Research And Development Of Massive MIMO Channel Sounding Control Software

Massive MIMO (Multiple-Input Multiple-Output) technology is one of the hottest spots in the study of key mobile communication technologies of the future 5G (the 5th Generation mobile communication technology) standard. In order to research the channel characteristics of Massive MIMO antenna system which deploys a large number of antennas on the base station side, we need to carry out real channel sounding. So we design and develop the Massive MIMO channel sounding system to accomplish the task of channel sounding under multiple frequency bands and a variety of scenarios. In this paper, we realize the goal of controlling several key hardware including high speed data acquisition card, RF (Radio Frequency) receiver and GPS signal receiver through the development of Massive MIMO channel sounding control software.Massive MIMO channel sounding control software is developed by Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 on a Windows system. The software is based on MFC (Microsoft Foundation Class) dialog project, involving many programming techniques such as multi-threading, thread synchronization, GDI (Graphics Device Interface) functions and file operations.The entire software consists of three parts including high speed data acquisition card control module, RF receiver control module and GPS (Global Positioning System) signal receiver control module. High speed data acquisition card control module achieves the data collection method based on virtual continuous storage. At the same time, users can identify whether the data acquisition is correct by observing data waveform and acquisition information. RF receiver control module and GPS signal receiver control module were developed according to Windows API (Application Programming Interface) serial port communication programming method. RF receiver control module has to receive and send messages via the connected serial port. GPS signal receiver control module only receives messages from GPS signal receiver and then stores the information on disk.Massive MIMO channel sounding control software meets the needs of Massive MIMO radio channel sounding. Users can set proper parameters according to specific experimental requirements under different frequency bands, antenna arrays and scenarios. So experiments can be accomplished accurately.Methods and realization of Massive MIMO channel sounding data acquisition proposed in this paper are both innovative, and they can provide a reference for subsequent radio channel sounding.