Industrial Prototyping: A Common Architecture and Case Study of IEEE 802.11n Transmit Beamforming

Prototyping is a means to rapidly test the feasibility of a design before entering a full design process or mass production. An important consideration within industrial research is the transfer of technology from the research domain to business units. Prototypes are a tangible example that aid in explanation and dissemination of the developed intellectual property. In this paper, we present a common architecture of the Wireless Evaluation Research Platform (WERP), developed at Toshiba Telecommunications Research Laboratory. WERP is used for prototyping and analysis of algorithms that aid in technology transfer. A case study is presented to illustrate the use of WERP in the analysis of IEEE 802.11n transmit beamforming with explicit feedback. WERP is used in many different configurations for research purposes, two of these configurations are presented in this case study. Results from the case study are presented and conclusions drawn.