Reconfigurable Radio Network Platform (ReRaNP)

This project involves a joint cooperation between UiA and NTNU in order to implement a research infrastructure that will be able to offer the ability to make large-scale experiments to develop the desired features of wireless systems.

Funding: Research Council of Norway

Principal Investigator: Prof. Baltasar Beferull-Lozano (UiA), Prof. Torbjörn Ekman (NTNU), Prof. Kimmo Kansanen (NTNU)

Topic: There is an ever-increasing demand for wireless communication systems with a focus on application driven solutions. The future wireless networks need to cope with high user densities, heterogeneous networks, mixing different types of communication nodes, and employing advanced physical layer concepts to support high data rates. This project will implement a research infrastructure that will be able to offer the ability to make large-scale experiments to develop the desired features of such wireless systems. To enable flexible experimental facilities, software defined radio (SDR) is a cost effective and versatile tool. Recent development in SDR equipment has brought into market systems capable of experimenting with advanced concepts in large dimensional networks while using reasonably priced reconfigurable hardware units. These are able to support experiments on large scale network topologies with many nodes, small network experiments with massive number of antennas in each nodes, or variations and combinations of these in smaller dimensions. This reconfigurability of topology is supplemented by the SDR technology that offers full access to the algorithms and methods being utilized at all levels of the communication stack. This enables advanced design of new methods but also makes the system open for measurement and monitoring from the physical phenomena to the networking stack making cross layer experiment analysis a reality. The Reconfigurable Radio Network Platform of this project will enable implementation of network algorithms and tests for both Wireless Sensor Networks and Massive MIMO communications in different environments.

Role: Design and Implementation of heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Network

Period: 2015 – 2018