NeTS: EAGER: Development of a Millimeter Wave Software Defined Radio

New York University, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

With the severe spectrum shortage in conventional cellular bands, millimeter wave (mmWave) frequencies between 30 and 300 GHz have been attracting growing attention as a possible candidate for next-generation micro- and pico-cellular wireless networks. The mmWave bands offer orders of magnitude greater spectrum than current cellular allocations and enables very high-dimensional antenna arrays for further gains via beamforming and spatial multiplexing. However, mmWave cellular communication is still very much in its infancy, and there is an urgent need for fully-programmable research platforms to enable the research and development needed to bring these systems to reality. The project aims to develop a fully-programmable research platform that allows for flexible experimentation with millimeter-wave systems dealing with frequencies above 25 GHz. The hardware components of the platform will be made available to researchers across the United States at deeply discounted rates. The availability of this hardware, combined with the free and open-source implementation will enable the larger wireless networking research community to greatly benefit from this platform. The platform involves integrating SiBeam's Sil6342 phased array antenna system with National Instruments' powerful PXI system, to create a fully programmable and modular SDR. This platform will support 1 GHz bandwidth, and allow a latched and timed digital control of the phased array with sub-microsecond accuracy. The entire implementation will be open-source, and made publically available for free. There are many projects that will be enabled by this platform: a) dynamic channel sounding; b) study of beam-forming techniques; c) design and testing of MAC protocols that rely on beam-forming and intermittency; d) study of new PHY layer modulation and coding techniques; etc.