www.astesj.com 167 Designing the MIMO SDR-based Antenna Array for 5G Telecommunication Meriem Drissi 1,* , Nabil Benjelloun 2 , Philippe Descamps 3 , Ali Gharsallah 1 1 MER Laboratory, Department of electronics, FST, University Tunis El Manar, 1068, Tunisia 2 IRSEEM Laboratory, Department of electronics, University Rouen Normandie, Rouen, 76801, France 3 CNRS Laboratory, Department of electronics, University Caen Normandie, Caen, 14000, France A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T Article history: Received: 31 August, 2022 Accepted: 05 November, 2022 Online: 20 December, 2022 With the significant spread of 5G telecommunication systems, the demand for high quality of service and better coverage is growing rapidly. Multiple-input–multiple-output is planned to be among the key technologies in 5G telecommunication’s field. In this article, a new fully digital 2×2 MIMO testbed is implemented, using USRP B210 and 2 pairs of microstrip antennas with 4 radiation elements. In this implementation we cover the reconfigurability of the USRP combined with MATLAB, providing flexible integration between real-time and software host processing. Keywords: MIMO AM Modulation Microstrip antenna SDR 1. Introduction Multiple-input–multiple-output becomes the most challenging technology in the 5G and the upcoming 6G telecommunication applications, given the ability of increasing the quality of communication and the rate of data [1], [2]. Multiple input multiple output (MIMO) has proven to be an important technique for communication systems. This technique benefits by using two or more antennas to transmit and receive data simultaneously, in order to increase the data rate and to provide a better reliability. So, MIMO provides the solution to the challenge [3], [4]. To develop a MIMO system, a microstrip antenna is designed, as well as is widely deployed in telecommunication systems due to its low profile, ease of fabrication and miniature size. Much research such as [2]-[7] focus mostly on simulations and theorical analysis ignoring the system implementation because of its complexity, power consumption and low cost. the software defined radio has been found to avoid such limitations [1], [3]. More specially, by using SDR flexibility, reconfigurability and Rapid prototyping are covered to support new standards and protocols [8]-[10]. On this issue a new fully digital MIMO 2X2 has been implemented, this prototype is combining pairs of microstrip antennas with 4 radiation elements on both terminals. For conveying and receive one or more types of wave signals simultaneously, An AM modulation is involved using Simulink and the flexibility, reconfigurability and low cost of USRP B210. In our testbed, we investigate and profile the characteristics of USRP B210 platform including full steps such, transmission, modulation, spectrum, received signal and demodulation. The rest of this document is arranged as bellow. Section II describes a comparison between rectangular and circular patch. In Section III, in order to perform the gain and assure circular polarization we moved on antenna array. In Section IV, we introduce an overview of our 2×2 MIMO testbed based on SDR. In Section IV, we define our SISO experimental results while analyzing our results. Even we report our novel model MIMO using AM modulation by studying our system’s performance, finally, in section V, we come to end the article. 2. Patch Antenna 2.1. Single element design geometry The antenna is the first component of the MIMO system. This design uses patch antenna. Considering low profile, ease of ASTESJ ISSN: 2415-6698 * Corresponding Author: Meriem Drissi, drissimeriem1@gmail.com Advances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal Vol. 7, No. 6, 167-173 (2022) www.astesj.com Special Issue on Innovation in Computing, Engineering Science & Technology https://dx.doi.org/10.25046/aj070617