IEEE 802.11ac MIMO receiver baseband processing on customized VLIW processor

In this paper, a software-based implementation for the Multiple Input and Multiple Output (MIMO) receiver baseband processing conforming to the IEEE 802.11ac standard on a DSP core with vector extensions is presented. The implementation is carried out for different operation points including 2×2 and 4×4 MIMO configurations, yielding beyond 1Gbps transmission bit rate. This implementation mainly focuses on the frequency domain processing of the receiver. The presented solution is evaluated in terms of number of clock cycles and power consumption, and the feasibility of a real-time operation is then addressed and analyzed. If found feasible, such Software Defined Radio based solutions offer more flexibility and reduced time-to-market-cycles compared to the conventional solutions using fixed-function hardware platforms.