Design and implementation of a wireless communication monitor based on software-defined radio

The monitor that is developed within this master thesis is intended to provide a rich amount of cross-layer information about ongoing radio activities of an indoor testbed. The monitor consists of a trinity of functions: a RF power spectrum indicator, a PHY channel quality estimator, and a link layer protocol analyzer. The use of software defined radio makes it possible to further incorporate
certain cognitive functions to augment the monitor to a debugger.

The design and implementation of such a powerful tool are expected to leverage the signal processing libraries from the open-source GNU Radio project. The hardware platform to be used will be the popular Universal Software Radio Peripheral.

The student needs to put theory into practice. The candidate is required to: have a solid understanding of digital communication systems and signal processing, be able to comprehend and write algorithms in C/C++, and be ready to learn basic Python programming. Knowledge of FPGA programming using Verilog or VHDL is an extra merit.

The successful completion of the project will add important elements to our group's extensive knowledge in wireless networking and will also have a potential impact on our daily practices in testing and debugging.