A Portable MIMO Testbed and Selected Channel Measurements

A portable multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) testbed that is based on field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and which operates in the 902–928 MHz industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) band has been developed by the High Capacity Digital Communications (HCDC) Laboratory at the University of Alberta. We present a description of the HCDC testbed along with MIMO channel capacities that were derived from measurements taken with the HCDC testbed for three special locations: a narrow corridor, an athletics field that is surrounded by a metal fence, and a parkade. These locations are special because the channel capacities are different from what is expected for a typical indoor or outdoor channel. For two of the cases, a ray-tracing analysis has been performed and the simulated channel capacity values closely match the values calculated from the measured data. A ray-tracing analysis, however, requires accurate geometrical measurements and sophisticated modeling for each specific location. A MIMO testbed is ideal for quickly obtaining accurate channel capacity information.

[1]  Massimiliano Max Martone.  Multiantenna Digital Radio Transmission , 2001 .

[2]  E. Jordan,et al.  Electromagnetic Waves and Radiating Systems , 1951 .

[3]  Donald C. Cox,et al.  MIMO capacity in hallways and adjacent rooms , 2002, Global Telecommunications Conference, 2002. GLOBECOM '02. IEEE.

[4]  Angel E. Lozano,et al.  Effect of antenna separation on the capacity of BLAST in correlated channels , 2000, IEEE Communications Letters.

[5]  D. C. Dodder.  R-Matrix Analysis , 1976 .

[6]  Michael A. Jensen,et al.  Experimental measurements of capacity for MIMO indoor wireless channels , 2001, 2001 IEEE Third Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications (SPAWC'01). Workshop Proceedings (Cat. No.01EX471).

[7]  Helmut Bölcskei,et al.  Outdoor MIMO wireless channels: models and performance prediction , 2002, IEEE Trans. Commun..

[8]  Witold A. Krzymien,et al.  A robust timing recovery algorithm for spread-spectrum packet radio systems , 2004 .

[9]  Thomas M. Cover,et al.  Elements of Information Theory , 2005 .

[10]  R. Gallager.  Information Theory and Reliable Communication , 1968 .

[11]  Witold A. Krzymien,et al.  MIMO Channel Measurements for an Indoor Office Environment , 2003 .

[12]  M.A. Jensen,et al.  A real-time multiple antenna element testbed for MIMO algorithm development and assessment , 2004, IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society Symposium, 2004..

[13]  M. J. Gans,et al.  On Limits of Wireless Communications in a Fading Environment when Using Multiple Antennas , 1998, Wirel. Pers. Commun..

[14]  Mark A Beach,et al.  A testbed for evaluation of innovative turbo MIMO-OFDM architectures , 2003 .

[15]  Joseph M. Kahn,et al.  Fading correlation and its effect on the capacity of multielement antenna systems , 2000, IEEE Trans. Commun..

[16]  John G. Proakis,et al.  Digital Communications , 1983 .

[17]  Charles R. Johnson,et al.  Matrix analysis , 1985, Statistical Inference for Engineers and Data Scientists.

[18]  P. Balaban,et al.  Digital radio transmission modeling and simulation , 1989, IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference, 1989, and Exhibition. 'Communications Technology for the 1990s and Beyond.

[19]  H. Bertoni,et al.  Transmission and reflection characteristics at concrete block walls in the UHF bands proposed for future PCS , 1994 .

[20]  Ashutosh Sabharwal,et al.  An FPGA based rapid prototyping platform for MIMO systems , 2003, The Thrity-Seventh Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems & Computers, 2003.

[21]  Emre Telatar,et al.  Capacity of Multi-antenna Gaussian Channels , 1999, Eur. Trans. Telecommun..