A Compact Architecture for Simulation of Spatio-Temporally Correlated MIMO Fading Channels

Radio channel impairments have a dramatic impact on the performance of wireless communication systems and hence, utilizing realistic radio channel models is crucial for the accurate performance validation of emerging wireless systems. However, faithful radio propagation channel models are computationally intensive for software-based simulations, especially for multiple antenna systems. This article presents the design and implementation of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) baseband fading channel simulator on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). In addition to the well-known independent and identically distributed channel model, the simulator supports three spatio-temporally correlated fading channel models which are commonly used for performance analysis. The implemented MIMO fading channel simulator is compact enough to be integrated with the baseband design under test on the same FPGA for accelerated performance validations.