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arxiv: 2605.04290 · v1 · submitted 2026-05-05 · 📡 eess.SY · cs.SY· eess.SP

StormWave: An Open-Source Portable SDR Platform for Over-the-Air Resilience Evaluation of Terrestrial and Aerial Communications

Yuqing Cui , Zhaoxi Zhang , Sidharth Santhi Nivas , Prem Sagar Pattanshetty Vasanth Kumar , Maxwell McManus , Chenzhi Zhao , Guanying Sun , Nicholas Mastronarde
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George Sklivanitis Dimitris A. Pados Elizabeth Serena Bentley Zhangyu Guan
This is my paper

Pith reviewed 2026-05-08 17:29 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification 📡 eess.SY cs.SYeess.SP
keywords open-sourceSDR platformRF interferenceresilience evaluationwireless communicationsair-to-airfield experimentswaveform composition
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The pith

StormWave is an open-source portable SDR platform that enables field evaluation of wireless communication resilience to RF interference through flexible waveform generation and monitoring.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

This paper introduces StormWave as an open-source portable software-defined radio platform for generating and monitoring RF interference to assess wireless system resilience. It supports seamless composition and runtime switching among narrowband and wideband waveforms along with multiple modulations, adaptive coding, and real-time spectrum visualization. Outdoor ground experiments demonstrate that interference effects vary clearly by waveform and modulation under realistic conditions. Air-to-air tests further reveal distance-dependent constellation distortion and access-symbol degradation when interference is active. The work releases the source code to support community use for systematic validation of systems in actual operating environments rather than relying only on simulations.

Core claim

StormWave enables seamless composition and runtime switching among a wide range of narrowband and wideband waveforms, while supporting multiple digital modulations, adaptive coding, and multi-radio orchestration with real-time spectrum visualization. Ground experiments demonstrate clear waveform- and modulation-dependent interference effects under realistic propagation conditions, while A2A experiments reveal pronounced distance-dependent constellation distortion and access-symbol degradation under active interference.

What carries the argument

StormWave, the open-source portable SDR platform for over-the-air interference generation and monitoring that supports waveform composition, adaptive coding, multi-radio orchestration, and real-time spectrum visualization.

If this is right

  • Different waveforms and modulations produce distinct interference impacts that can be measured under realistic propagation.
  • Aerial links show increasing constellation distortion and symbol degradation as distance grows during active interference.
  • Multi-radio orchestration enables testing of coordinated systems in field settings.
  • Real-time spectrum visualization supports immediate assessment during live experiments.
  • Open-source release allows others to extend the platform for additional resilience tests.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • The platform could support development of distance-aware protocols for aerial networks based on the observed degradation patterns.
  • Similar portable tools might enable standardized field testing across urban or indoor environments.
  • Integration with adaptive algorithms could turn observed spectrum data into real-time mitigation responses.
  • Community extensions may focus on higher-frequency bands where propagation differs from the tested scenarios.

Load-bearing premise

The field experiments accurately capture representative real-world propagation and interference conditions, and the platform's capabilities translate directly to practical generalizable resilience evaluation without unstated hardware, software, or environmental limitations.

What would settle it

A direct comparison in which actual operational interference in wireless networks produces resilience outcomes that differ markedly from those measured with StormWave under matched conditions would challenge the platform's value for realistic evaluation.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2605.04290 by Chenzhi Zhao, Dimitris A. Pados, Elizabeth Serena Bentley, George Sklivanitis, Guanying Sun, Maxwell McManus, Nicholas Mastronarde, Prem Sagar Pattanshetty Vasanth Kumar, Sidharth Santhi Nivas, Yuqing Cui, Zhangyu Guan, Zhaoxi Zhang.

Figure 1
Figure 1. Figure 1: Overall System Architecture of StormWave. lack seamless runtime waveform switching, unified support for user-defined waveform integration, tightly coupled visu￾alization and control, and automatic management of multiple transceivers. Practical considerations such as portability, envi￾ronmental resilience, and continuous operation in disconnected field environments are rarely addressed. Contributions. To br… view at source ↗
Figure 2
Figure 2. Figure 2: StormWave user interaction design flowchart. commonly used in interference studies, their more limited dynamic range, driver maturity, or interface stability make them less suitable for StormWave’s concurrent transmission and monitoring requirements. As illustrated in view at source ↗
Figure 4
Figure 4. Figure 4: Scenario 1: Ground field with surrounding blockages view at source ↗
Figure 5
Figure 5. Figure 5: Measured link throughput under StormWave-generated view at source ↗
Figure 6
Figure 6. Figure 6: Scenario 2: StormWave test in open field environment view at source ↗
Figure 7
Figure 7. Figure 7: Measured link throughput behavior in the presence of view at source ↗
Figure 10
Figure 10. Figure 10: StormWave seamless switching across waveforms. view at source ↗
read the original abstract

This paper presents \emph{StormWave}, an open-source, portable software-defined Radio Frequency (RF) interference generation and monitoring platform designed for realistic field-based evaluation of the resilience of wireless communication systems. StormWave enables seamless composition and runtime switching among a wide range of narrowband and wideband waveforms, while supporting multiple digital modulations, adaptive coding, and multi-radio orchestration with real-time spectrum visualization. We evaluate the effectiveness of StormWave through both outdoor ground and air-to-air (A2A) experiments. Ground experiments demonstrate clear waveform- and modulation-dependent interference effects under realistic propagation conditions, while A2A experiments reveal pronounced distance-dependent constellation distortion and access-symbol degradation under active interference. The StormWave source code will be released to the community, with the expectation that StormWave will be used as a flexible, extensible, and field-ready platform for systematically validating interference resilience of wireless systems under realistic operating conditions.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Referee Report

0 major / 3 minor

Summary. The paper presents StormWave, an open-source portable SDR platform based on USRP B210 hardware and GNU Radio software for generating and monitoring RF interference to evaluate resilience of terrestrial and aerial wireless systems. It supports waveform composition and runtime switching across narrowband/wideband signals, multiple digital modulations, adaptive coding, multi-radio orchestration, and real-time spectrum visualization. Effectiveness is shown via outdoor ground experiments demonstrating waveform- and modulation-dependent interference effects under realistic propagation, and A2A experiments showing distance-dependent constellation distortion and access-symbol degradation, supported by quantitative metrics such as EVM, BER, and spectrum plots along with hardware specifications, calibration steps, and explicit switching logic.

Significance. If the described capabilities and experimental observations hold, the work offers a practical, extensible, and field-ready open-source tool that fills a gap in portable platforms for over-the-air resilience testing beyond simulations. Credit is due for the reproducible setup (detailed USRP B210 specs, antenna models, GNU Radio flowgraphs with switching logic, calibration procedures) and for supplying both qualitative and quantitative results (EVM, BER, spectrum plots) from controlled ground and A2A trials, which directly support the central claim of enabling generalizable interference evaluation.

minor comments (3)
  1. Abstract: The statement that 'The StormWave source code will be released' should be updated to include a specific repository link, DOI, or release timeline to strengthen the open-source commitment.
  2. Methods section: While hardware and software architecture are described, a brief table summarizing the supported waveform types, modulations, and switching latencies would improve clarity for readers seeking to replicate the multi-radio orchestration.
  3. Experiments: The A2A trials report distance-dependent effects; adding a short discussion of environmental variables (e.g., wind, altitude variation) or a note on trial repetition counts would help readers assess robustness without altering the core results.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

0 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for the positive assessment of StormWave and the recommendation for minor revision. The report raises no specific major comments, so we have no points to address point-by-point.

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No significant circularity identified

full rationale

The manuscript is a platform description and experimental report with no mathematical derivations, equations, predictions, or fitted parameters. Claims rest on explicit hardware specifications (USRP B210, antennas), GNU Radio flowgraph architecture with switching logic, calibration procedures, and direct empirical metrics (EVM, BER, spectrum plots) from controlled ground and A2A trials. No self-citation chains, ansatzes, or renamings reduce any result to its own inputs by construction; the work is self-contained against external benchmarks.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 1 axioms · 0 invented entities

The central claim rests on standard engineering assumptions about SDR hardware fidelity and outdoor wireless propagation; no free parameters, new physical entities, or ad-hoc axioms are introduced beyond domain-standard practices.

axioms (1)
  • domain assumption Standard assumptions about SDR hardware performance and wireless propagation models hold in the experimental setups.
    Invoked implicitly when interpreting the ground and A2A results as representative of realistic conditions.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5523 in / 1311 out tokens · 76222 ms · 2026-05-08T17:29:39.859607+00:00 · methodology

discussion (0)

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