Abstract—In this paper we present an approach towards empowering online telecommunications engineering education by enabling hands-on remote experimentation over Trinity College Dublin’s wireless testbed. Moreover, in order to offer a flexible testbed, capable of fulfilling the different and particular requirements of experimenters, we have created a framework that allows the virtualization of our testbed resources to create experimentation units to be used by remote experimenters/learners. Furthermore, we present the FORGEBox framework that offers an environment and resources to create online material capable to access the virtualized and physical testbed resources for incorporating experimentation into HTML-based online educational material.

1. Virtualizing testbed resources to enable remote
experimentation in online telecommunications
education
EDUCON 2015, Tallinn, Estonia
Johann M. Marquez-Barja*, Nicholas Kaminski,
Francisco Paisana, Christos Tranoris and
Luiz A. DaSilva
*marquejm@tcd.ie
19/03/2015

2. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 2
Trinity College Dublin – The University of Dublin
– The University of Dublin, Trinity College was
founded in 1592
– 2013 QS ranking:
– 1st in Ireland
– 61st worldwide
– Top 1% School of Engineering worldwide
– Only Irish university to rank in the top 100 world
universities and amongst the top 50 European
universities by the Times Higher Education
Supplement
– Approximately 16,000 students
– Approximately €154m in research income per
year
Engineering School

3. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 3
CTVR/CONNECT
• CONNECT is co-funded
by the Irish
government, through
SFI, and by industry
• 16 Academic leads
• > 120 researchers
• New broadband
architectures, new
cellular technologies
and the Internet of
Things will be at the
centre of our work
The telecommunications research centre
X

4. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 4
Remote lab experimentation @ TCD
• Experimentation is a key component of engineering education
• Physical experimentation:
• Expensive, in particular for low-budget institutions
• Deploying and maintaining experimental facilities is costly
• Developing cutting edge telecommunications technologies
requires massive effort and budget
• Learners constrained by location and lab opening hours
• Online laboratories
• TCD’s initiative towards empowering online
telecommunications engineering education by enabling
hands-on remote experimentation

5. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 5
Online laboratories
• Virtual labs
• software-based laboratories
• simulation tools
• Remote labs
• Experimentation on real lab equipment
• Hybrid labs
• Output data from real measurements/equipment
• Processed by simulation tools
Summarized taxonomy

6. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 6
CTVR/CONNECT Testbed
• Virtualization management
techniques to deliver a unique
cloud-based software-defined
radio testbed
• Experimentation units
• Virtual computational platform
(Iris empowered)
• Dedicated USRP hardware
Cloud-based SDR Wireless testbed

7. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 7
Virtualizing testbed resources for remote labs for
engineering education
Enabling the Cloud

8. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 8
Virtualizing testbed resources for remote labs for
engineering education
Enabling the Cloud

9. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 9
Virtualizing testbed resources for remote labs for
engineering education
• Iris is a software
architecture for
building highly
reconfigurable radio
networks
• Iris is a program and
a set of libraries
written in C++ which
can be used to build
software radios.
Iris (Implementing Radio in Software)

10. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 10
Virtualizing testbed resources for remote labs for
engineering education
FORGEBox – FORGE Project
• FORGEBox course
module
• FORGEBox widgets
• FIRE adapter/FORGEBox
services

11. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 11
Virtualizing testbed resources for remote labs for
engineering education
• Learner
• Lab course designer
• Lab course assistant
• Widget provider
• FIRE adapter/service provider
FORGEBox – FORGE Project

12. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 12
Coexistence of small cells in radar bands
Remote lab-based course
• Radar spectrum is
currently heavily
underutilized due
primarily to the need to
avoid interfering with
sensitive measuring
equipment.
• Identifying the features of
a radar system and
effectively operate within
that radar’s exclusion
zone without causing
harmful interference
Use case @ 5C2 – Master module in TCD

13. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 13
Coexistence of small cells in radar bands
Remote lab-based course
Use case @ 5C2 – Master module in TCD
www.ict-forge.eu
www.fed4fire.eu
www.ict-fire.eu
www.crew-project.eu

14. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 14
Coexistence of small cells in radar bands
Remote lab-based course
Screenshots

15. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 15
Coexistence of small cells in radar bands
Remote lab-based course
Screenshots

16. Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin 16
Conclusions
• We have successfully virtualized testbed resources to enable enhanced remote lab-
based courses, empowered by hands-on experimentation on top of high
performance radio tested
• Virtualization + Iris SDR + FORGEBox = Successful SDR/Cognitive Radio course
• The Coexistence of small cells in radar bands remote lab is currently being taught to
reinforce the Cognitive Radio concepts and theory in the 5C2 Wireless networks and
communications – Master Module @ TCD
• It has been positively evaluated by TCD students via anonymous online surveys
Future work (TO-DOs)
• Improve/objective assessment for the main actors, in particular learners and lab
course assistant
• Implementing learning analytics within the widgets and testbeds
Pending TO-DOs

17. Thank You
Johann M. Marquez-Barja*, Nicholas Kaminski,
Francisco Paisana, Christos Tranoris and
Luiz A. DaSilva
*marquejm@tcd.ie