LTE Spectrum Sharing Research Testbed: Integrated Hardware, Software, Network and Data

This paper presents Virginia Tech's wireless testbed supporting research on long-term evolution (LTE) signaling and radio frequency (RF) spectrum coexistence. LTE is continuously refined and new features released. As the communications contexts for LTE expand, new research problems arise and include operation in harsh RF signaling environments and coexistence with other radios. Our testbed provides an integrated research tool for investigating these and other research problems; it allows analyzing the severity of the problem, designing and rapidly prototyping solutions, and assessing them with standard-compliant equipment and test procedures. The modular testbed integrates general-purpose software-defined radio hardware, LTE-specific test equipment, RF components, free open-source and commercial LTE software, a configurable RF network and recorded radar waveform samples. It supports RF channel emulated and over-the-air radiated modes. The testbed can be remotely accessed and configured. An RF switching network allows for designing many different experiments that can involve a variety of real and virtual radios with support for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antenna operation. We present the testbed, the research it has enabled and some valuable lessons that we learned and that may help designing, developing, and operating future wireless testbeds.Comment: In Proceeding of the 10th ACM International Workshop on Wireless Network Testbeds, Experimental Evaluation & Characterization (WiNTECH), Snowbird, Utah, October 201

How a Diverse Research Ecosystem Has Generated New Rehabilitation Technologies: Review of NIDILRR’s Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers

Over 50 million United States citizens (1 in 6 people in the US) have a developmental, acquired, or degenerative disability. The average US citizen can expect to live 20% of his or her life with a disability. Rehabilitation technologies play a major role in improving the quality of life for people with a disability, yet widespread and highly challenging needs remain. Within the US, a major effort aimed at the creation and evaluation of rehabilitation technology has been the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers (RERCs) sponsored by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research. As envisioned at their conception by a panel of the National Academy of Science in 1970, these centers were intended to take a “total approach to rehabilitation”, combining medicine, engineering, and related science, to improve the quality of life of individuals with a disability. Here, we review the scope, achievements, and ongoing projects of an unbiased sample of 19 currently active or recently terminated RERCs. Specifically, for each center, we briefly explain the needs it targets, summarize key historical advances, identify emerging innovations, and consider future directions. Our assessment from this review is that the RERC program indeed involves a multidisciplinary approach, with 36 professional fields involved, although 70% of research and development staff are in engineering fields, 23% in clinical fields, and only 7% in basic science fields; significantly, 11% of the professional staff have a disability related to their research. We observe that the RERC program has substantially diversified the scope of its work since the 1970’s, addressing more types of disabilities using more technologies, and, in particular, often now focusing on information technologies. RERC work also now often views users as integrated into an interdependent society through technologies that both people with and without disabilities co-use (such as the internet, wireless communication, and architecture). In addition, RERC research has evolved to view users as able at improving outcomes through learning, exercise, and plasticity (rather than being static), which can be optimally timed. We provide examples of rehabilitation technology innovation produced by the RERCs that illustrate this increasingly diversifying scope and evolving perspective. We conclude by discussing growth opportunities and possible future directions of the RERC program

Framework to Enhance Teaching and Learning in System Analysis and Unified Modelling Language

Cowling, MA ORCiD: 0000-0003-1444-1563; Munoz Carpio, JC ORCiD: 0000-0003-0251-5510Systems Analysis modelling is considered foundational for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) students, with introductory and advanced units included in nearly all ICT and computer science degrees. Yet despite this, novice systems analysts (learners) find modelling and systems thinking quite difficult to learn and master. This makes the process of teaching the fundamentals frustrating and time intensive. This paper will discuss the foundational problems that learners face when learning Systems Analysis modelling. Through a systematic literature review, a framework will be proposed based on the key problems that novice learners experience. In this proposed framework, a sequence of activities has been developed to facilitate understanding of the requirements, solutions and incremental modelling. An example is provided illustrating how the framework could be used to incorporate visualization and gaming elements into a Systems Analysis classroom; therefore, improving motivation and learning. Through this work, a greater understanding of the approach to teaching modelling within the computer science classroom will be provided, as well as a framework to guide future teaching activities

A cloud based WSN remote laboratory for user training

This paper presents a WSN remote laboratory prototype aimed at user training. The prototype has been deployed on a Cloud Computing infrastructure, in order to take advantage of the benefits that this technology can provide to remote laboratories. An analysis of the state of the art allows to specified the features required for a remote laboratory intended to be applyed in user training. In this paper, the main results of this analysis are presented. Then, the implementation of the main modules that compose the remote laboratory, and the analysis that led to chose a deployment based on Cloud Computing are presented. Some proof of concept experiments to test the applicability to user training were performed and the results are presented in this paper.Área: Tecnología en Educación.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

A cloud based WSN remote laboratory for user training

This paper presents a WSN remote laboratory prototype aimed at user training. The prototype has been deployed on a Cloud Computing infrastructure, in order to take advantage of the benefits that this technology can provide to remote laboratories. An analysis of the state of the art allows to specified the features required for a remote laboratory intended to be applyed in user training. In this paper, the main results of this analysis are presented. Then, the implementation of the main modules that compose the remote laboratory, and the analysis that led to chose a deployment based on Cloud Computing are presented. Some proof of concept experiments to test the applicability to user training were performed and the results are presented in this paper.Área: Tecnología en Educación.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI

Remote Spectrum Analyzer based on Web Software Defined Radio for Use in Telecommunication Engineering Remote Laboratory

Software defined radio (SDR) is a new paradigm in the design of wireless communication devices. Currently SDR technology is widely used in the field of telecommunications such as mobile phones and is very popularly used on amateur radio. SDR technology not only can be used for radio transceiver system, but SDR can also be used as a spectrum analyzer. The spectrum analyzer is an instrumentation that is needed by researchers in the field of telecommunications and amateur radio activists. The problem of researchers and amateur radio activists is how to use spectrum analyzers that can be accessed remotely, so that they can observe the spectrum of the radio frequency that produced by their communication devices remotely when they experiment with the radio transmitters or antenna. From this background, this research proposes the development of a remote spectrum analyzer system based on web software defined radio. The remote spectrum analyzer will be integrated with remote laboratories that can be accessed by the wider community either by researchers, amateur radio activists, and students at educational institutions, by accessing it through the internet network