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Tool release: gathering 802.11n traces with channel state information

Published: 22 January 2011 Publication History

Abstract

We are pleased to announce the release of a tool that records detailed measurements of the wireless channel along with received 802.11 packet traces. It runs on a commodity 802.11n NIC, and records Channel State Information (CSI) based on the 802.11 standard. Unlike Receive Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) values, which merely capture the total power received at the listener, the CSI contains information about the channel between sender and receiver at the level of individual data subcarriers, for each pair of transmit and receive antennas.
Our toolkit uses the Intel WiFi Link 5300 wireless NIC with 3 antennas. It works on up-to-date Linux operating systems: in our testbed we use Ubuntu 10.04 LTS with the 2.6.36 kernel. The measurement setup comprises our customized versions of Intel's close-source firmware and open-source iwlwifi wireless driver, userspace tools to enable these measurements, access point functionality for controlling both ends of the link, and Matlab (or Octave) scripts for data analysis. We are releasing the binary of the modified firmware, and the source code to all the other components.

References

[1]
IEEE Std. 802.11n-2009: Enhancements for higher throughput. http://www.ieee802.org, 2009.
[2]
D.Halperin, W.Hu, A.Sheth, and D.Wetherall. 802.11 with multiple antennas for dummies. ACM SIGCOMM CCR, 40(1), January 2010.
[3]
D.Halperin, W.Hu, A.Sheth, and D.Wetherall. Predictable 802.1. packet delivery from wireless channel measurements. ACM SIGCOMM, 2010.

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      Published In

      cover image ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review
      ACM SIGCOMM Computer Communication Review  Volume 41, Issue 1
      January 2011
      132 pages
      ISSN:0146-4833
      DOI:10.1145/1925861
      Issue’s Table of Contents

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      Association for Computing Machinery

      New York, NY, United States

      Publication History

      Published: 22 January 2011
      Published in SIGCOMM-CCR Volume 41, Issue 1

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      Author Tags

      1. 802.11n
      2. channel state information
      3. csi
      4. mimo

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