POWDER POWDER

Powder (the Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research) is flexible infrastructure enabling a wide range of software-defined experiments on the future of wireless networks.

Powder supports software-programmable experimentation on 5G and beyond, massive MIMO, ORAN, spectrum sharing and CBRS, RF monitoring, and anything else that can be supported on software-defined radios.

How to cite: If you use Powder in you research, please cite our Computer Networks paper.

From The Lab To The Real World

Powder is built to get your idea from the lab out into the real world. To get started, it has several tightly-controlled environments: a wired test bench, a controllable attenuator, and emulation. From there, you can move to a number of end-to-end software-defined over-the-air experimental environments, including a flexible indoor testbed, a city-scale living lab deployment, and true mobility on a fleet of shuttles,

Powder Highlights

Powder Users Across the United States

Recent Papers Using Powder (see all --)

5G Experiments

Powder enables experimenters to build their own 5G networks using open-source software stacks such as OpenAirInterface and srsRAN. These networks are end-to-end programmable, allowing full control over both the RAN and core parts of the network, as well as the services that run inside. These networks can be built in a small indoor test environment or in an outdoor environment with several gNodeBs and true mobile devices.

  Learn How to Build a 5G Network

ORAN

Powder is a member of the O-RAN Alliance, and makes it possible to run the reference RIC in connection with open source mobility stack. In addition, Powder adds RAN slicing functionality to the reference RIC.

  Run Open Radio Access Networks in Powder

Spectrum Monitoring

POWDER’s RF monitoring capabilities span across multiple vantage points and technologies. From rooftop sites with large sample rate SDRs, to small form factor fixed location and mobile units with modest SDR and compute resources. Antennas allow for either specific band coverage (e.g., CBRS), or wide range for tuning in FR1 frequencies (e.g., 700 MHz to 6 GHz).

  Read About Powder's Monitoring Framework

CBRS

POWDER provides multiple rooftop sites on and near the U of U campus with CBRS band radio access (3550 - 3700 MHz). In addition, all Fixed Endpoint (side of buildings, at human height) sites include CBRS capabilities. These CBRS resources are realized by direct NI USRP software defined radio connections (no additional RF front-ends) for shorter range, or low bandwidth communications.

  Learn to Run Experiments in the CBRS band

Massive MIMO

Powder has partnered with the RENEW team at RICE and Skylark Wireless to bring the world's first fully programmable and open-source Massive-MIMO Platform to the research community.

  See How You Can Run on Dozens of Antennas

Powder Status: --

Activity
Active Experiments: -
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Experiments -
Outdoor Radio Equipment
ResourceUp% In Use
Base Stations
Fixed Endpoints
Massive MIMO Base Station --
Frequencies In Use
Mobile Bus-Mounted Radios (map)
RouteBuses On Route
Indoor Labs
ResourceRadios% In Use
Indoor OTA --
Paired Radio Workbench --
Wired Clusters
ResourceUp% In Use
CloudLab Utah --
Campus: Emulab --
Downtown: Apt --

Contact Us

We recommend that users of Powder join the powder-users mailing list. The list has a searchable archive, and is a good place to direct questions that are of general interest to Powder's user community. For questions that are not of general interest, such as questions about individual accounts or experiments, send mail to powder-support@powderwireless.net.

You can sign up to talk to us during our virtual office hours

General inquiries or comments about Powder (not support-related) can be directed to powder-contact@powderwireless.net

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