A Wideband Radio Channel Sounder for Non-Stationary Channels: Design, Implementation and Testing

Luis A López-Valcárcel,Manuel García Sánchez

doi:10.3390/electronics10151838

Abstract

The increasing bandwidths and frequencies proposed for new mobile communications give rise to new challenges for system designers. Channel sounding and channel characterization are important tasks to provide useful information for the design of systems, protocols, and techniques to fight the propagation impairments. In this paper, we present a novel radio channel sounder capable of dealing with non-stationary channels. It can be operated in real-time and has a compact size to ease transport. For versatility and cost purposes, the core of the system is implemented in Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). Three measurement campaigns have been conducted to illustrate the performance of the sounder in both static and non-static channels. In its current configuration, the sounder reaches an RF null-to-null bandwidth of 1 GHz, providing a delay resolution of 2 ns, a maximum measurable Doppler shift of 7.63 kHz, and 4.29 s of continuous acquisition time. A comparison with other channel sounders in the literature reveals that our proposal achieves a good combination of performance, cost, and size.

Highlights

IntroductionWireless communications have been playing an increasing role in society since the
Wireless communications have been playing an increasing role in society since the20th century
The aim of this paper is to present a novel wideband channel capable o resolution in the time axis, i.e., the variation of the channel response with time, sounder has to cope dealing non-stationary channels as well as to that present some initial measurements i with thesewith decreasing coherence times

Summary

Introduction

Wireless communications have been playing an increasing role in society since the. Electromagnetic spectrum is a scarce asset, so there has been a historical trend to use increasingly higher frequencies to allocate new communication systems. Larger bandwidths available at higher frequency bands, like the millimeter-wave (mmWave) band, enable larger data rates. The need for channel characterization has made sounding an important field of knowledge. Through the use of sounders, it is possible to obtain different functions and figures of interest [1]. Predictions of how the channel will behave in the presence of different signals can be made. Channel models have been elaborated from the results of extensive sounding campaigns

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Conclusion