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While millimeter-wave (mmWave) wireless has recently gained tremendous attention with the transition to 5G, developing a broadly accessible experimental infrastructure will allow the research community to make significant progress in this area. Hence, in this paper, we present the design and implementation of various programmable and open-access 28/60 GHz software-defined radios (SDRs), deployed in the PAWR COSMOS advanced wireless testbed. These programmable mmWave radios are based on the IBM 28 GHz 64-element dual-polarized phased array antenna module (PAAM) subsystem board and the Sivers IMA 60 GHz WiGig transceiver. These front ends are integrated with USRP SDRs or Xilinx RF-SoC boards, which provide baseband signal processing capabilities. Moreover, we present measurements of the TX/RX beamforming performance and example experiments (e.g., real-time channel sounding and RFNoC-based 802.11ad preamble detection), using the mmWave radios. Finally, we discuss ongoing enhancement and development efforts focusing on these radios.

This paper focuses on COSMOS - Cloud enhanced Open Software defined MObile wireless testbed for city-Scale deployment. The COSMOS testbed is being deployed in West Harlem (New York City) as part of the NSF Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program. It will enable researchers to explore the technology "sweet spot" of ultra-high bandwidth and ultra-low latency in the most demanding real-world environment. We describe the testbed's architecture, the design and deployment challenges, and the experience gained during the design and pilot deployment. Specifically, we describe COSMOS' computing and network architectures, the critical building blocks, and its programmability at different layers. The building blocks include software-defined radios, 28 GHz millimeter-wave phased array modules, optical transport network, core and edge cloud, and control and management software. We describe COSMOS' deployment phases in a dense urban environment, the research areas that could be studied in the testbed, and specific example experiments. Finally, we discuss our experience with using COSMOS as an educational tool.

Multi-antenna millimeter wave communications is on the verge of mainstream commercial deployment. In a not-too-distant 5G-powered future, we expect a dynamic, congested and interference-limited millimeter wave channel that will require us to exploit the large range of spatial diversity afforded by millimeter wave antenna arrays. In prior cellular generations, the development of communications and networking algorithms was significantly aided by software defined radio based experimentation. Similarly, we believe that the challenges of this new era will require the development of algorithms based on experimentation using software defined millimeter wave multi-antenna systems. In this talk, we will present a portable, user-friendly and yet, extremely capable and highly reconfigurable software-defined phased array transceiver platform for experimentation and algorithms development in the 5G era. The platform features 128 independent phase and gain control elements feeding 64 dual-polarized antennas, and supports dual-polarized transmit and receive at 28 GHz. Phase and gain of each element can be controlled, with support for up to 8 simultaneous beams. Key circuit and antenna technology innovations enable calibration-free operation. Moreover, all communications and phased array beam configuration functions are controlled from a single python-based API thereby allowing full beamforming control alongside other software defined radio communications parameters from a simple software interface. Initial 5G related experiments using the software defined phased array is presented.