A Scalable 256-Antenna Distributed MIMO Testbed with Real-Time Fully Digital Beamforming

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Iancu, Dumitra, Snygg, Vilgot, Cheng, Sijia, Tinnerberg, Lina, Henriksson, Mikael, Bergman, Emil, Johansson, Anders J, Behmanesh, Baktash, Edfors, Ove, Liu, Liang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Iancu, Dumitra
Snygg, Vilgot
Cheng, Sijia
Tinnerberg, Lina
Henriksson, Mikael
Bergman, Emil
Johansson, Anders J
Behmanesh, Baktash
Edfors, Ove
Liu, Liang
author_facet Iancu, Dumitra
Snygg, Vilgot
Cheng, Sijia
Tinnerberg, Lina
Henriksson, Mikael
Bergman, Emil
Johansson, Anders J
Behmanesh, Baktash
Edfors, Ove
Liu, Liang
contents Distributed massive MIMO (D-MIMO) is a promising technology for future generation wireless systems as it takes advantage of both an increased array aperture and a decentralized processing architecture and topology. In order to truly understand the possibilities and limitations of these approaches in real scenarios, practical realization of testbeds is an essential step in the technology advancement. This work presents the Lund University Large Intelligent Surface testbed -- LuLIS, that can operate up to 256 coherent radio frequency (RF) chains using 16 AMD Zynq UltraScale RFSoC ZCU216 evaluation boards acting as distributed processing nodes. Real-time processing is facilitated by acceleration and distribution of MIMO processing algorithms on the FPGA fabric of the boards. The system is easily scalable, as increasing the number of antennas is done in multiples of 16 by adding more RFSoCs, which also implies addition of another processing node. The design allows up-scaling without hardware redesign, introduction of large latencies or data transfer overhead. The testbed is flexible in terms of deployment, with options of fully distributing the nodes (as in D-MIMO) or co-locating them (as in more traditional Massive MIMO). A detailed description of the implementation of the testbed is presented and initial results are shown for an uplink (UL) transmission from four single-antenna user equipments (UEs) to 64, 128 and 256 base-station antennas.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_02388
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Scalable 256-Antenna Distributed MIMO Testbed with Real-Time Fully Digital Beamforming
Iancu, Dumitra
Snygg, Vilgot
Cheng, Sijia
Tinnerberg, Lina
Henriksson, Mikael
Bergman, Emil
Johansson, Anders J
Behmanesh, Baktash
Edfors, Ove
Liu, Liang
Signal Processing
Systems and Control
Distributed massive MIMO (D-MIMO) is a promising technology for future generation wireless systems as it takes advantage of both an increased array aperture and a decentralized processing architecture and topology. In order to truly understand the possibilities and limitations of these approaches in real scenarios, practical realization of testbeds is an essential step in the technology advancement. This work presents the Lund University Large Intelligent Surface testbed -- LuLIS, that can operate up to 256 coherent radio frequency (RF) chains using 16 AMD Zynq UltraScale RFSoC ZCU216 evaluation boards acting as distributed processing nodes. Real-time processing is facilitated by acceleration and distribution of MIMO processing algorithms on the FPGA fabric of the boards. The system is easily scalable, as increasing the number of antennas is done in multiples of 16 by adding more RFSoCs, which also implies addition of another processing node. The design allows up-scaling without hardware redesign, introduction of large latencies or data transfer overhead. The testbed is flexible in terms of deployment, with options of fully distributing the nodes (as in D-MIMO) or co-locating them (as in more traditional Massive MIMO). A detailed description of the implementation of the testbed is presented and initial results are shown for an uplink (UL) transmission from four single-antenna user equipments (UEs) to 64, 128 and 256 base-station antennas.
title A Scalable 256-Antenna Distributed MIMO Testbed with Real-Time Fully Digital Beamforming
topic Signal Processing
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.02388