II-NEW: MIMO Software Defined Communication Testbed for UWB Radio and Free Space Optics

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This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Software Defined Radio (SDR) offers an ideal platform for research and development with wireless communications systems. While there have been numerous successful SDR efforts, none of these platforms have the capability to implement high data rate radio frequency ultrawideband (UWB) (multicarrier and impulse radio) and wireless optical (diffuse and line-of-sight) communications systems. Software Defined Radio, and more broadly ?Software Defined Communications? (SDC) (i.e., implementing software defined concepts using propagation media beyond radio) can be enhanced by multiple input multiple output (MIMO) signaling techniques. However, until now, the technology did not exist to demonstrate these systems in prototype hardware.The SDC testbed leverages modular FPGA hardware to form a reconfigurable baseband processing system. In addition, modular transceivers are being constructed to implement UWB multicarrier, UWB impulse radio, line-of-sight optical, and diffuse optical modalities. The educational components of this project fosters technical innovation and design among undergraduate students and encourages high school outreach. Undergraduate students at all levels benefit from projects developing or using the SDC Testbed. The developed testbed is being incorporated into demonstrations for high school students and teachers. The main contribution of this project is the realization of a software defined testbed for rapidly prototyping high speed wireless networks. The impacts of such a system are vast, but most significantly, this system enables a large variety of different wireless architectures to be prototyped. A project website enables the dissemination of information about the testbed architecture and insights from these prototypes.