NYU Wireless announced that it will build an open source Software Defined Radio(SDR) test bed to speed up the development of millimeter wave (mmWave) systems, a key technology for 5G.
Millimeter wave communication relies on highly directional transmissions in which energy is concentrated in narrow beams. Current mmWave prototyping systems use directional horn antennas mounted on mechanically rotatable gimbals. These mechanical systems are too large and slow for mobile applications.
The new platform will integrate an electrically steerable phased array with no physically moving parts and near-instantaneous steering. The test bed will leverage SiBEAM's RF (radio frequency) front end and National Instruments(NI)' high bandwidth and massive baseband processing system to create mmWave prototypes capable of high data rates and very low latency.
Sundeep Rangan, NYU Wireless
The development of an open-source, powerful SDR platform will greatly speed the development of mmWave systems and allow academic and industry groups to bring design ideas to reality.
