Millimeter-Wave Software-Defined Radio Testbed with Programmable Directionality

Abstract

Wireless node density and gigabit-per-second de-mands are pushing for more spatial reuse and higher frequency bands, which are realized by directional beamforming methods. Programming directionality of wireless beams is becoming a major need for software-defined radio (SDR) platforms. We present a low-cost “directional SDR” testbed that enables convenient programming of millimeter wave (mmWave) beam directions from a high-level programming language along with access to legacy SDR methods.