Implementing a RAKE receiver for wireless communications on an FPGA-based computer system

ABSTRACT

RAKE receivers are widely used in the wireless communications industry. Currently, custom VLSI is the most popular implementation. Programmable and reconfigurable logic implementations are becoming more attractive because of their flexibility and due to technology advancements. We have implemented a RAKE receiver on an Annapolis Wildforce board with four Xilinx 4000 family chips for a total of 100,000 gate equivalents. Our system is able to implement a RAKE receiver for underwater data communication systems that works in real time. We also investigate mapping a RAKE receiver to a Virtex chip for real-time atmospheric wireless communication.

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Index Terms

• Hardware

  • Communication hardware, interfaces and storage

  • Very large scale integration design

• Networks