WaveComBox: a Matlab Toolbox for Communications using New Waveforms

TL;DR

WaveComBox is an open-source Matlab toolbox designed to facilitate the adoption and experimentation of advanced waveforms with improved time-frequency localization for future communication systems.

Contribution

It provides a user-friendly, well-documented platform to lower barriers for implementing and testing new waveforms in communication research and industry.

Findings

Enables easier implementation of new waveforms

Demonstrates advanced functionalities through examples

Supports diverse application requirements in future systems

Abstract

Future generations of communications systems will target a very wide range of applications. Each application comes with its own set of requirements in terms of data rate, latency, user density, reliability... Accommodating this large variety of specifications implies the need for a novel physical layer technology. In this regard, the most popular modulation nowadays, namely, the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing modulation, is characterized by a poor time-frequency localization, implying strong limitations. In the light of these limitations, communications using new waveforms, relying on more sophisticated signal processing techniques and providing improved time-frequency localization, have attracted a lot of attention for the last decade. At the same time, the higher complexity of these new waveforms, not only in terms of implementation but also conceptually, creates an entrance barrier that slows down their adoption by industries, standardization bodies and more generally in the telecommunication community. The WaveComBox toolbox, freely available at www.wavecombox.com, is a user-friendly, open-source and well documented piece of software aiming at considerably lowering the entrance barrier of recently proposed waveforms. This article first describes the general abstract structure of the toolbox. Secondly, examples are given to illustrate how to use the toolbox and to show some more advanced functionalities.