Implementation of Low-Latency Signal Processing and Data Shuffling for TDD Massive MIMO Systems

Abstract

Low latency signal processing and high throughput implementations are required in order to realize real-time TDD massive MIMO communications, especially in high mobility scenarios. One of the main challenges is that the up-link and down-link turnaround time has to be within the coherence time of the wireless channel to enable efficient use of reciprocity. This paper presents a hardware architecture and implementation of this critical signal processing path, including channel estimation, QRD-based MMSE decoder/precoder and distributed reciprocity calibration. Furthermore, we detail a switch-based router implementation to tackle the stringent throughput and latency requirements on the data shuffling network. The proposed architecture was verified on the LuMaMi testbed, based on the NI SDR platform. The implementation supports real-time TDD transmission in a 128 x 12 massive MIMO setup using 20 MHz channel bandwidth. The processing latency in the critical path is less than 0.15 ms, enabling reciprocity-based TDD massive MIMO for high-mobility scenarios.