Experiences from the Iris Testbed in Dynamic Spectrum Access and Cognitive Radio Experimentation

The focus of this paper is an experimentation platform known as Iris that has a runtime reconfigurable software radio at its core. We have employed this platform to enable a wide variety of tests and experimentation in the fields of dynamic spectrum access and cognitive radio. The paper charts the progress of the Iris system since its inception as well as details of some of the experiments and trials conducted using this platform. We also discuss the challenges involved in the development and deployment of a software radio platform that supports runtime reconfigurability and provide recommendations for future improvements.