Real-time MIMO received signal generator for spatial multiplexing systems

Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) transmission techniques hold the potential of dramatically increasing the data rates and spectral efficiency of wireless communication systems. However, since multiple transmitters and receivers are required, a large number of channel emulators are also required for in-lab experiments, resulting in an increase of equipment cost. The paper describes an implementation of a received signal generator for 4×4 MIMO transmission in one FPGA chip which can be utilized as a real-time MIMO spatial multiplexing system testbed. Our experimental results demonstrate that the CDF and channel correlations of emulated Rayleigh fading and the BER performance under this fading channel approach the theoretical values.