High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network

The High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN), a University of California San Diego partnership project led by the San Diego Supercomputer Center and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography's Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, supports Internet-data applications in the research, education, and public safety realms.

HPWREN functions as a collaborative, Internet-connected cyberinfrastructure. The project supports a high-bandwidth wireless backbone and access data network in San Diego, Riverside, and Imperial counties in areas that are typically not well-served by other technologies to reach the Internet. This includes backbone locations, typically sited on mountain tops, to connect often hard-to-reach areas in the remote Southern California back country.

Recent Image

Prescribed fire at Mt. Laguna on 14 November 2023

Palomar Observatory receives data via laser beam from far beyond the Moon

22 November 2023

A few weeks ago, NASA's Psyche spacecraft was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket. This mission has enabled a new milestone at the Palomar Observatory, where its large 5-meter single-mirror telescope is now able to receive data streams via a laser beam from space. This advanced communication method is transmitting information from a distance well beyond the Moon, marking a significant advancement in deep space data transmission.

HPWREN Time Lapse or

Live Stream Videos

Fires, weather conditions, flooding, and other public safety conditions are scenarios where real-time sensor data distributions can become important aspects for situational awareness. HPWREN can now provide live feeds from most of its cameras, in addition to the post-processed videos shown at:

https://www.youtube.com/user/hpwren/videos

Recent video

Water flow at the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve

These multi-day time lapse videos show the Tijuana River near its outflow into the Pacific Ocean at the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. They span the time period of 00:00 on 27 August 2023 until morning of 1 September 2023 via approximately 7,700 images of 3072x2048 pixel each, and combined into a 30 frames-per-second video. There are two videos from different cameras, one being a more light sensitive monochrome, and the other shows color. The two cameras are side-by-side in the same enclosure, while highlighting somewhat different aspects. Rising and falling tides are easily visible.