated and fine-grained energy-efficiency profiling of Open RAN systems via high-fidelity standardized testing scenarios. This “will enable the construction of sustainable and energy-efficient wireless networks,” according to the press release.
- New York University: $2,000,000 in funding for developing testing and evaluation procedures for open and interoperable solutions for Next Generation (5G-Advanced and Beyond) RAN components. The focus will be on both shared and adversarial spectrum scenarios.
- Deepsig Inc.: $1,492,269 in funding for a project improving the fidelity, speed and repeatability of OpenRAN (ORAN) Air-Interface performance testing by employing data and AI to model the propagation and interference environment more accurately and efficiently.
“America’s continued leadership in wireless technology is critical to our economic competitiveness and national security,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in the press release. “These investments in the next generation of wireless innovation will help create a more diverse and resilient marketplace and ensure that American companies and entrepreneurs, along with our allies, remain at the cutting edge of this crucial technology.”
The fund began accepting applications on June 2. It is funded by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.
The NTIA is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce.
