MRI: Development of a mmWave Software Defined Radio Network Testbed for Hybrid Measurement and Emulation

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The largely unregulated and unused millimeter wave (mmWave) frequency band is a potential home for new standards and protocols to increase network capacity (especially for a future 5G cellular communication standard). This project builds, deploys, and makes available to the research community a mmWave Software Defined Radio (SDR) network testbed. A pressing need exists for flexible hardware platforms to: (1) Rapidly prototype new mmWave systems that consider not only point to point deployments, but also new multi-link mmWave network architectures;(2) Allow for co-design of antennas, waveforms, and networking algorithms -- a requirement given the unique propagation characteristics of mmWave channel; and (3) Allow for hybrid measurement and emulation to allow real and virtual nodes to co-exist, which would enable scalable studies of new mmWave network architectures. The mmWave SDR network testbed will be a flexible hardware platform that will enable researchers to rapidly prototype new mmWave systems. Through intermediate frequency integration with the Echo Ridge Dynamic Spectrum Environment Emulator (DySE) channel emulator at Drexel and integration with commercial computational electromagnetic simulators, the testbed is expected to enable both over the air prototyping capabilities with commercial and custom antenna technologies as well as evaluation of emulated mmWave networks with customizable combinations of real and simulated nodes. The SDR testbed will consist of 5 Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) X310 SDRs, enhanced with custom built millimeter transceivers designed and built in partnership with National Instruments. The instrument being developed will permit rapid prototyping of new mmWave systems that includes point-to-point deployments and multi-link mmWave network architecture, enabling researchers to test and verify new algorithms and protocols.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.