Autonomous RF DAta Collection with Software Defined Radio

Abstract

Characterizing the performance of an antenna or radio involves collecting a large amount of data through tedious processes. In order to combat this tedium, and to improve the data collected, this work explored the use of two burgeoning technologies: software defined radio (SDR) and autonomous drones. SDR provides the ability to perform repeatable measurements and to easily scan wide frequency bands, while autonomous drones add additional repeatablity to measurements as well as remote operation. To combine these two technologies into an experimental framework, an SDR was mounted to a rover and connected to an onboard Raspberry Pi single board computer. The SDR acted as a receiver, and the Raspberry Pi performed signal processing to determine the strength of the signal received. The Raspberry Pi then transmitted this data to the computer of the user running the experiment where it could be used to generate a heat map of signal strength or stored for later analysis. The experimental framework developed by this research greatly enhances the ability to perform experiments on reconfigurable antennas and to investigate multi-band and wide-band wireless networks.