WNCG Performing Radio Channel Tests for Space Station

WNCG has received a contract from NASA to perform channel sounding tests in a space station emulated environment to facilitate deployment of Wi-Fi on the space station. NASA engineers have constructed a theoretical model of the signal delay characteristics inside the space station, and are looking to WNCG to validate their model with experiments.

To accomplish this research, WNCG’s channel sounding equipment is being modified to support measurements at 2.44 GHz. Laboratory assistants Daniel Zitrick and Felix Gutierrez are working full time to accomplish this conversion, aided by volunteers Stephen Roso and Jeremy Chen.

A challenge of the project is to identify and acquire access to an appropriate surrogate for the space station. Candidates include a clos ed freight trailer, a freight car, or a metal mobile home or recreational vehicle. None of these extend to the maximum dimension of the space station, which is approximately 35 meters. S4W software, developed by WNCG under the National Science Foundation Next Generation Software research program under the grant number ACI-0305644, is being used to compare the calculated characteristics of a long hallway bounded by drywall or metal with the same size structure made of metal walls. If the comparison is favorable, one of the hallways in ENS can be used as the surrogate structure.