From MIMO-OFDM algorithms to a real-time wireless prototype: A systematic matlab-to-hardware design flow

Abstract

To assess the performance of forthcoming 4th generation wirelesslocal area networks, the algorithmic functionality is usuallymodelled using a high-level mathematical software package, forinstance, Matlab. In order to validate the modelling assumptionsagainst the real physical world, the high-level functional modelneeds to be translated into a prototype. A systematic systemdesign methodology proves very valuable, since it avoids, or, atleast reduces, numerous design iterations. In this paper, wepropose a novel Matlab-to-hardware design flow, which allows tomap the algorithmic functionality onto the target prototypingplatform in a systematic and reproducible way. The proposeddesign flow is partly manual and partly tool assisted. It isshown that the proposed design flow allows to use the sametestbench throughout the whole design flow and avoidstime-consuming and error-prone intermediate translation steps.