Diversity Demodulation For MIMO Systems

Tech ID: 20-045

Inventors: Thomas Pratt, Eric Jesse, Joseph Loof

Date Added: January 12, 2021

Overview

Improved receiver processing that leverages different MIMO demodulation and enhances the performance of MIMO communications systems.

Technology Summary

20 045 Graphic

Multiple-in Multiple-out (MIMO) wireless communication is a method utilizing multiple transmitting and receiving antennas at the ends of a radio link which multiplies the capacity and maximizes multipath propagation. Multiple antennas on both the transmitter and receiver creates multiple paths for data to pass through which allows for increased diversity of the data and leads to greater data accuracy. Demodulation occurs when the data is decoded at the receiver. Current MIMO demodulation methods don’t use all measurable features of received signals and could be more efficient. At Notre Dame, unconventional MIMO demodulation approaches have been successfully created and utilized for the case of Polarization Shift keying (PolSK), a special form of MIMO. These unconventional demodulation approaches developed for PolSK can be applied to the demodulation of generalized MIMO systems in a manner akin to the techniques used for PolSK and would achieve more efficient communications.

Researchers at the University of Notre Dame have developed a method which leverages novel feature correlations and demodulation techniques with conventional demodulation techniques, known as demodulation diversity, and leads to an increase in signal-to-noise (SNR) ratio, effectively doubling signal strength. The synergistic manner of these techniques enhances the MIMO system communications performance that allows the usage of higher channel coding rates and leads to a higher data throughput compared to conventional MIMO systems. This invention leverages multiple demodulation approaches to enhance the receiver’s demodulation performance.

Market Advantages

  • Higher data throughput and increased data rates
  • Could be used for systems that employ multiple simultaneous transmissions such as MIMO QAM

Technology Readiness Level

TRL 3 – Experimental Proof of Concept

Contact

Richard Cox

rcox4@nd.edu

574.631.5158