MIMO prototyping makes sense of many antennas: News from Signalion

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MIMO systems (with multiple transmit and receive antennas) are becoming increasingly popular, and many next-generation systems such as WiMAX, 3-GPP LTE and IEEE802.11n wireless LANs rely on the increased throughput of MIMO systems with up to four antennas. Signalion's HaLo420 is a hardware-in-the-loop prototyping system that enables system designers to transmit data over the air directly from a simulation environment such as Matlab. Current HaLo systems support transmission in two important ISM bands at 2.4 and 5GHz for up to four antennas at both the transmitter and receiver.

MIMO-system design requires real-world verification using demonstrators/prototypes before products are designed because of the many uncertainties associated with modelling MIMO transmission.

And to date dedicated and custom tailored solutions have been the only way of setting up such demonstrators/prototypes.

The HaLo420 is a wireless prototyping solution that simply replaces the channel model in the performance simulation.

An easy-to-use application programming interface (API) enables the seamless integration of the radio hardware into the simulation environment.

Thus the setup of conceptual demonstrations or proof-of-concept prototypes with HaLo420 is just a matter of a few hours, dramatically accelerating wireless system prototyping.

The HaLo system is also very attractive for the academic community, and can even be used in student lab courses.

Such hands-on engineering running real radio transmissions motivates students much more than just theoretical lectures.

Thus HaLo420 is a perfect tool for both fundamental research and education.

Three systems are currently available: the HaLo220 with two transmit and two receive antennas; the HaLo420 with four transmit and four receive antennas; and the HaLo425 with two transmit and four receive antennas.

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MIMO prototyping makes sense of many antennas

Hardware-in-the-loop prototyping system enables system designers to transmit data over the air directly from a simulation environment such as Matlab.