Sounding

The modular ultra-wideband (UWB) pseudo noise (PN)-sequence sensor was introduced to showcase the capabilities of the EMS-developed integrated circuits (ICs) Xampling Generator 1 (XG1) and Xampling Frontend 1 (XF1) which were specifically designed to demonstrate the paradigm of compressive sampling implemented on real silicon hardware¹. The sensor system divides into two main units - modular multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) transceiver (TRx) frontend and corresponding data acquisition backend.

Measuring and characterizing the wireless propagation channel is of utmost importance for developing applications at most recent and unexplored frequency bands. However, since there are no off-the-shelf hardware solutions and no proven algorithms for new frequency bands, doing channel measurements itself is experimental, and the concepts of different research institutions and labs will widely differ. To still develop one common understanding of the wireless propagation channel, concepts for verifying and quantifying the accuracy of the channel sounding results are required¹.

Seven measurement runs, selected from a measurement campaign in Bonn, Germany, are provided. The environment is urban, the context is V2I from an elevated base station, the set-up is fully polarimetric MIMO with two 16 dual-pol element stacked circular arrays, configured as two circular rings of 8 elements each. The frequency is 2,53GHz, the bandwidth 20MHz. For easy access of relevant quantities, data and meta data are stored in HDF5 format. For aiding interpretation of the data, full Tx and Rx array characteristics are included.

The HyEff channel sounder is a high‑performance measurement system developed for characterizing complex radio propagation environments, particularly for MIMO (multiple‑input-multiple‑output) wireless channels. It enables precise measurement of the time‑, frequency‑, and spatial characteristics of multipath propagation. By delivering precise and efficient measurement of the spatio‑temporal structure of the radio channel, the HyEff channel sounder bridges the gap between theoretical modeling and real‑world wireless system deployment. Its integration with high‑resolution estimation techniques makes it a key tool for the development of next‑generation communication systems.

The THz measurement solution from Rohde & Schwarz combines high-quality measurement equipment operating in D-band (110-170 GHz) together with flexible signal generation and acquisition. Hence, this lab equipment can act as a configurable sounding platform to develop and explore new channel sounding concepts for the upcoming THz frequency bands.

The measurement campaign was performed in Cologne (Germany) using a RUSK MIMO channel sounder operating at 2.53 GHz. The fixed transmitter has been mounted on a roof top of an approx. 30m high building whereas the mobile receiver has been set up in a car.

The application of high resolution parameter estimation algorithms requires adequate antenna arrays. Therefore the measurements have been done using a stacked uniform circular array at the base station side (Tx) as well as at the mobile station side (Rx). Both arrays are linear dual polarized.

In order to obtain an antenna independent characterization of the radio channel the high resolution parameter estimation framework RIMAX was used. RIMAX models the channel as the superposition of a deterministic (specular) and a stochastic (dense multipath) part. The deterministic part resembles a multitude of plane waves that are resolvable by the estimator. Each plane wave is hereby described using its time-delay, angle-of-arrival (in azimuth and elevation), angle-of-departure (in azimuth and elevation) and the complex polarimetric path-weight.

The Oryx dataset contains radio channel measurements between stationary (ground- and rooftop-mounted) and mobile (UAV- and vehicle-mounted) transceivers in a multi-static setup. A variety of dynamic passive objects were present in the measured scenarios, allowing for verification of radar detection, estimation and tracking algorithms. In addition to the measured channel frequency responses, the position of all radio nodes and passive objects were recorded using high-accuracy GNSS RTK devices.