Virtual laboratories on wireless communications: A contemporary, extensible approach

The present work demonstrates a novel, free and open-source educational software package on wireless communications. Targeting graduate and post-graduate studies, the package covers issues of antennas and propagation, wireless channel modeling (fading, shadowing, path loss, Doppler effect), static and adaptive modulation, client mobility and network planning applied to DVB/T and indoor networks (WiFi, femtocell) settings. The corresponding packages are fully interactive and parametric, offering 3D GUIs, ray traced maps and connection to field measurements. Being extensible via the addition of simple text files, the presented package constitutes a concrete approach that was missing from the related approaches that follow the virtual laboratories paradigm.