Open-access millimeter-wave software-defined radios in the PAWR COSMOS testbed: Design, deployment, and experimentation

Abstract

While millimeter-wave (mmWave) wireless has recently gained tremendous attention with the transition to 5G, developing a broadly accessible experimental infrastructure will largely facilitate the research and allow the community to make significant progress in this area. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of various programmable and open-access mmWave software-defined radios (SDRs) that have been deployed in the PAWR COSMOS advanced wireless testbed, in both indoor and outdoor environments. These programmable mmWave radios are based on the IBM 28 GHz 64-element dual-polarized phased array antenna module (PAAM) subsystem board and the Sivers IMA 60 GHz WiGig transceiver. These front ends are integrated with USRP SDRs or Xilinx RFSoC boards, which provide baseband signal processing capabilities. Moreover, we present measurements of the TX/RX beamforming performance and example experiments (e.g., real-time channel sounding and RFNoC-based 802.11ad preamble detection), using the mmWave radios. Finally, we discuss ongoing enhancement and development efforts focusing on these radios.