MIGOU: A Low-Power Experimental Platform with Programmable Logic Resources and Software-Defined Radio Capabilities

Area of Science:

• Wireless communication systems
• Embedded systems engineering
• Radio frequency (RF) engineering

Background:

• Increasing demand for spectral coexistence due to proliferation of mobile and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
• Need for efficient spectrum utilization and on-device data processing in resource-constrained systems.
• Challenges in designing architectures for advanced wireless sensor nodes and IoT end-devices.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce MIGOU, a novel wireless experimental platform tailored for resource-constrained devices.
• To address the challenges of spectral coexistence and dynamic spectrum access in IoT environments.
• To evaluate the platform's hardware flexibility, processing capabilities, and energy efficiency.

Main Methods:

• Development of a wireless experimental platform (MIGOU) integrating a software-defined radio (SDR) and a traditional radio transceiver.
• Utilization of a system-on-a-chip (SoC) with an ARM Cortex-M3 processor and a flash-based FPGA for offloading high-speed processing tasks.
• Measurement and comparison of power consumption across different operational modes and against other representative platforms.

Main Results:

• MIGOU demonstrates dual radio operation capabilities (SDR and integrated transceiver) to optimize node resource usage.
• The platform effectively offloads complex processing tasks to its integrated FPGA fabric.
• Experimental results confirm a state-of-the-art trade-off between hardware flexibility and energy efficiency.

Conclusions:

• MIGOU provides a flexible and energy-efficient solution for developing and testing advanced applications on resource-constrained wireless devices.
• The platform facilitates efficient spectrum usage and data processing, crucial for current and future IoT end-devices.
• MIGOU enables the validation of new solutions in realistic operational scenarios, addressing key challenges in wireless communication.