RAPID PROTOTYPING OF A COST EFFECTIVE AND FLEXIBLE 4x4 MIMO TESTBED

In this paper, we present the design of a low cost 4x4 multiple in multiple out (MIMO) wireless communications system testbed. Over recent years, an increasing number of research laboratories have begun experimental studies aimed at evaluating the achievable performance gains of MIMO technology as proposed in theory. The complexity of the experimental test platforms employed by these institutions have also increased over the years, supporting greater numbers of antennas while providing even more real-time computational processing power. These tremendous increases in capability, however, come at a very steep price which the vast majority of the wireless research community cannot afford. As an alternative, we present the design of a low cost 4x4 MIMO testbed for researchers solely interested in analyzing the physical layer performance of various MIMO technologies. In order to demonstrate the capabilities of our testbed, we also present the results of our 64 QAM, maximal ratio combining (MRC) experiment.