[December 10, 2003] Tropos Wi-Fi Hot Zone Equipment Tested at Meteor Crater Tropos Networks, Inc. today announced that its Tropos 5110 Wi-Fi cells were successfully tested by NASA at its on-site field trial at Meteor Crater in Arizona as part of NASA's multi-center, human-robotic exploration research. The company said that this is the first time NASA has used outdoor cellular Wi-Fi technology as the communications network for potential interplanetary exploration. The Tropos Wi-Fi equipment was selected for evaluation because it enables quick and economical deployment of highly reliable, large-scale wireless hot zones. These outdoor Wi-Fi hot zones compliment and ubiquitously extend the ability to communicate from traditional Wi-Fi hot spot equipment already in use within the program. NASA is interested in connecting multiple nodes in a Wi-Fi mesh network in the future, including: a PC installed with a Wi-Fi client adaptor embedded in two space suits, an Extra-Vehicular Activity Robotic Assistant with multiple computers connected via Wi-Fi, a Science Trailer and Lunar Planetary Science Module with multiple Wi-Fi nodes, as well as other sensor webs of cameras, microphones, and other science equipment on the simulated planet surface. NASA evaluated two and three-node Tropos Wi-Fi cells covering a one to two square mile hot zone. The purpose was to simulate the area of an interplanetary exploration mission with a base camp and operating area surrounding it and test communications between a base camp server and a mobile test computer running an 802.11b client. During the demonstration, NASA tested the network using IPerf performance monitoring tools and conducted trials using a roaming client device. IPerf is one of several software tools that provide a "goodput" measurement of the effective (useful) data throughput between two nodes through a diverse network. NASA communications engineers measured a reliable 1 Mbps at a range of 1.3 miles from the base camp using a simple laptop inside a moving vehicle with no external antenna. As a result of the successful evaluation of the Tropos cellular Wi-Fi technology, NASA said that they will pursue the use of the Tropos equipment in their production network for future field testing. "The NASA tests are a compelling validation of the reliability and economics of the Tropos equipment and approach to building large-scale Wi-Fi hot zones in general and for mission-critical applications in particular," said Dave Hanna, president and CEO of Tropos Networks, Inc. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]