AraHaul: Multi-Modal Wireless X-Haul Living Lab for Long-Distance, High-Capacity Communications

For rural regions where towns and agricultural farms lack affordable broadband access, long-distance, high-capacity wireless x-haul communications to the nearest Internet fiber backbones are critical. Despite extensive experimental research in advanced wireless systems, there remains a lack of systematic studies on rural wireless x-haul systems as well as a lack of at-scale, real-world testbeds that support such studies. To redress these gaps, we develop AraHaul, a multi-modal wireless x-haul testbed for studying long-distance, high-capacity communications. AraHaul, as a part of the ARA PAWR wireless living lab, features state-of-the-art x-haul platforms that operate at diverse frequency bands ranging from 11 GHz and 71–86 GHz to 191.7-194.8 THz and provide communication capacity up to 160 Gbps across distances up to 16 km. We present the design and implementation of AraHaul, including its hardware and software architectures, and illustrate its use to derive insights learned from real-world deployment and operation of long-distance narrow-beam x-haul links. Our illustration consists of an experimental investigation of the behavior of a 10 km-Iong AraHaul link currently de-ployed in Central Iowa. We demonstrate the long-distance, high-capacity wireless communications enabled by AraHaul. We also characterize the diversity across multi-modal x-haul links subject to weather, providing insight into mechanisms for robust high-capacity x-haul communications at long distances. AraHaul en-ables first-of-its-kind studies of multi-modal rural wireless x-haul systems, and its design, implementation, and deployment insights shed light on next-generation rural broadband and advanced wireless systems in general.