Networked Systems Infrastructure

We are passionate about wireless, from theory all the way to building proof-of-concept. To do so, we invest heavily on our test infrastructure and are constantly building novel hardware. 

• 5G USRP: Our main test facility is a 5G wireless testbed, built at KU Leuven ESAT-TELEMIC by means of a Hercules 1 infrastructure grant, obtained in 2014. Since that major investment, our infrastructure consists of 46 USRPs, a total of 90 antennas. They can be used in various configurations, indoor and outdoor, centralized and distributed, enabling research on Massive MIMO, Cloud-RAN, Cooperative Communication and Relaying and LTE-U. High level info can be found here. Detailed documentation on the testbed is available here. 
• IoT testbed: While we have a total of 89 antennas or radios in our 5G testbed, true large scale deployments don't need the power and flexibiltiy of our USRPs. In addition to the USRPs, we hence have a range of wireless nodes that we use for doing experiments on IEEE 802.15.4, BLE or LoRa. Contact us if you need more information about our IoT nodes and tests.
• UAV testbed: Wireless networks are so dense, that the third dimension is becoming very relevant. This is even more important when considering UAVs, that need a wireless link to the ground for both control or application data. Contact us if you need more information about our UAV hardware and tests.
• Full duplex textbed: Our testbed offers an IEEE 802.15.4 network including four full-duplex capable SDRs and one additional radio as the source of interference. Each node in this testbed is equipped with an Electrical Balance Duplexer (EBD) and uses Particle Swarm optimizer to tune its coefficients. The EBD provides 50-60 dB Tx-Rx isolation at 1.7GHz within 6MHz. The details is available here.