STTR Phase II: Scalable Detector for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) Communication Systems

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this project lies in its ability to implement multiple-inputmultiple-output (MIMO) detectors of any size. This, in turn, impacts the broad needs of wirelesscommunications industry that is always in search of more efficient use of the scarce spectral resources.Since its invention 15 years ago, MIMO has been included in all wireless standards, e.g. WiFi,WiMAX, and LTE. As of today, MIMO products of sizes up to 4x4 (i.e. 4 transmit and 4 receiveantennas) have appeared in the market, while the most recent standards, such as IEEE 802.11ac WiFiand LTE-Advanced cellular, have specified MIMO sizes as large as 8x8. For WiFi this can mean moreeffective hot-spots in public and workplace settings. For cellular this can mean improved connectivityin rural areas with fewer base-station towers, having a positive economic impact. Industry activitiesthat attempt to build larger MIMO systems such as 16x16 are occurring. Massive MIMO networks withmore than 100 antennas at the base stations have recently been proposed for 5G cellular and beyond.These trends indicate a large market opportunity for the scalable MIMO technology that this projectbuilds upon.This Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase 2 project plans to develop andcommercialize a set of intellectual property (IP) software-codes/IP-cores related to multiple-inputmultiple-output (MIMO) communications. These cores address the needs of wireless chipsetmanufacturers. The main hurdle in the design and implementation of MIMO systems is theircomplexity which drives cost and power consumption. The complexity of an optimal MIMO detectorgrows exponentially with the number of transmit antennas. The same is true for most of the nearoptimal MIMO detectors that have been suggested in the literature and adopted by industry. Thislimitation has been the main impediment in developing commercial MIMO systems that support largerarray sizes with increased range and data rate. This project adopts a novel technology that achieves nearoptimal performance having complexity that only grows linearly with the number of transmit antennas.It thus can be used to implement MIMO systems of any size, at an affordable complexity.