GRCon 2026 Tutorial Information

Tutorial Resources

Self-guided, self-paced tutorial

The AERPAW tutorials are designed to be completely self-guided.  With the information provided to you through the AERPAW User Manual, you can traverse the tutorials entirely by yourself. The benefit of attending the AERPAW tutorial sessions in a conference setting like GRCon '26 is that you can get instant, personalized help from AERPAW personnel, standing by for that purpose, if any of the instructions or material in the User Manual is unclear, or if you face problems as you attempt to traverse the steps specified.

AERPAW User Manual

The User Manual is organized into pages or sections.  On the left of the User Manual, there is a Navigation Bar with a menu. This menu allows you to visit any section and subsection in the User Manual.  This page itself is part of the User Manual, so you can access that menu from this page itself.

Custom Disposable Tutorial Environment

Please keep in mind that during the GRCon '26 event, you will be using a completely equivalent but distinct parallel Virtual Environment than the Production AERPAW system for the tutorials.  Therefore, the User registrations, Experiments, and any custom code you develop during the tutorials will not persist after the conclusion of GRCon '26; they will all be deleted.

If you want to save any custom code you have developed during the tutorials, please do so; the easiest way to do so is probably to cut and paste locally into your laptop.  (If you believe your code is too voluminous for that, but worth saving, please get in touch with a tutorial coordinator to explore possible alternate options.)

Install Software

For this tutorial, you will need to install various software on your laptop if you do not already have them installed.  You may do this up front, or as you come to them during the course of the tutorials.

In case you would like to install all the software beforehand, here is the list of necessary software:

1. OpenVPN (on Linux or Windows - for Linux make sure it is openvpn version 2), or Tunnelblick 8.0 (on MacOS).  (See Section 2 of AERPAW User Manual for instructions, if you need.)

2. Some application that lets you run Secure Shell (ssh) sessions - native on Linux, on Windows apps like MobaXTerm, PuttY, etc.

3. QGroundControl (See Section 2 of AERPAW User Manual for instructions).

4. MATLAB local install/license (or access to an institutional license server) - optional.

Preliminaries

Familiarize yourself with AERPAW by reading Section 1 of the AERPAW User Manual.

This overview video may be helpful to view.

Please pay special attention to Section 4.3, which reviews the complete workflow.

Please ask a tutorial coordinator if any part of the User Manual is unclear, or you encounter any difficulty with any of the steps, in this and all subsequent steps.

Using Custom Event Web Portal

Although the AERPAW User Manual provides a well-known URL for the AERPAW Web Portal, for the GRCon '26 event, we are using a custom Portal, so as to avoid potentially affecting in-production AERPAW experiments due to the tutorial activity.

Instead of the URL given in the User Manual, use the Portal at the following URL:

https://tutorial-portal.aerpaw.ncsu.edu/

User Registration, Role, Project

Follow the procedure provided in Section 4.7.1 to register yourself as an AERPAW User.

Follow the procedure provided in Section 4.7.2 to request the Experimenter Role.

This video may be helpful to view. (Note: Part of this video might be outdated since the portal was updated after this video was made)

Once the request is granted, follow the procedure provided in Section 4.7.3 to join the Project "GRCon 26 Tutorial Project". (Note: Do not create a project, just join the existing GRCon '26 Tutorial Project)

Create a Single Experiment

You will create an AERPAW "Experiment" that you will work with in Development Mode through the various tutorial sessions.  It is important that you create no more than a single experiment during the tutorial session.  This single Experiment will allow you to explore all the various aspects of this  tutorial. Follow the procedure provided in Section 4.7.4 to create an Experiment of your own.  In the step to choose Experiment Target Resources, choose the AFRN "LW1", and an APRN "LPN1".

This video may be helpful to view. (Note: Part of this video might be outdated since the portal was updated after this video was made)

Login to Your Virtual Experiment

Follow the procedure provided in Section 4.7.5 to access the virtual versions of your target AERPAW Nodes.

This video and this video may be helpful to view.

Hands-on Tutorial#: In this hands on tutorial you will be working on sample experiments such as GE2: Channel Sounder and SE1: Multi-Node LTE SISO from the AERPAW User manual.