DEMIURGO, an SDR Testbed for Distributed MIMO

The DEMIURGO testbed allows the test and characterization of distributed MIMO links, in an scenario comprising up to 4 terminals times 4 antennas, in an effective and flexible way. This testbed is based on an already operational Telefonica Moviles SDR Platform (PRAGA), which includes a reprogrammable digital signal processing module based on FPGAs and DSPs, to enable flexible implementation of algorithms, and an analog IF front-end with RF modules. In this paper, the advantages and drawbacks of distributed MIMO implementation on a cellular operator network will be analyzed, and the influence of main limiting factors on the performance of the overall BER in a 4times4 multi-user/multi-antenna systems will be presented.