Testbed reference

VESNA

VESNA testbed uses VESNA sensor nodes with narrow-band radios as transceivers in the 2.4 GHz band. An Ettus Research USRP N200 is used as a spectrum sensor.

Use -t vesna to with spectrumwars_runner to use this testbed.

parameter value
Maximum packet length 252 bytes
Number of frequency channels 64
Number of bandwidth settings 4 (see Interpretation of bandwidth settings)
Number of transmission power settings 17 (see Interpretation of transmission power settings)

Central frequency of a channel can be calculated using the following formula:

f = 2400.0 MHz + <chan> * 0.1 MHz
Interpretation of bandwidth settings
bandwidth bitrate
0 50 kbps
1 100 kbps
2 200 kbps
3 400 kbps
Interpretation of transmission power settings
power dBm
0 0
1 -2
2 -4
3 -6
4 -8
5 -10
6 -12
7 -14
8 -16
9 -18
10 -20
11 -22
12 -24
13 -26
14 -28
15 -30
16 < -55

Simulated testbed

Simulated testbed uses a software simulation to run the game. No special hardware is required. This is useful when developing player code.

This testbed is used by default by spectrumwars_runner, if no -t argument is specified.

Capabilities of this testbed can be customized using the following keyword arguments (use -Okeyword=value in the spectrumwars_runner command-line to modify their values from default):

keyword meaning default unit
packet_size Maximum packet length 1024 bytes
frequency_range Number of frequency channels 64  
bandwidth_range Number of bandwidth settings 10  
power_range Number of transmission power settings 10  
send_delay Time for sending one packet 0.100 s

Note that the simulation of the radio environment is greatly simplified:

  • A packet occupies only the channel it is sent on.
  • Sending of all packets takes the same amount of time (send_delay), regardless of bandwidth setting.
  • Only very simple collision detection is implemented. If transmission of two packets commences within the send_delay of each other, the first packet will be successfully delivered to its recepient, while the second will be discarded.
  • Spectrum sensing shows higher received power on channels with recent packet transmissions.
  • Transmission power setting is ignored.