POWDER: Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research

Through a combination of continued demand, technological advancement and regulatory change, mobile and wireless networking is entering an expected period of rapid and broad innovation and change. This landscape presents mobile and wireless researchers with unique and unparalleled opportunities, but the inherent complexity of the wireless ecosystem also presents unique challenges. Specifically, the envisioned broad advancement of the science of wireless networking requires experimentation at scale in real environments, with control and visibility from the lowest layers of the radio up to the top of the application stack. This paper provides an overview of the Platform for Open Wireless Data-driven Experimental Research (POWDER). POWDER is a city-scale, remotely accessible, end-to-end software defined platform being designed and built to address this need. Compared to other mobile and wireless testbeds POWDER provides advances in scale, realism, diversity, flexibility, and access. We describe the POWDER architecture, building blocks, control framework and experimental workflow. We also describe example research efforts being supported by the platform and its current deployment status.