Automated RF Emulator for a Highly Scalable IEEE802.11p Communication and Localization Subsystem

Automated Physical Testbeds for Emulation of Wireless Networks

“…The second generation of our emulator developed for highly scalable IEEE 802.11p communication and localization subsystem in the Ko-FAS project [1]. This includes physical networking nodes, but models the RF environment using RF-waveguides.…”

“…Conducting such type of wireless network research is, none the less, a challenging effort due to the distributed and short lived nature of wireless signal propagation. There are many challenges in wireless network research which are nicely listed in [1], [18].The major approaches used for performance evaluation of wireless networks are simulation, virtualization, outdoor field test (test beds), and emulation.…”

“…the firmware on hardware abstraction layer level. The advantage of simulations is its scalability, but simulation is not helpful in debugging the underlying hardware and is totally missing the effects that hardware has on RF characteristics [1].…”

“…As in the simulation approach emulators can generate predefined emulated network conditions and traffic dynamics for different use cases. Hardware-based emulation clearly achieves the most physical layer realism; practical considerations such as ease of development, control, and experimental repeatability have made emulation the dominant experimental technique [1].The requirements of the development of an emulator can be seen in [2].…”

“…Authors have developed first generation of our automated RF emulator for distributed wireless sensor networks for analysing EnOcean Radio Protocol (ERP) [2], and the second generation developed to test Ko-TAG subsystem [1]. In this paper we describe the architecture and implementation details our third generation fully automated emulator for wireless networks.…”