wiki:802.11/wlan_exp/GettingStarted

Version 8 (modified by murphpo, 10 years ago) (diff)

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802.11 Reference Design: Experiment Framework Setup

The basic steps to setup and use the 802.11 Reference Design Experiments Framwork are listed below, and explained in detail in the following sections.

  1. Install a suitable version of Python
  2. Install the wlan_exp Python package
  3. Configure and connect WARP v3 nodes via Ethernet
  4. Test the hardware and setup

There are two sets of instructions below- one for Python beginners, one for Python experts.

For Python Beginners

New Python users should start with the ​Anaconda Scientific Python Distribution from ​Continuum Analytics. This distribution bundles known-good versions of Python, third-party packages for data processing and great IDE tools.

The installers for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux are available on the ​Anaconda downloads page.

We strongly recommend a 64-bit Python installation to fully utilize the 802.11 Reference Design logging framework. A 32-bit Python cannot handle the large log files generated by nodes during long experiments.

The Anaconda Mac OS X distribution is always 64-bit.

If your Windows PC and OS is 64-bit, you should use the 64-bit Anaconda distribution.

Install wlan_exp Package

A core component of 802.11 Reference Design Experiments Framework is the wlan_exp Python package. You must use a wlan_exp version that matches the 802.11 Reference Design version running in your WARP v3 nodes.

We strongly recommend using the wlan_exp package bundled in the reference design .zip archive. This version of the package is tested with the C code, FPGA designs and pre-compiled bitstreams bundled in the same release. The wlan_exp package is located in the /Python_Reference folder in the reference design .zip archive.

To install the wlan_exp package in your Python environment:

  1. Launch the Spyder IDE in your Anaconda installation (Start Menu -> Anaconda (64-bit) -> Spyder)
  2. Select Tools -> PYTHONPATH Manager
  3. If the PYTHONPATH window shows any existing wlan_exp entries, remove them
  4. Click Add
  5. Navigate to the wlan_exp folder in the expanded reference design archive (for example "C:\work\Mango_802.11_RefDes_v0.9_beta\Python_Reference\wlan_exp")
  6. Click Select Folder
  7. Click Synchronize, then Yes
  8. Click Close

Configure and Connect WARP v3 Nodes

The 802.11 Reference Design Experiments Framework communicates with WARP v3 nodes via Ethernet. Your PC (with Python and the wlan_exp package) and all WARP v3 nodes must be connected to the same Ethernet switch.

We recommend using a dedicated NIC for wlan_exp experiments. This NIC should have a static IP address in the 10.0.0.x subnet. This is the same recommended setup as for WARPLab.

Ethernet Setup:

  1. Set your PC NIC IP address to 10.0.0.250 and subnet mask to 255.255.255.0
  2. Connect the NIC to a 1Gb Ethernet switch
  3. Connect ETH_B of each WARP v3 node to the same switch

Important: do not connect ETH_A of multiple WARP v3 nodes to the same switch. The 802.11 Reference Design wired-wireless portal will attempt to bridge ETH_A to the wireless interface. Mixing this behavior with wlan_exp traffic will have unpredictable results.

Nodes Configuration:

  1. If you have one WARP v3 node, configure this node as an 802.11 AP using the AP bitstream from the Bitstream_Reference folder
  2. If you have multiple WARP v3 nodes, configure one as an AP (AP bitstream) and the rest as stations (STA bitstream)

Testing the Setup:

  1. Launch a Python shell (Start Menu -> Anaconda (64-bit) -> Anaconda Command Prompt)
  2. Change directory to the Python_Reference/Examples folder (cd C:\work\Mango_802.11_RefDes_v0.9_beta\Python_Reference\examples)
  3. Run the blink_node_leds.py example: python blink_node_leds.py

All of your WARP v3 nodes should blink their green LEDs for 5 seconds.

For Python Experts

The wlan_exp package requires Python 2 (version 2.7.5 or later) or Python 3 (version 3.3.5 or later).

Most functions of the wlan_exp package only require the Python standard library. These functions include node initialization, control, monitoring and retrieval of log data.

The wlan_exp package supports Python 2.7+ and 3.3+.

A 32-bit Python installation will work for all wlan_exp usage except processing large (multi-gigabyte) log files. When possible we recommend a 64-bit installation.

Some of the log parsing utilities and examples use third-party packages. To run all of our examples, your Python installation must have:

  • NumPy (version 1.8 or later)
  • Pandas (version 0.13 or later)
  • matplotlib (version 1.3.1 or later)
  • h5py (version 2.2 or later)

In our testing the wlan_exp examples that use these packages work in both Python 2.7 and 3.3.

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Quick Start

  • Install a suitable Python distribution (may be already be installed on your PC; see below)
  • Download the 802.11 Reference Design Python packages and examples from the repository: /ReferenceDesigns/w3_802.11/python
  • Choose an example script (warpnet_example_wlan_throughput.py for example)
  • Edit the script header to match your setup (IP address of your PC and serial numbers of your WARP nodes)
  • Connect ETH_B of each WARP v3 node to the same gigabit Ethernet switch as your PC
  • Open a terminal to the directory containing the example script
  • Run the script with Python; for example python warpnet_example_wlan_throughput.py

System Requirements

  • 802.11 Reference Design: warpnet support was added to the reference design in v0.8.
  • Python: the warpnet framework supports both Python 2 (2.7+) and Python 3 (3.3+). No third-party Python packages are required. See the Python recommendations below for more details.
  • Connectivity: the framework requires the host PC and every WARP v3 node be connected to a common gigabit Ethernet switch. We recommend you use a dedicated NIC on your PC to avoid superfluous traffic on the experimental network. The WARP v3 nodes must use their ETH B interfaces for wlan_exp.
  • WARP v3 hardware: warpnet requires at least one WARP v3 node running the 802.11 Reference Design. The framework supports up to 253 nodes.

Python Versions

The warpnet framework supports Python 2 (2.7.4+) and Python 3 (3.3+). The core warpnet and wlan_exp scripts require only the core Python packages.

We have tested the framework and example scripts using the operating systems and Python distributions listed below.

Mac OS X

  • Python 2.7.4 bundled with Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks
  • Python 2.7.5 in ​Spyder
  • Python 2.7.6 in ​Anaconda

Windows:

Useful Packages

  • ​Spyder: this IDE for Python code development is extremely useful when editing code / developing scripts. Besides automatic syntax checking / highlighting, it integrates the python and ipython consoles to allow interactive debug of code.
  • ​ipython: this interactive Python environment is great for testing experiment scripts and exploring experiment results. Many integrated Python distributions (Anaconda, Spyder, WinPython, etc) integrate the ipython shell.
  • numpy: Some of the wlan_exp_log examples use ​numpy 1.7 for processing large arrays of node log entries. numpy is included in many Python distributions. You can check by running this on your command line: python -c "import numpy; print numpy.version.version". This will print a version number if numpy is installed or an error if it is not. Our examples assume numpy 1.7 or later.
  • pandas: The pandas library provides some very useful tools for dealing with large datasets, especially those where time is a dimension (like log entries).