Programmable RFSoC-Based Antenna Emulator for MIMO System Prototyping

Abstract

This paper presents a programmable RFSoC-based system to emulate multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna systems used during the testing and prototyping phase of radar and communication applications. The emulator can be used to simulate complex antenna configurations in a laboratory environment, without the need for outdoor tests in a controlled and reproducible environment. It is implemented on a Xilinx ZCU216 evaluation board that provides up to 16 phase-coherent analog output channels. The ability of our antenna emulator to accurately replicate different antenna configurations is verified using a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) setup simulating a direction of arrival (DoA) scenario. The measured results closely matched theoretical expectations, demonstrating the system's functionality and practical applicability. Future improvements aim to enable the emulation of more extensive and complex scenarios, broadening the antenna emulator's application scope.