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

A better photo of the March 3 Cuyamaca Peak popsicles, provided by SDG&E. Some of the equipment on the tower is part of HPWREN.

HPWREN 2021 - 2022 Accomplishments

19 February 2023

This is a summary of the HPWREN 2021 and 2022 accomplishments. The impact of the 2020 Covid outbreak continued to be felt throughout 2021, while all but diminishing during 2022. Despite related challenges, HPWREN continued to make good progress, including increased bandwidth and network reach, as well as updated technologies. HPWREN accomplishments during this period, in addition to ongoing routine maintenance and repair of infrastructure, included the build out of new camera and network backbone sites with new Ubiquiti and Siae radio equipment, expansions beyond San Diego County into Orange and Riverside counties, and major upgrades to our networking and storage infrastructure. This ultimately culminated in the adoption of AWS cloud storage services.

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

20031026 The Morning After the Cedar Fire Ignition

This video is from the morning after the October 2003 Cedar Fire ignition, showing activities at the CDF Ramona Air Attack Base. It consists of 2078 images at their full 1288x968 pixel resolution. Many takeoffs and landings are shown while then at least some of the San Diego news media were claiming CDF aircraft were not flying, due to the Santa Ana winds. The HPWREN camera at the air base had only been installed a few months prior to that.