
NSF Org: |
TI Translational Impacts |
Recipient: |
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Initial Amendment Date: | September 8, 2022 |
Latest Amendment Date: | November 27, 2023 |
Award Number: | 2229654 |
Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
Program Manager: |
Deepankar Medhi
dmedhi@nsf.gov (703)292-2935 TI Translational Impacts TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
Start Date: | September 15, 2022 |
End Date: | August 31, 2024 (Estimated) |
Total Intended Award Amount: | $299,999.00 |
Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $299,999.00 |
Funds Obligated to Date: |
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History of Investigator: |
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Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1350 BEARDSHEAR HALL AMES IA US 50011-2103 (515)294-5225 |
Sponsor Congressional District: |
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Primary Place of Performance: |
515 MORRILL RD, 1350 BEARDSHEAR HALL AMES IA US 50011-2105 |
Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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Parent UEI: |
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NSF Program(s): | POSE |
Primary Program Source: |
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Program Reference Code(s): |
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Program Element Code(s): |
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Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
Rural broadband is important for the rural economy and quality of life, yet 39% of the rural US lacks broadband access, and most agriculture farms are not connected at all. To address the challenge, this project proposes to develop the OPen-source Ecosystem for bRoadband prAirie (OPERA). OPERA will enable researchers to transform their rural broadband research experiments into open-source software, data, and hardware designs that can be integrated with open-source platforms to generate rural-focused broadband solutions. The project is expected to not only enable rural-focused broadband technology innovation today but also empower rural regions to become active participants in continuous broadband innovation in the long term.
Leveraging the Agriculture and Rural Communities (ARA) wireless living lab (https://arawireless.org/), which is a part of the NSF Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program, OPERA will provide the organization and governance structure as well as community building leadership in fostering the open-source ecosystem (OSE) for broadband prairie. In particular, to generate high-quality open-source software, data, and hardware-designs beyond typical research experiment results, OPERA will complement ARA-enabled scientific experimentation with open-source coaching as well as the OSE process, infrastructure, and partnership support. To facilitate the integration of research products into open-source platforms and their real-world adoption in specific rural applications. OPERA will facilitate cross-sector collaborations among researchers, open-source communities, and rural region stakeholders. These collaborations will build upon the existing 62+ ARA partners from academia, industry, government, and rural communities. Leveraging the complementary strengths of broadband researchers, open-source developers, and rural application communities, OPERA is poised to help unleash the full capacity of the research and open-source communities in addressing the rural broadband challenge. It provides the ecosystem support for individual researchers to make direct real-world impact, and it empowers rural regions in co-shaping the continuous broadband innovation. OPERA-enabled open-source coaching infuses real-world open-source practice into research experimentation, and it strengthens experiential learning by focusing on production-quality prototyping. OPERA-enabled open-source innovation and cross-sector collaboration will help attract underrepresented students in research, while providing unique learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate education.
For additional information about the project and its latest results, go to the project website at https://wici.iastate.edu/opera.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The rural US includes 72% of the nation's land and 46 million people, and it serves as a major source of food and energy for the nation. Thus rural prosperity is essential to the well-being of the US. As a foundation for rural economy and quality of life, rural broadband is a key driver. Yet 39% of the rural US lacks broadband access, and most agriculture farms are not connected at all. To address the rural broadband challenge, we need to enable rural-focused broadband technology innovation today and to empower rural regions to become active participants in continuous broadband innovation in the long term. As a part of the NSF Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program, the ARA wireless living lab provides a great opportunity to enable rural-focused broadband research and to bridge open-source research prototyping with the engagement with open-source communities and rural applications.
To address the rural broadband challenge and to leverage the opportunity provided by the ARA PAWR platform, this Phase I POSE project proposed to develop the OPen-source Ecosystem for bRoadband prAirie (OPERA), and it focused on the scoping and planning activities for establishing the OPERA open-source ecosystem. This Phase I project has validated the importance and feasibility of OPERA's mission, which is to empower researchers to transform their rural broadband research experiments into open-source software, data, models, and learning materials that can be integrated with open-source platforms to generate rural-focused broadband solutions, thus enabling broadband technology researchers, open-source communities, and rural regions to collaborate in addressing the rural broadband challenge.
This Phase I project has helped identify three categories of high-priority open-source products for OPERA to focus on in establishing the open-source ecosystem: 1) Private 5G, 6G, and O-RAN networks for agriculture and rural communities, 2) Data and AI/ML models for rural private networks, and 3) Learning materials that empower researchers to develop field-deployable 5G, 6G, and O-RAN network solutions, and that empower rural stakeholders (e.g., farmers, cooperatives, and small carriers) to deploy and operate such networks. An initial set of these products can be found at the OPERA GitLab Group (https://gitlab.com/aralab/opera), OPERA Data Commons (https://opera.wici.iastate.edu/dataset), and ARA YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@arawireless).
This Phase I project has nurtured an early-adopter community of OPERA contributors and users across the US, Canada, many countries in Europe (Sweden, Finland, France, UK etc.), Brazil, Taiwan, Japan, and Thailand, most of whom come from the ARA user community. The OPERA training activities have reached out to the existing ARA user community of 160+ individual research users from 61+ research teams at 35+ organizations across academia, industries, non-profits, and governments.
Leveraging the complementary strengths of broadband researchers, open-source developers, and rural application communities, OPERA is poised to help unleash the full capacity of the research and open-source communities in addressing the rural broadband challenge. It provides the ecosystem support for individual researchers to make direct real-world impact, and it empowers rural regions in co-shaping the continuous broadband innovation. Compared with other initiatives such as OpenAirInterface, srsRAN, and Linux Foundation Aether project which focus on generic open-source wireless platforms, OPERA focuses on open-source research prototyping studies that enhance the individual core components of wireless systems, it enables the pilot and evaluation of research products with rural-focused applications (e.g., precision agriculture), and it engages rural stakeholders in the associated research, prototyping, and real-world pilots. OPERA enables the continuous integration of open-source research products into the underlying open-source platforms, as well as their continuous deployment into real-world rural applications. As a result, OPERA will enable the transformation of rigorous broadband research experiments into field-deployable open-source solutions, helping address the rural broadband challenge while also nurturing the associated open-source ecosystem.
Enabling the integration of cutting-edge research products with open-source wireless platforms to meet specific rural application needs, OPERA reduces research time-to-impact and speeds up rural broadband innovation, thus helping address the rural broadband challenge. In the near term, OPERA will enable the development, deployment, and adoption of rural-focused broadband technologies. In the long term, OPERA will enable researchers, open-source developers, and rural regions to forge an ecosystem for driving the continuous evolution of rural-focused broadband technologies and applications. This not only helps eliminate the broadband gap between rural and urban regions as technologies evolve, but also empowers researchers and rural regions to actively contribute to broadband innovation and open-source wireless platforms development. OPERA-enabled open-source coaching infuses real-world open-source practice into research experimentation, and it strengthens experiential learning by focusing on production-quality prototyping. OPERA-enabled open-source innovation and cross-sector collaboration will help attract underrepresented students in research, and they will provide unique learning opportunities for undergraduate and graduate education.
Last Modified: 12/27/2024
Modified by: Hongwei Zhang
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