MASCOT is a Specific Targeted Research Project (STREP) supported within the Sixth Framework Program of the European Commission (Project No. IST-26905). The project started on January 01, 2006 and has a duration of three years.

The MASCOT project designs and implements novel techniques in the area of multi-user Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) wireless systems.

Future wireless systems will require significantly higher data rates than those available today, provided at almost wireline quality, and with moderate infrastructure cost. The use of MIMO antenna technology has been recognized to hold the promise of achieving these ambitious goals.

However, research in the MIMO area focused almost exclusively on single-user point-to-point links. Little is known for MIMO terminals and base stations in a cellular multi-user context. The MASCOT proposal addresses such multi-user MIMO wireless systems. Our research ranges from the design to the prototypical implementation of multi-user space-time codecs in a library of VHDL reference designs. In particular, the real-time multi-user MIMO testbed at ETH Zurich will be used as a platform for implementing, testing, and benchmarking the algorithms developed in the course of the project under real-world conditions.