STTR Phase II: Scalable Detector for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) Communication Systems

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project lies in its ability to implement multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) detectors of any size. This, in turn, impacts the broad needs of wireless communications industry that is always in search of more efficient use of the scarce spectral resources. Since its invention 15 years ago, MIMO has been included in all wireless standards, e.g. WiFi, WiMAX, and LTE. As of today, MIMO products of sizes up to 4x4 (i.e. 4 transmit and 4 receive antennas) have appeared in the market, while the most recent standards, such as IEEE 802.11ac WiFi and LTE-Advanced cellular, have specified MIMO sizes as large as 8x8. For WiFi this can mean more effective hot-spots in public and workplace settings. For cellular this can mean improved connectivity in rural areas with fewer base-station towers, having a positive economic impact. Industry activities that attempt to build larger MIMO systems such as 16x16 are occurring. Massive MIMO networks with more than 100 antennas at the base stations have recently been proposed for 5G cellular and beyond. These trends indicate a large market opportunity for the scalable MIMO technology that this project builds upon. This Small Business Technology Transfer Research (STTR) Phase 2 project plans to develop and commercialize a set of intellectual property (IP) software-codes/IP-cores related to multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications. These cores address the needs of wireless chipset manufacturers. The main hurdle in the design and implementation of MIMO systems is their complexity which drives cost and power consumption. The complexity of an optimal MIMO detector grows exponentially with the number of transmit antennas. The same is true for most of the near optimal MIMO detectors that have been suggested in the literature and adopted by industry. This limitation has been the main impediment in developing commercial MIMO systems that support larger array sizes with increased range and data rate. This project adopts a novel technology that achieves near optimal performance having complexity that only grows linearly with the number of transmit antennas. It thus can be used to implement MIMO systems of any size, at an affordable complexity.