A team of researchers from the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has created MegaMIMO, a novel Wi-Fi technology that is the double the range of old Wi-Fi tech and three times faster.

MegaMIMO 2.0, (MIMO standing for Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output) fixes the big problem at the heart of Wi-Fi spectrum: congestion.

When a Wi-Fi access point or router tries to broadcast, and there's a similar nearby device that transmits at the same time and frequency, network interference occurs leading to data packet loss, which in turns slows down the download speed of both systems.

MegaMIMO was inspired by smartphone tech

MegaMIMO fixes this problem by stealing some design ideas from your smartphone. You see, modern cell phones use a MIMO system with multiple transmitters and receivers, which they use to send data to different sources, or to reconstruct radio signals that reach the phone with delays after bouncing off other surfaces.

The same principle was used for MegaMIMO, but on a larger scale. MIT researchers created computer algorithms that coordinate an access point's transmitters, allowing them to transmit data on the same piece of radio spectrum, but to different sources, just like your phone.

Not only does the Wi-Fi access point's antennas work with various receivers at the same time without causing network congestion, but different access points work together as well, without interrupting each other.

MegaMIMO 2.0 tech to be commercialized

This feature is very much needed today, where the Wi-Fi spectrum is extremely congested. Cutting down interference between Wi-Fi signals would optimize Wi-Fi spectrum usage and allow users to fully benefit from their entire bandwidth at higher speeds and larger distances.

According to the team's research paper and the video demonstration below, the MegaMIMO algorithm works with real-time Wi-Fi spectrum conditions and can rapidly adapt transmitter broadcasting details to take into account objects that pass through the physical space between the Wi-Fi transmitter and the user's device. This includes cars, human bodies, or other moving objects.

MIT says the new system can work with dozens of routers at the same time, and will be commercialized in the upcoming future.