Reliable and Reproducible Radio Experiments in FIT/CorteXlab SDR Testbed: Initial Findings

Abstract

The FIT/CorteXlab platform is a wireless testbed situated in Lyon, France, where all radio nodes are confined to an electro- magnetically (EM) shielded environment and have flexible radio-frequency (RF) front-end for experimenting on software defined radio (SDR) and cognitive radio (CR). A unique feature of this testbed is that it offers roughly 40 SDR nodes that can be accessed from anywhere in the world in a reproducible manner: the electro-magnetic shield prevents from external interference and channel variability. In this paper we show why it is important to have such a reproducible radio experiment testbed and we highlight the reproducibility by the channel characteristics between the nodes of the platform. We back our claims with a large set of measurements done in the testbed, that also refines our knowledge on the propagation characteristics of the testbed.