AERPAW: Aerial Experimentation and Research Platform for Advanced Wireless

IEEE IoT Vertical and Topical Summit

Ismail GuvencProfessor, NC State University

Jan. 14, 2021

https://aerpaw.org/

Outline

➔ AERPAW vision and team

➔ Deployment progress update and timeline

➔ Supported equipment/software for fixed/portable nodes

➔ AERPAW experimentation framework and experiment examples

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AERPAW Project Vision and Scope

➔ Funding: NSF’s PAWR program in Sep. 2019 ($9M + $15M in kind

resources from PAWR consortium)

➔ AERPAW Vision: Serve as a unique technological enabler for

advanced wireless research, leveraging unmanned aerial systems

(UAS) with world class expertise and partners

➔ Project Heart: Programmable radios, programmable UAS,

on a programmable network

➔ Managed by the PAWR project office (PPO): US Ignite & Northeastern

➔ Contributions from PAWR Industry Consortium members – NI,

Keysight, CommScope, Facebook, AT&T, Interdigital …

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Municipality /

Government Partners

Senior Personnel

Asokan Ram

WRC (Commercial

4G/5G Network)

Lavanya

Sridharan

NC State (Project

Coordinator)

Jason Proctor

NC State

(installations

and permits)

Ozgur Ozdemir

NC State (SDRs,

Keysight,

Facebook TG)

Mike Barts

WRC (RF, Towers,

Antennas, Front

Ends)

Project Investigators

Harsh Joshi

NC State

(Network Arch.)

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Deployment Progress – LWRFL Tower (1)

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Deployment Progress – LWRFL Tower (2)

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Deployment Progress – Centennial Campus Fixed Nodes

CC1 Mockup (deploying

a purpose-built tower)

CC2, Before

Construction Started

CC2, Construction in

Progress

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AERPAW Timeline

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Fixed Node Equipment

NI Software

Defined Radios

Keysight RF

Sensors

Experimentation Software• USRPs: OpenAirInterface, srsLTE, GNU Radio, Matlab

• Other software by Keysight, Facebook, etc.

Shuttles

Facebook

Terragraph

Radios

LoRa IoT

Equipment

Fortem

Drone

Detection

Radars

Portable Node Equipment

Vehicles

Helikite

Custom-Built Unmanned

Aerial and Ground Vehicles

(UAVs/UGVs)

Software

Defined

Radios

Sensors

Mobile

Phones

Keysight Propsim

Channel Emulator

(Sandbox)

2x SFP

Fiber

- 48V

DC

2x

Directional

antenna

4G/5G

Base

Stations

Compute:

Dell 5820

with Intel

Xeon

Processor

Compute:

Intel

NUC10

Carried By

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EquipmentFixed Nodes (e.g., at

tower)

Portable Nodes

(e.g., @UAV)

2020 Year-End

Deployment GoalsDeployment Status

SDRsNI USRP X310 and

N310

NI USRP

B205mini

Deploy 3 fixed and 3

portable nodes, integrate to

experimental portal, have

“general availability” by

the end of Spring 2021

3 fixed and portable nodes

close to getting finalized

RF SensorsKeysight N6841A RF

SensorN/A Deploy and initial testing

Deployment in progress: at

least 1 RF sensor @CC2

Channel Emulation

PlatformKeysight Propsim (in Sandbox) Deploy and initial testing

Received early November,

integration in progress

4G LTE and 5G NR

BSs/UEs

NSA LTE/5G-NR at

1.7 GHz and 3.7 GHzMobile phones Deploy and initial testing

Expecting to receive late

January, 2021

IoT Devices LoRa gateway LoRa sensors Deploy and initial testing To deploy soon

UAS Radar Fortem SkyDome N/A Deploy and initial testing Initial testing done

60 GHz 802.11 radios Facebook Terragraph N/A Deploy and initial testingDeploying 6 Facebook TG

at 4 fixed nodes

Phase-1 Development and Deployment Summary

May be available

individually based

on requested

experiments

and resources

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Fixed Nodes (each

having X310+N310)

Year-1 (by Mar. 2021) Year-2 (by Mar. 2022) Year-3 (by Mar. 2023) Total

Centennial Campus 2 (1 rooftop, 1 light pole) 12 (3 rooftops, 9 light poles) 7 (light poles) 21

Lake Wheeler 1 (60-feet tower) 2 (60-feet tower) 3 (tower specs TBD) 6

Dorothea Dix Park N/A N/A 1 (light pole) 1

Town of Cary N/A 1 (tower) 3 (tower) 4

Total 3 15 14 32

Portable Nodes Year-1 Year-2 Year-3 Total

Portable Radios 3 USRP B205mini 10 USRP B205mini 10 USRP B205mini 23 USRP B205mini

Vehicles Year-1 Year-2 Year-3 Total

Vehicle Development 2 UAVs, 1 rover 4 UAVs, 3 rovers 4 UAVs, 2 rovers 10 UAVs, 6 rovers

Other Vehicle Integration Hummer vehicle, CASSI testing Campus shuttles Campus shuttles, helikite

Integrate

Deployment Timeline for Fixed and Portable SDR Nodes

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Status - SDR Profiles and Experiments for General Availability

Profile Experiment (tested with B205mini-i USRP) VM test with B205mini-i (USB interface) Notes

4G -

srsLTE:

UE, eNB,

EPC

-Range

-Throughput (~65 Mbps DL, 35 UL)

-Ping

-EPC-eNB over WiFi

-Commercial 4G LTE phone with APP

-tested for 5 MHz on NUC Computer OK

-10 MHz LTE system, with UE on NUC

-20 MHz LTE system, with UE on NUC

Commercial phone connects, pingtools

APP (Google Play)

https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/aerpa

w-wiki/user-wiki-start/sdr-

experiments/srslte-experiments

4G - OAI:

eNB, EPC

-Range

-Throughput (~70 Mbps DL, 18 UL)

-Ping

-EPC-eNB over WiFi

-Commercial 4G LTE phone with APP

-5, 10, 20 MHz LTE system, with srsLTE-

UE on NUC

EPC and UE in use with OAI eNB for most

experiments

https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/aerpa

w-wiki/user-wiki-start/sdr-experiments/oai-

experiments

5G - OAI:

gNB, NR-

UE

-Throughput (1 Mbps DL)

-Ping

No Troubleshoot issues and fix parameters

Needs Octoclock source

Over the air only, Not stable

GNU

Radio

-Tun-tap flowgraph for mesh networking (ping)

-Wideband channel sounding

-RF monitoring

Yes (may have limited bandwidth for

channel sounding)

https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/aerpa

w-wiki/user-wiki-start/sdr-

experiments/gnuradio-experiments

Matlab

(including

4G/5G

toolboxes)

1. Frequency Offset Calibration

2. QPSK Transmitter and Receiver

3. LTE MIMO

4. FM Receiver

5. IEEE 802.11 WLAN - OFDM Beacon Receiving

6. FRS Full Duplex Transceiver

Yes More being added

Video tutorials and step-by-step

instructions available in AERPAW Wiki:

https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/aerpa

w-wiki/user-wiki-start/sdr-

experiments/matlab-experiments

See: https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/aerpaw-wiki/user-wiki-start/sdr-experiments

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https://terragraph.com/

Terragraph Deployment Status:

• 6 Facebook Terragraph radios are now being

deployed on light poles and a rooftop in year-1

• Use cases: channel sounding and

vehicle/pedestrian/drone sensing https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/aerpaw-wiki/user-

wiki-start/terragraph-experiments/terragraph-use-

cases

Keysight RF Sensors, Facebook Terragraph Radios, and LoRa USB Dongles

Phase-1

Terragraph

Locations

Phase-1

Keysight RF

Sensor and

LoRa Location

(also in Lake

Wheeler tower)

Keysight RF Sensor Deployment Status:

• 5 RF sensors received; are ready for

deployment in CC2 and LWL1

• Use cases: Tracking of UAVs and other

signal sources, RF sensing/monitoring, signal

recognition, spectrum sharing

• https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/aerpaw-

wiki/user-wiki-start/rf-sensor-experiments

LoRa USB Dongles Deployment Status:

• Two LoRa equipment are ready for

deployment in CC2 and LWL1

• Use cases: PHY/MAC experiments with

common LoRa parameter configurations

• https://sites.google.com/a/ncsu.edu/aerp

aw-wiki/user-wiki-start/lora-experiments

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VehiclesPhase 1 Vehicles:

● UAVs (2)

● Rover (1)

● Cart (1)

● Hummer (1)

Status: all vehicles are

currently tested

Check aerpaw.org for the AERPAW UAV video

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Projects supported so far:

• Fortem Radar testing - will be used for airspace

characterization for beyond line of sight waivers

• UAV detection and tracking using UWB radars

• 3D Modeling of the outdoor spaces for mmWave

network planning (LIDAR)

• UAV signal detection and tracking using RF signals

Unmanned Aircraft Flight Experiments

Status:

• Weekly flight testing, usually Friday mornings

• Have a FAA waiver for night operations other waivers will be

filed once AERPAW UAS development is complete

• 3 pilots on board, will hire more

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FCC Innovation Zone Request and FAA Waivers

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Frequency Band Type of Operation Allocation Fixed Station

Maximum EIRP (dBm) Mobile Station

Maximum EIRP (dBm)

617-634.5 MHz (DL) Fixed Shared 65 20

663-698 MHz (UL) Mobile Shared 65 20

907.5 – 912.5 MHz Fixed & Mobile Shared 65 20

1755-1760 MHz (UL) Mobile Shared 65 20

2155-2160 MHz (DL) Fixed Shared 65 20

2390-2483.5 MHz Fixed & Mobile Shared 65 20

2500-2690 MHz Fixed & Mobile Non-federal 65 20

3550-3700 MHz Fixed & Mobile Shared 65 20

3700-4200 MHz Mobile Non-federal 65 20

5850-5925 MHz Fixed & Mobile Shared 65 20

5925-7125 MHz Fixed & Mobile Non-Federal 65 20

27.5-28.35 GHz Fixed & Mobile Non-federal 65 20

38.6-40.0 GHz Fixed & Mobile Non-federal 65 20

FAA Waivers to be Applied:

• Initially: Part 107 licensed pilots, visual line-of-sight, <400 feet, daytime operation

• Future: FAA waivers for flying over people, autonomous operation, multi-UAV operation, etc.

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Experiment Flow

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Development VMs

(Ground and Aerial

node images) – cloud

Develop

Emulate

Submit

Sandbox

Observe

Retrieve Results

Sandbox VMs

(real radio, real drones

minus props)

– indoor facility

Emulation VMs (emulated

radio, emulated drones,

real code) – cloud

Testbed

(real everything)

Specify nodes, desired mapping,

equip with AERPAW software

tools and drivers, program

Test with real drivers, actual

hardware (tutorial and sanity)

Test with real drivers, realistic

hardware emulation

(AERPAW safety check)

$

$

$

$$$$

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Experiment Examples

Counter UAS:

radar, passive

RF sensing

• RF sensing

• Coverage

optimization of

commercial

4G/5G for UAS

Smart agriculture

/ cities / buildings

4G/5G/Next-G

PHY/MAC/NET

experiments

V2X

networks,

security

Multi-hop networks

and UAS swarms

UAS trajectory

optimization

mmWave

beamforming

and tracking

S2

S1

S3

S4

S5

S6

S7,S8

AERPAW

wireless

node

Lead User Group: group-aerpaw-leaduser@ncsu.edu

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Experiment ExamplesField Experiments with Keysight RF Sensors

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