A Broadband MIMO-OFDM Demonstrator: Design, Implementation and Measurement Results

We present an experimental broadband wireless 4×4 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) space-time-blockcoded (STBC) OFDM system based on an extension of the IEEE 802.11a/g physical layer (PHY) to multiple-antenna scenarios. A general description of the hardware architecture of the demonstrator is shown. The FPGA and DSP-based algorithms implemented at the transmit and receive sides are defined and compared to traditional single-antenna designs. Real measurement results over different spatial diversity schemes are finally presented to illustrate the effective gains obtained from the use of multiple transmit and receive antennas in a multicarrier system.