Helikite at Packapalooza
AERPAW flew its helikite platform at NC State’s Packapalooza festival on Aug. 27th. AERPAW portable nodes with two USRPs were attached to the helikite platform for collecting spectrum occupancy and 4G/5G link quality data throughout the day at altitudes up to 400 feet. Representative spectrum occupancy results from 5G band N71 (TMobile downlink) are shown in the figure below, where y-axis shows the altitude of the helikite. An abrupt increase in the signal strength can be observed as soon as the helikite rises above the buildings, which is in contrast to the more gradual increase in the signal strength in our earlier helikite measurements in the rural Lake Wheeler Field Labs area.
