FPGA-based wideband channel emulator for evaluation of Wireless Sensor Networks in industrial environments

Abstract

In this paper an FPGA-based wideband wireless channel emulator is presented which is suitable for early evaluation of Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks in industrial environments. The emulator works in complex baseband and has a 100 MHz-wide RF interface which covers the full Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band of 2.45 GHz (2.4–2.5 GHz); this allows the direct connection of either custom or commercial WSN nodes to the emulator. The emulator has been deployed on a FPGA where a soft processor has been included, and is able to generate white Gaussian noise, and multipath and Doppler fading effects. In this paper the details of the platform are presented, and validation results are shown for its diverse functionalities. BER and PER values are also presented which have been obtained for AWGN and Rayleigh channels using real WSN nodes connected to the emulator.