AERPAW User Manual

Welcome to the AERPAW User Manual website!  AERPAW is the first wireless research platform envisioned and built to allow studying the convergence of advanced wireless technologies (such as 5G) and autonomous drones.  This User Manual is your one-stop reference as an AERPAW User (an Experimenter, including those with PI roles).

You can access all the individual pages from the navigation bar at the left of the site. Alternatively, you can use the "Search" feature at the top right of the page to search for specific content that is available in the user manual. 

This User Manual is maintained by the AERPAW team; Users (and everybody else) only have read access.

• Current or prospective AERPAW Users can get in touch with the AERPAW team at aerpaw-contact@ncsu.edu for general queries. Users can also post questions, answers, or discussions on the AERPAW Users Email Forum, by joining the email forum at group-aerpaw-users@ncsu.edu .  You can refer to http://aerpaw.org for additional information about AERPAW, and check Section 2.7 of this manual for more information on user support.  These and more resources are listed as part of the "How to Use this Manual" below.

• If you are a member of the AERPAW team, and do not have edit access to any particular page and you feel you should, please get in touch with your supervisor on the AERPAW team.

• If you are looking for the AERPAW Internal Wiki (restricted only to AERPAW team members), you can find it at https://sites.google.com/ncsu.edu/aerpaw-internal-wiki/ .

Note: On January 3rd, 2023, the AERPAW Portal completed major maintenance, upgrade, and migration.  As of January 20th, some sections of this User Manual are undergoing a corresponding major revision.  Until this revision is complete, sections of this Manual may present inconsistent or outdated information.   We ask our User community to bear with us over this major upgrade.

How to Use this Manual

• No matter what your interest is, we suggest you read through Section 1 completely, first.

  • In particular, prospective AERPAW Users should completely read through Section 1 before attempting to access the platform for the first time.

  • Section 1.8 walks you through the typical Experiment lifecycle, and the workflow you will go through during that lifecycle.  We ask that you first read it through completely, before attempting to execute any of it.

• If you do not intend to actively use the AERPAW platform, you may not need to read any other part of this User Manual; or read whatever parts you like in any order, to gain more information about the platform. We also invite you to read through  http://aerpaw.org for such general information. You can join our LinkedIn and Twitter accounts to be informed about period AERPAW updates as well, also linked from our project website.

• If you intend to be an active AERPAW User:

  • Please read Section 2.5, which provides the AERPAW Acceptable Use Policy.

  • As above, please first make sure you have read through Section 1.8 completely!

  • Then read Sections 2.1 - 2.4, which will help you to become familiar with the Web Portal that you will use to access AERPAW.

  • Then read Section 2.6, which will help you to become familiar with the use of the AERPAW Virtual Environment.

  • Go on to review Section 3.  At first reading, you may want to skim through this Section.  You can come back to it after you have started using AERPAW.

  • Look through the Sample Experiment scenarios in Section 4, and identify the one that you are interested to model your own first experiment on.  Read through this Sample Experiment completely.

    • For first-time AERPAW Users, we strongly recommend starting your AERPAW use by simply adopting a specific Sample Experiment, and repeating it to replicate the results.  You will then be well-positioned to build on it to create your own custom experiment.

  • At this point, you are ready to start your first attempt to use AERPAW!  Go back to Section 1.8, and start traversing the workflow, referring to Sections 2.1 - 2.6 as directed from Section 1.8, and performing the corresponding actions.

    • Refer to other sections of the User Manual as required.  Before attempting to test the Sample Experiment code for the first time in the Virtual Environment, please make sure you have read all the relevant information in Section 3 on the common structure of AERPAW Experiments.

    • If you face problems, please take a look at Section 2.8, Frequently Asked Questions; consider posting on  group-aerpaw-users@ncsu.edu, and get in touch with AERPAW Operations.

    • Also check Section 2.7 of this manual for more information on user support.

  • Let us know about possible improvements to this User Manual by posting on  group-aerpaw-users@ncsu.edu, or emailing us.

Happy reading, and happy AERPAW usage!  We hope your research for which you use AERPAW receives all success.  If AERPAW is helpful to you, we would appreciate it if you write to us about it, or post about your experience on group-aerpaw-users@ncsu.edu.