Section: New Software and Platforms

Platforms

Reproducible research laboratory (${\mathrm{R}}^2\mathrm{LAB}$)

Scientific evaluation of network protocols requires that experiment results must be reproducible before they can be considered as valid. This is particularly difficult to obtain in the wireless networking domain, where characteristics of wireless channels are known to be variable, unpredictable and hardly controllable. We have built at Inria Sophia-Antipolis, in 2014, an anechoic chamber, with RF absorbers preventing radio waves reflections and with Faraday cage blocking external interferences. This lab, named ${\mathrm{R}}^2\mathrm{lab}$, represents an ideal environment for experiments reproducibility. ${\mathrm{R}}^2\mathrm{lab}$ has been announced for usage by the general public at the end of 2015. It was developed, and is now operated, in the context of the FIT ’Equipment of Excellence’ project, and as such, it is now federated with the other testbeds that are part of the FIT initiative. This testbed is for the long-haul, and is scheduled to remain operational until at least 2020. Future work, in addition to regular operations, includes adding new hardware capabilities to the wireless nodes, such as USRP for running Software Defined Radio, as well as possibly OpenAirInterface for supporting 5G-like experiments.

For more details see http://r2lab.inria.fr .