GRCon21 - Introduction to MIMO and Simple Ways To Use It in GNU Radio

Presented by Matt Ettus at GNU Radio Conference 2021

Diversity and MIMO operation are critical to most modern wireless communication systems. USRPs have been MIMO-capable since the USRP1 in 2004, and many other SDRs are MIMO-capable, yet most GNU Radio users don’t take advantage of those extra SMA ports. This talk aims to fix that.

We will start with a refresher on multipath propagation, with an emphasis on modeling its effects within GNU Radio. From there we will have a simple introduction to diversity and MIMO concepts, with a survey of the various types and applications including selection diversity, MRC/MRT, beamforming, space-time coding, spatial multiplexing, and Massive MIMO.

Finally, we will walk through the creation of a simple MIMO communication system in GNU Radio, and run the flowgraphs live. We will experiment with the various propagation impairments and system parameters to get an intuitive feel for real-world scenarios.

https://events.gnuradio.org/event/8/