R&D platform for man scale wireless AD HOC networks towards a hardware demonstrator for 4G+ systems

A hardware demonstrator for 4G and beyond wide area networking systems, based on a software defined radio system with multi-hop and multi-mode options, is the scope of this paper. Several results from different research groups, great progress in the VLSI design and experience with already approved versions of hardware demonstrators point out the way to a new, more sophisticated approach. Combining different technologies, like ASICs, FPGAs, microprocessors and DSPs enables a step-by-step system-on-chip (SoC) approach for communication systems with cross-layer design towards 4G+. Great flexibility, observability and debugging features are guaranteed to facilitate rapid prototyping.