Testing software major NI has revealed a MIMO Application Framework to be coupled with the NI software defined radio hardware.
When worked in sync with the hardware, this software reference design claims to give a well-documented, reconfigurable, parameterized physical layer written and delivered in LabVIEW source code enabling researchers to build both traditional MIMO and Massive MIMO prototypes and speed innovation in 5G prototyping.
“NI’s MIMO platform has been instrumental in enabling our Massive MIMO research,” said Andrew Nix, head of the CSN Group and Dean of Engineering at the University of Bristol.
The Framework will allow wireless designers to develop algorithms and evaluate custom IP hence solving many practical challenges associated with real-world multiuser MIMO deployments. The
Framework is scalable from 4 to 128 antennas and can be used with the NI USRP RIO and NI PXI hardware platforms, to create small to large scale antenna systems with minimal system integration or design effort.
The system can be sued outside the kit to conduct Massive MIMO experiments by integrating the user’s custom signal processing algorithms in a fraction of the time compared to other approaches, thereby accelerating the overall design process as the wireless industry races to define 5G.
Participants of the RF/Communications Lead User program by NI consisting of researchers at Bristol University, applied the flexible prototyping platform for 5G research and recently announced in conjunction with Lund University that a world-record of 22-fold increase in spectral efficiency was observed over modern day 4G networks.
“The MIMO Application Framework NI provided allowed our team to begin our work from an advanced starting point, and the seamless interaction between the software and hardware let us move quickly from theory to real-world prototyping. As a result, we were able to prove the potential of Massive MIMO as a candidate technology for 5G by setting world records in spectral efficiency,” added Nix.
NI has revenue of $306 million, up 1 percent. Net income totaled at $20 million and the company revealed that it expects Q3 revenue to be in the range of $291 million to $321 million, with the impact of the strengthening U.S. dollar expected to cut down the dollar revenue growth rate by about 3 percent in Q3.
Vina Krishnan
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