Experimental Communciations Testbeds and Projects

Narrowband Radio Testbed The FCC-compliant Narrowband Radio Testbed is a fully-configurable DSP based, real-time, multi-antenna testbed with 4 KHz of useful bandwidth in the 220MHz frequency band. View

Wideband Radio Testbed The goal of the Wideband Radio Testbed is to support experimental research of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wideband wireless communications. View

Lego Robotic I (LeRoI) Project The LeRoI Project is focused on the development of LEGO based robotic solutions for automating radio propagation  measurements. The project is a collaboration between undergraduates and graduate students in electrical, computer, and mechanical engineering disciplines. View

Wireless Project Courses A new program, develops courses at UCLA that allow students interested in pursuing careers in wireless systems to gain hands-on design experience through a series of experimental lab courses intended to provide them with the necessary technical depth and breadth to succeed in this growing field. View

Wireless Sensor Network (WiSeNet) Testbed The WiSeNet Testbed is a collaboration between members of UnWiReD Lab and NIM Lab and has led to the development of sensor nodes equipped with electro-mechanically steerable directional antennas. This testbed is used to study sensor network self-assembly and autonomous operation in power limited scenarios. View

DSRC Radio Testbed A mobile, real-time, software-defined radio testbed designed using a development environment that integrates simulation, hardware design, implementation, and test.  The testbed is a result of utilizing a development methodology that incrementally advances a design from simulation to hardware implementation.  The SISO testbed is the first move towards a wideband, MIMO, real-time, mobile testbed. View

 Theoretical Communications Research

• Continuous Phase Modulation (CPM) has been a long standing focus of the Unwired Lab. Professor Fitz was one of the first to look at CPM in a MIMO environment. Other research includes the design of a short preamble for packet synchronization in a SISO system. Current focus in CPM includes MIMO CPM with known channel state information at the transmitter. The lab's narrow band testbed offers an ideal environment to test algorithms and system design based on research in CPM.
• Radio Channel Measurement and Modeling: The UnWiReD Laboratory is active in characterizing the propagation of radio signals and the channel-induced distortion of the digital information they carry. This is accomplished through field measurements of the radio channel using our software-defined multiple-antenna radio systems. Results from field measurement has lead to the development of mathematical models of the radio channel that are used in commincation system peformance siumulations.
• Space-Time Coding (STC) has been one of the hottest issues in state of the art communication systems. The MIMO environments provide us a great chance to increase channel capacity. Research in the field of STC utilizing MIMO has led to the design of modulation techniques offering improved performance. The UnWiRed Laboratory is highly active in STC, such as Bell Labs Layered Space-Time (BLAST), space-time block code (STBC), high performance space-time trellis code (STTC), and high rate threaded algebraic space-time (TAST) code. A range of experiments are conducted at UnWiReD Lab to measure the performance of the most promising STC schemes in realistic deployments.
• Pilot Symbol Assisted Modulation (PSAM) not only achieves coherent demodulation in a fading environment by inserting known demodulation symbols into the data stream, but also preserves the transmitted pulse shape and peak-to-average power ratio. The receiver then uses these pilot symbols to estimate Channel State Information (CSI). The UnWiReD Lab at UCLA has a long history of MIMO (and SISO) channel estimation in a high mobility environment and implemented into real-time test-bed. The current focus of PSAM is design and implementation of checker-board pattern in MIMO-OFDM Wireless LAN.