The World's First Real-Time Testbed for Massive MIMO: Design, Implementation, and Validation

This paper sets up a framework for designing a massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) testbed by investigating hardware (HW) and system-level requirements, such as processing complexity, duplexing mode, and frame structure. Taking these into account, a generic system and processing partitioning is proposed, which allows flexible scaling and processing distribution onto a multitude of physically separated devices. Based on the given HW constraints such as maximum number of links and maximum throughput for peer-to-peer interconnections combined with processing capabilities, the framework allows to evaluate modular HW components. To verify our design approach, we present the Lund University Massive MIMO testbed, which constitutes the first reconfigurable real-time HW platform for prototyping massive MIMO. Utilizing up to 100 base station antennas and more than 50 field programmable gate arrays, up to 12 user equipments are served on the same time/frequency resource using an LTE-like orthogonal frequency division multiplexing time-division duplex-based transmission scheme. Proof-of-concept tests with this system show that massive MIMO can simultaneously serve a multitude of users in a static indoor and static outdoor environment utilizing the same time/frequency resource.