Outdoor Power Measurements of Wi-Fi Traffic on the University of Colorado Boulder Campus

Since the advent of mobile communication, the growth in demand for wireless communication devices and associated spectrum needs has been unstoppable. As a result, due to limited spectrum availability and historically inefficient management of assigned frequencies, spectrum sharing has steadily grown in importance and become a necessary solution to various capacity constraints. To support new developments in spectrum sharing, research in spectrum monitoring and spectrum utilization have become most valuable. GNU Radio offers a compelling opportunity to quickly develop and prototype new research in spectrum monitoring, sharing, and related radio frequency research that can support future deployments. GNU Radio’s packaged capabilities combined with its compatibility with a multitude of Software Defined Radio (SDR) hardware OEMs allow spectrum sharing research to be conducted nimbly and rapidly. To improve spectrum sharing and management, this research used GNU Radio in conjunction with Ettus USRP SDRs to collect I/Q data across the CU Boulder campus in regular intervals over 4 weeks, to monitor changes in the power levels recorded across 1 indoor and 10 outdoor locations. The results show that a simple sensor consisting of an SDR and a Raspberry Pi is capable of tracking changes in Wi-Fi signal strengths measured in outdoor environments. With calibration and careful hardware design such a platform could also be used for broader spectrum monitoring applications.