A Real-Time Propagation Channel Sounder for 5G Applications

This paper describes a wideband radio channel sounder. Such a device is able to measure the complex time-variant impulse response of the propagation channel. The impulse response is obtained by inversion of an optimal multi-sine sequence with flat spectrum and low crest factor. In standard configuration, this device is able to measure the propagation channel impulse response with a maximum bandwidth of 800 MHz in the DC-30 GHz frequency range fulfilling 5G requirements especially for millimeter wave frequencies. The receiver digital part is based on a PCIe 3 Gs/s 12-bit digitizer implementing efficient data streaming functions. The measurement software is a C/C++ Windows 10 application and uses advanced optimization technologies such as vectorization or multi-threading making possible real-time operations. The simultaneous transfer function on two channels is acquired, processed and saved in less than 100 μs. RF and digital parts have been simplified in order to reduce the form factor, the weight, the power consumption and maintenance issues.