PULS on WARP Platform - Detailed Investigation of Real-Time Scheduling Performance
Abstract
Software-defined Radio (SDR) platforms are popular tools to implement custom wireless network
algorithms and architectures designs now-days. One of the most popular SDR platforms
being used is the National Instrument USRP. In addition to having powerful hardware for supporting
various physical layer (PHY) protocols, the software is no less significant for its flexibility to
implement custom MAC layer algorithms.
When presenting various Wi-Fi experimental results based on the platform, often time we are
asked "What about WARP"? WARP is a wireless development platform developed by Mango
Communications, integrating a high performance field programmable grid array (FPGA) from
Xilinx, two flexible RF interfaces, and multiple peripherals to facilitate rapid prototyping of custom
wireless designs. In the past, we’ve been focusing only on the USRP for prototyping, but WARP
could be a potential candidate to outperform USRP under certain requirements.
PULS[1] presented a new scheduling experiment that executed on the USRP with realistic
packet arrival characteristics. The goal of this thesis is to perform a comprehensive comparison
between the WARP and USRP platforms based on the PULSE architecture. On the other hand, we
want to investigate the advantages and disadvantages of WARP compared to USRP under various
requirements. From the experimental result, we see that PULS can be successfully implemented
on the WARP platform, the throughput performance of PULS on the WARP platform is 146% of
the USRP platform.
Citation
Lin, Victor Hamilton (2018). PULS on WARP Platform - Detailed Investigation of Real-Time Scheduling Performance. Master's thesis, Texas A & M University. Available electronically from https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /174375.