Multi-Beam MIMO Prototype for Real-Time Multiuser Communication at 28 GHz

The rapid proliferation of data hungry devices is creating a bandwidth crisis, with aggregate data rates expected to increase 1000 fold between 2010 and 2020. Millimeter-wave (mmW) systems operating in the 30-300 GHz band are poised to meet this exploding demand through large bandwidths and high-dimensional MIMO operation. However conventional MIMO techniques result in prohibitively high complexity, and existing phased array based mmW prototypes are only capable of supporting a single beam. In this paper, we report new results on a Continuous Aperture Phased (CAP) MIMO prototype system that uses a lens array for analog multi-beamforming to achieve near-optimal performance with a dramatically lower transceiver complexity. We discuss the main components of the CAP-MIMO prototype design and present initial experimental results on an FPGA-based real-time implementation of a point-to-multipoint multiuser link at 28 GHz. Directions for future research and development are also briefly discussed.