A Real-time 802.11 Compatible Distributed MIMO System

Abstract

Recent years have seen a lot of work in moving distributed MIMO from theory to practice. While this prior work demonstrates the feasibility of synchronizing multiple transmitters in time, frequency, and phase, none of them deliver a full-fledged PHY capable of supporting distributed MIMO in real-time. Further, none of them can address dynamic environments or mobile clients. Addressing these challenges, requires new solutions for low-overhead and fast tracking of wireless channels, which are the key parameters of any distributed MIMO system. It also requires a software-hardware architecture that can deliver a distributed MIMO within a full-fledged 802.11 PHY, while still meeting the tight timing constraints of the 802.11 protocol. This architecture also needs to perform coordinated power control across distributed MIMO nodes, as opposed to simply letting each node perform power control as if it were operating alone. This paper describes the design and implementation of MegaMIMO 2.0, a system that achieves these goals and delivers the first real-time fully distributed 802.11 MIMO system.