Development and hardware demonstration of new transmission techniques for MIMO systems (MIMESIS)

This is a coordinated project in which four research institutions (Universidad de La Coruña, Universidad de Sevilla, Centro de Investigaciones Tecnológicas de Guipúzcoa (CEIT) y Universidad de Cantabria (GTAS) ) investigate new transmission techniques for signal processing and space-time coding for MIMO channels that will enable us to approximate, as much as possible, to the limits predicted by the information theory. More specifically, we address problems such as channel estimation, equalization, synchronization, interference cancellation, MIMO capacity analysis, space time coding, source-channel coding and adaptivity at transmission, among others. Investigations are not be limited to a theoretical level. An important part of the project is devoted to the construction of two hardware MIMO testbeds that will enable us to evaluate the developed algorithms in realistic wireless indoor scenarios. Specifically, we have developed a 2x2 MIMO platform working at 2,4 GHz and a 4x3 MIMO platform working at 5,25 GHz. Both platforms handle channels of up to 20 MHz, the signal generation and the subsequent processing of the base band signals are carried out off-line using standard simulation tools (e.g. Matlab). The advantage of this scheme is the large versatility of the platform since all the transmission and reception base band operations will be done by means of software libraries that are easy to update and improve.