skip to main content

Explore Research Products in the NSF-PAR

This content will become publicly available on October 1, 2024

Title: Programmable Millimeter-Wave MIMO Radios with Real-Time Baseband Processing
Baseband processing is one of the most time-consuming and computationally expensive tasks in radio access networks (RANs), which is typically realized in dedicated hardware. The concept of virtualizing the RAN functions by moving their computation to edge data centers can significantly reduce the deployment cost and enable more flexible use of the network resources. Recent studies have focused on software-based baseband processing for large-scale sub-6 GHz MIMO systems, while 5G also embraces the millimeter-wave (mmWave) frequency bands to achieve further improved data rates leveraging the widely available spectrum. Therefore, it is important to build a platform for the experimental investigation of software-based baseband processing for mmWave MIMO systems. In this paper, we implement programmable mmWave MIMO radios equipped with real-time baseband processing capability, leveraging the open-access PAWR COSMOS testbed. We first develop Agora-UHD, which enables UHD-based software-defined radios (SDRs) to interface with Agora, an open-source software realization of real-time massive MIMO baseband processing. Next, we integrate Agora-UHD with the USRP SDRs and IBM 28 GHz phased array antenna module (PAAM) subsystem boards deployed in the PAWR COSMOS testbed. We demonstrate a 2×2 28 GHz polarization MIMO link with a bandwidth of 122.88 MHz, and show that it can meet the real-time processing deadline of 0.375 ms (3 transmission time intervals for numerology 3 in 5G NR FR2) using only 8 CPU cores. The source code of Agora-UHD and its integration with the programmable 28 GHz radios in the COSMOS testbed with example tutorials are made publicly available.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2211944
NSF-PAR ID:
10465973
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
ACM MobiCom’23 Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental Evaluation & CHaracterization (WiNTECH’23)
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , Proc. ACM MobiCom’21 Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental evaluation & CHaracterization (WiNTECH’21) (to appear))
    null (Ed.)
    While millimeter-wave (mmWave) wireless has recently gained tremendous attention with the transition to 5G, developing a broadly accessible experimental infrastructure will allow the research community to make significant progress in this area. Hence, in this paper, we present the design and implementation of various programmable and open-access 28/60 GHz software-defined radios (SDRs), deployed in the PAWR COSMOS advanced wireless testbed. These programmable mmWave radios are based on the IBM 28 GHz 64-element dual-polarized phased array antenna module (PAAM) subsystem board and the Sivers IMA 60 GHz WiGig transceiver. These front ends are integrated with USRP SDRs or Xilinx RF-SoC boards, which provide baseband signal processing capabilities. Moreover, we present measurements of the TX/RX beamforming performance and example experiments (e.g., real-time channel sounding and RFNoC-based 802.11ad preamble detection), using the mmWave radios. Finally, we discuss ongoing enhancement and development efforts focusing on these radios. 
    more » « less
  2. ( , Computer networks communications)
    While millimeter-wave (mmWave) wireless has recently gained tremendous attention with the transition to 5G, developing a broadly accessible experimental infrastructure will allow the research community to make significant progress in this area. Hence, in this paper, we present the design and implementation of various programmable and open-access 28/60 GHz software-defined radios (SDRs), deployed in the PAWR COSMOS advanced wireless testbed. These programmable mmWave radios are based on the IBM 28 GHz 64-element dual-polarized phased array antenna module (PAAM) subsystem board and the Sivers IMA 60 GHz WiGig transceiver. These front ends are integrated with USRP SDRs or Xilinx RFSoC boards, which provide baseband signal processing capabilities. Moreover, we present measurements of the TX/RX beamforming performance and example experiments (e.g., real-time channel sounding and RFNoC-based 802.11ad preamble detection), using the mmWave radios. Finally, we discuss ongoing enhancement and development efforts focusing on these radios. 
    more » « less
  3. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; et al ( , ACM MobiCom '20)
    This paper focuses on COSMOS ś Cloud enhanced Open Software defined MObile wireless testbed for city-Scale deployment. The COSMOS testbed is being deployed in West Harlem (New York City) as part of the NSF Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program. It will enable researchers to explore the technology łsweet spotž of ultra-high bandwidth and ultra-low latency in the most demanding real-world environment. We describe the testbed’s architecture, the design and deployment challenges, and the experience gained during the design and pilot deployment. Specifically, we describe COSMOS’ computing and network architectures, the critical building blocks, and its programmability at different layers. The building blocks include software-defined radios, 28 GHz millimeter-wave phased array modules, optical transport network, core and edge cloud, and control and management software. We describe COSMOS’ deployment phases in a dense urban environment, the research areas that could be studied in the testbed, and specific example experiments. Finally, we discuss our experience with using COSMOS as an educational tool. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , in Proc. ACM MobiCom'20 Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental evaluation & Characterization (WiNTECH))
    null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT In order to support experimentation with full-duplex (FD) wireless, we recently integrated two generations of FD radios in the open-access ORBIT and COSMOS testbeds. First, we integrated a customized 1st generation (Gen-1) narrowband FD radio in the indoor ORBIT testbed. Then, we integrated two 2 nd generation (Gen-2) wideband FD radios in the city-scale PAWR COSMOS testbed. Each integrated FD radio consists of an antenna, a customized RF self-interference (SI) canceller box, a USRP software-defined radio (SDR), and a remotely accessible compute node. The Gen-1/Gen-2 RF SI canceller box includes an RF canceller printed circuit board (PCB) which emulates a customized integrated circuit (IC) RF canceller implementation. The amplitude- and phase-based Gen-1 narrowband RF canceller achieves 40 dB RF SIC across 5 MHz. The Gen-2 wideband canceller is based on the technique of frequency-domain equalization (FDE) and achieves 50 dB RF SI cancellation (SIC) across 20 MHz. In this paper, we present the design and testbed integration of the two generations of FD radios. We then present example experiments that can be remotely run and modified by experimenters. Finally, we discuss future improvements and potential FD wireless experiments that can be supported by these open-access FD radios integrated in the COSMOS testbed. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ( , in Proc. ACM MOBICOM'20, 2020)
    null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT To support experimentation with full-duplex (FD) wireless, we recently integrated two FlexICoN Gen-2 wideband FD radios in the open-access, city-scale NSF PAWR COSMOS testbed. Each integrated FD radio consists of an antenna, a customized Gen-2 RF self-interference (SI) canceller box, a USRP software-defined radio, and a remotely accessible compute node. The RF SI canceller box includes an RF canceller printed circuit board which emulates an integrated circuit implementation based on the technique of frequency-domain equalization. The Gen-2 canceller box can achieve up to 50 dB RF SI cancellation across 20 MHz bandwidth. In this demo, we present the design and implementation of the open-acccess, remotely accessible FD radios that are integrated in the indoor COSMOS Sandbox 2 at Columbia University. We also demonstrate example experiments that are available to researchers, where demo participants can observe the visualized performance of the open-access FD radios 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email