Acquisition and Development of a Cognitive Radio Based Wireless Monitoring and Surveillance Testbed for Future Battlefield Communications Research

Abstract : During the funding period, a set of state-of-the-art software defined radio platforms are acquired, including 10 NI USRP-2932 (400MHz approximately 4. 4GHz + GPS Clock) Software Radio Kit, 3 NI USRP-2942R (400MHZ approximately 4.4GHz with KINTEX-7 FPGA), and 3 NI USRP-2952R (400MHZ approximately 4.4GHZ with GPS). These software defined radio platforms provide the much needed infrastructure support for cognitive radio research. In addition, a commercial grade NI spectrum analyzer and vector signal generator have been acquired to serve as benchmark for validation and testing. A Dell PowerEdge R920 storage server is acquired for RF traces collection and storage. In addition, 10 graduate students and myself participated in the USRP/GNUradio training by the National Instruments Inc. on October 16-17, 2014. We have gained valuable knowledge and hands-on experiences of experimental systems and software implementations of cognitive radio using COTS devices. A distributed RF traces collection and wireless surveillance test bed and a hierarchical wireless network test bed have been implemented and currently under testing. Many students actively participated in the projects and obtain valuable hands-on experience. The students also demonstrated the test beds to Dr. Robert Ulman, program manager at the Network Science Division of the Army Research Office, during a site visit on October 29 2014.