This is a wiki page for the Channel special-interest area.
Channel Area Overview
The Channel special interest area is designed to encourage the contribution of radio channel and PHY-layer measurement data and data processing tools to the CRAWDAD repository, and to provide a centralized location within the repository for such wireless channel measurements. The Channel area will focus on channel measurement data sets which can be useful in measurement-based simulations or analysis of wireless network protocols, algorithms, security methods, and applications.
Channel data sets include measurements of physical layer, including radio channel, modulation, bit and packet error rates, and noise and interference measurements. For example
- Radio Channel Measurements: received signal strength (incl. interference power); spectrum occupancy; channel impulse, frequency, or phase response; time-of-arrival or angle-of arrival.
- Error Rates: link quality, packet or bit error rates.
- Location: actual device locations, or location measurements (e.g. GPS).
- Connectivity: a function of the above -- measurements of the ability of two radios to communicate.
Some of the useful measured data sets contain a combination of related measurements, on many links, over time, on different frequencies or with differing antenna heights, with motion of nodes, and along with higher-layer packet or link data.
The measured channel data is helpful in evaluation of many applications, including: localization, robustness, performance, and network coverage. Measured radio channel and physical layer data sets which can be used to address these and other wireless network performance characteristics are the focus of the Channel special interest area.
CRAWDAD data sets or tools for channel or PHY-layer information
Here is a list of existing CRAWDAD data sets containing channel or PHY-layer information (or tools to help such data):
Radio Contact / Connectivity of Mobile Devices
- cambridge/haggle: Connectivity of mobile and stationary nodes during experiments: people on campus, during a conference; Bluetooth and iMote.
- dartmouth/wardriving: Location-aware dataset for analyzing the errors in location estimates
- dartmouth/zigbee_radio: Zigbee RSSI, LQI, throughput, and contact time experiments while nodes are moving (walking) in a large outdoor area.
- gatech/vehicular: Measurements of vehicle position, and short range communications quality, between vehicles, and between vehicles and roadside stations.
- intel/placelab: Location-aware dataset collected using Place Lab software
- microsoft/vanlan: WiFi connectivity and GPS coordinates for a mobile WiFi device.
- mit/reality: Communication, proximity, location, and activity information from 100 subjects at MIT over the course of the 2004-2005 academic year.
- nus/bluetooth: Dataset of Bluetooth contact traces collected in Singapore (2005-6).
- ucdavis/unitrans: Connectivity to Bluetooth devices while on a bus throughout a day.
- upmc/content and upmc/rollernet: Traces of connectivity to Bluetooth devices when users are walking and rollerblading.
- uw/places: Location-aware dataset for extracting significant places
Channel Angular / Directional Characteristics
- cu/antenna: Received power as a function of angle when using different directional antennas, both indoors and outdoors.
- sunysb/mobisteer: A set of measurements from a car-mounted steerable (directional) antenna array of signal strength, throughput, and other information during drive tests.
- umass/long_distance: Link measurements of signal and interference characteristics in ad hoc networks which use either omni or directional antennas.
Channel Phase or Impulse Responses
Channel Signal Strength, Link Quality Measurements
- cmu/hotspot: Measurement campaign showing WiFi AP presence and strength over one week, in 13 different hotspot locations in Seattle, WA.
- columbia/ecsma: Measurements of RSS and packet traces in indoor grid deployment of a network of Mica2 nodes.
- cu/rssi: Measurements of WiFi RSSI using 180 transmitter locations and many access points inside a building.
- dartmouth/zigbee_radio: RSSI, LQI, and throughput measurements in three mobile 802.15.4 person-to-person communications experiments.
- isti/rural: Data set of measured link path length vs. packet loss rate on a Wi-Fi network in rural areas.
- mannheim/compass: Traces of signal strength of 802.11 APs for the COMPASS (fingerprint-based) positioning system
- microsoft/osdi2006: Traces of network activity at OSDI 2006
- niit/bit_errors: RSS, noise power, and bit and packet error traces from experiments with 802.15.4 and 802.11 devices.
- nist/multihop: Dataset of experiments measuring signal strength for 900 MHz wireless nodes at various antenna heights, for a multihop wireless network.
- rutgers/noise: RSSI and link statistics measured between nodes of the ORBIT testbed, while noise is experimentally injected.
- sunysb/multi_channel: Dataset with SNR, RSS, other link measurements from both 802.11a and 802.11g for forty different links on different channels.
- ucsb/meshnet: Stability of LQI over several days in a 802.11a/b based wireless mesh network.
- umass/long_distance: Dataset of throughput of links in several configurations of ad hoc 802.11g networks with high-gain antennas on nodes.
- umich/virgil: WiFi access point data (signal strength, accessibility, link quality) collected by walking through every street in several different city neighborhood areas in Chicago and other US cities.
- uw/sigcomm2004: Dataset of wireless network measurement in SIGCOMM 2004 conference
Channel Interference / Medium Access Control Measurements
- rutgers/capture: Dataset containing RFMON (wireless monitoring) traces capturing transmitted MAC frames on the ORBIT testbed
Raw Received Signal Samples
- up/rf_recordings: Data set of RF recordings of several communication signals captured by a real time spectrum analyzer, including AM and FM radio, high definition AM and FM radio, analog and digital TV, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS, WWV time signal, garage door opener, remote control for toy cars, wireless thermometers, and a wireless serial cable replacement system.
Tools
Channel Area Editor
Dr. Neal Patwari is the Channel Area Editor for the CRAWDAD project.
If you have any Channel/PHY-layer data sets (or tools to help process such data), we encourage you to contact Neal to discuss contributing these to CRAWDAD.
Short Bio: Neal received his B.S.(`97) and M.S.(`99) in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg, VA, where was a researcher at the Mobile & Portable Radio Research Group (MPRG). Between 1999 and 2001, he was a research engineer at Motorola Labs, Florida Communications Research Lab, in Plantation, FL. He received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan EECS Department in September, 2005. His PhD research and post-doctoral research was supervised by Prof. Alfred O. Hero. Neal is currently an assistant professor in the University of Utah Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, which he joined in August, 2006. He directs the Sensing and Processing Across Networks Lab at the University of Utah, and has over thirty publications in refereed conferences, journals, and edited volumes.
The Channel wiki is maintained by Neal Patwari, Channel Area Editor for CRAWDAD, and collaboratively edited and updated by CRAWDAD users, who may directly edit the wiki. Please follow general wiki etiquite, and accept that the current text might not reflect the views of either the area editor or CRAWDAD. If you have any questions or suggestions, you may contact Neal at <npatwari -AT- ece -DOT- utah -DOT- edu>.
