Aerial Experimentation and Research Platform for Advanced Wireless (AERPAW) is the first wireless communication research platform envisioned and built to allow studying the convergence of advanced wireless communication technologies (such as 5G) and autonomous drones. The platform became generally available to the public in November 2021. This tutorial introduces researchers to the AERPAW platform and its capabilities, enabling hands- on experimentation with wireless technologies and autonomous drones. Researchers who attend the tutorial will gain the skills to test their fundamental research ideas in a realistic outdoor wireless testbed.
Our tutorial is designed to be self-guided and self-paced. We have prepared a Self-paced Tutorial Environment (STE) to support participants, and it will continue to be available even after the event so that participants can access and learn anytime. STE is identical to the Production Environment (PE) but forms a separate, distinct substrate for practice. The tutorial’s learning objectives are as follows:
· Familiarize researchers with the AERPAW platform: At the end of the tutorial, researchers will be able to use the AERPAW PE without needing much hand-holding. The tutorial will empower them to create their account, update their profiles, create projects and experiments, monitor their usage, and submit their experiment for the physical outdoor testbed run. The experiments done during the tutorial will not be sent to the physical testbed. However, participants will be shown how to submit their experiments and request a testbed run.
· Develop experiments: AERPAW is a batch-mode facility, which means experimenters develop experiments in a digital twin and submit experiments for execution on the physical testbed once development is complete. During the tutorial, participants will learn how to build their experiments in the digital twin.
· Write vehicle control applications: Participants will learn to write vehicle control applications that read and execute a mission from a plan file. They will also learn to create and edit mission plan files and troubleshoot failed flights. In AERPAW programmable vehicles (Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs)) are used to carry AERPAW portable nodes.
· Program software-defined radios: Participants will learn to program SDRs using GNURadio for channel sounding, enabling them to transmit, capture, and process wireless signals for experimental research. This experiment is between two AERPAW nodes, one acting as a transmitter and one as a receiver. Each of these nodes can be a fixed or a portable node. Both fixed nodes and portable nodes may contain programmable SDRs. Portable nodes can be carried by AERPAW vehicles.
· Collect and post-process the results: Participants will learn to collect results from their experiments and use software like MATLAB to post-process and derive meaningful information and plots from the gathered data.
