Setting Up Multiple SDRs for a Sandbox Experiment

[JACKIE SCHELLBERG]

Hello,

I am interested in using multiple sandbox USRPs for some experiments involving multiple transmitters and a single receiver (potentially more receivers in the future, currently anywhere from 7-14 transmitters). For each of the hosts, I install GNURADIO and Python packages to work with my custom code. Currently, I mount my Dropbox and use a bash install script to perform the needed setup after setting up SSH, jumpbox, etc. However, this can be a bit time consuming, so I am wondering if there is an easy way to streamline this with experiment profiles? Are we able to create our own custom Docker images with the relevant packages pre-installed?

I've tried to use the experimental profiles in the past, but sometimes a resource that I used previously is already reserved or the leases/containers don't appear. 

Appreciate all the help! Please let me know if there is any additional information that I can provide. 

Thank you,

Jackie Schellberg

[Sarath Babu]

Hi Jackie, 

Thanks for reaching out. It is possible using profiles. However, as you mentioned, it may take additional time to install your softwares each time you launch a container. I recommend the second approach of creating a custom Docker image that includes the software required for your experiment. We can then push that image to ARA's DockerHub repository, allowing you to launch containers using the custom image. 

Currently ARA only allows users to launch containers from the ARA DockerHub repository. We would be happy to work with you to create a custom image and push to our repository so that you can run your experiments with it. 

Regards

Sarath Babu

Research Assistant Professor (ARA)

Iowa State University