Wireless carts

Abstract

As part of a complete wireless networking education, students must have an in-depth understanding of basic concepts such as signal propagation, environmental effects on RF signals, FCC regulations and limits, power levels, antenna construction and antenna operation. Lecture based curricula can only go so far in preparing a wireless professional to succeed in industry. To be complete, the student must have practical experience.Our wireless coursework is comprised of three courses, the first of which is a wireless concepts course. This course has a significant hands-on component that requires students to understand the tools while applying what they are learning about the physical layer and basic network operation. The students engage in two very large projects; a wireless building survey and signal propagation testing using specialized equipment.As part of the projects, students create a series of experiments with a variety of equipment and provide useable test data. Examples of the tests include interference, Fresnel zone effects, throughput, range and the effects of multi-path on signals. However, in the presence of an increasing number of wireless networks, obtaining real world, reliable data illustrating the various physical layer phenomena is difficult. Our solution was to build several wireless carts outfitted with various antennas, transmission equipment from different portions of the spectrum and that used different encoding or modulation techniques. In addition, a major requirement was that the carts be able to operate away from infrastructure support, including AC power.The carts have enabled students to isolate themselves from other wireless signals and have provided an extremely adaptive platform for experiments and projects. This paper will describe the coursework, projects, functions, costs, lessons learned and the data gathered as a result of their deployment.