A DSP and FPGA testbed for teaching and research of wireless communications

This paper describes the teaching and research of signal processing and communications systems that took place during the development of a real-time transceiver and radio channel testbed at Hokkaido University, Japan. Digital signal processing (DSP) concepts were taught and learnt during both the testbed system development and also the results gathering and analysis stages. The performance of a modern multiple antenna communications system is dependent on a number of key parameters, and the student interaction with such a real-time system can assist in the understanding of key but often abstract theoretical concepts. The communications algorithm and architecture overview on a signal processing board containing a Xilinx field programmable gate array (FPGA) and Analog Devices TigerSharc DSP is detailed. The lessons learned and potential uses of the testbed in both teaching and research are also described.