Implementing 5G NR Features in FPGA

A set of physical layer features defined in the 3GPP 38 series standards (5G) were implemented in commercial off the shelf SDR products. The system created an over-the-air link operating at 3.5GHz, having 40MHz channel width and using 256QAM. The PHY layer was executed in the FPGA of the SDR transceiver; higher layers executed in the host PC controlling the radio frontend. With a 4 K video stream as payload, the link allowed us to experiment with: 5G NR numerologies; frequency shaping techniques for reducing OOB emissions and improving spectral utilization; higher order QAM modulation; and mixed numerology communications.