We have some exciting news to share on behalf of the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program. DARPA has announced that it will transition the Colosseum, a massive RF channel emulator used to run the agency’s Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2), to the PAWR program on October 23. The entire Colosseum – with hardware consisting of 128 two-antenna software-defined radios and 64 field programmable gate arrays – will first travel to Mobile World Congress Los Angeles for a final SC2 championship matchup. Then, after the first prize of $2 million is awarded to the competition winner, it will head back to the east coast under new PAWR management.

The transition of the Colosseum to the PAWR program means that research will continue on solutions enabling radio networks to autonomously collaborate and dynamically determine spectrum use from moment to moment. The RF emulator will be housed at Northeastern University, and experimenters will be able to test spectrum theories at scale before extending their research to outdoor testing on the PAWR platforms.

For more information on the Colosseum and the Spectrum Collaboration Challenge, visit DARPA’s program website. If you’re planning to attend MWC19 Los Angeles, please let us know. US Ignite will have a presence at the show, and we’d be happy to connect at the SC2 championship event.