A software and hardware evaluation of revolutionary turbo MIMO OFDM schemes for 5 GHz WLANs

Globally, WLANs operating in the 5 GHz band have been standardized by the IEEE (North America), ETSI (Europe) and ARID (Japan). A harmonized physical layer is specified offering up to 54 Mbits/s using rate adaptive coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (COFDM). Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) antenna architectures coupled with soft input soft output (SISO) iterative decoding algorithms represent a revolutionary approach to the design of WLANs. At present, these techniques are the subject of intense theoretic research. In this contribution, the performance of a newly proposed iterative MIMO-OEDM architecture is explored using MIMO channel data captured in the 5 GHz band. Theoretically, this technology has the potential to significantly increase future WLAN data rates. However, little practical evaluation has been reported in the literature. To address this situation, this paper describes the construction of a broadband 5 GHz MIMO-OFDM test-bed. This advanced baseband/RF platform will be used in the future to evaluate emerging MIMO-OFDM WLAN architectures.