Abstract
Due to their easy-to-deploy and self-healing features, WMNs (Wireless Mesh Networks) are emerging as a new promising technology with a rich set of applications. While the IEEE standardization of this new technology is still in progress, its main traits are already set, e.g., architecture and MAC routing. WMNs are attracting considerable research in academia and industry as well, but the lack of open-source testbeds is restricting such a research to simulation tools. The main problem with simulation tools is that they do not reflect the complexity of RF propagation, especially in indoor environments, of which IEEE 802.11s WMNs are an example. This paper presents an open-source implementation of an indoor IEEE 802.11s WMN testbed. The implementation is transparent, easy-to-deploy, and both the source code and deployment instructions are available online. The implementation can serve as a blueprint for the WMN research community to deploy their own testbeds, negating the shortcomings of using simulation tools. By delving into the testbed implementation subtleties, this paper is shedding further light on the details of the ongoing IEEE 802.11s standard. Major encountered implementation problems (e.g., clients association, Internetworking, and supporting multiple gateways) are identified and addressed. To ascertain the functionality of the testbed, both UDP and TCP traffic are supported and operational. The testbed uses the default IEEE 802.11s HWMP (Hybrid Wireless Mesh Protocol) routing protocol along with the default IEEE 802.11s Airtime routing metric.
Highlights
Due to their easy-to-deploy and self-healing features, WMNs [1] are emerging as a promising technology
Providing last-mile wireless Internet access is one of the most promising applications as WMNs tremendously reduce the cost and the configuration overhead when compared with current solutions, e.g., Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) LANs
We propose a time-efficient mechanism that maps back to the original IEEE 802.11 MAC addresses and their associating access points, and handles mobile stations hand-offs
Summary
Due to their easy-to-deploy and self-healing features, WMNs [1] are emerging as a promising technology. WMNs are easy-to-deploy as setting a WMN involves minimal wiring and configuration overhead: Placing the WMN nodes and powering them On is all what is required to operate a WMN. Providing last-mile wireless Internet access is one of the most promising applications as WMNs tremendously reduce the cost and the configuration overhead when compared with current solutions, e.g., Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) LANs. the proliferation of Wi-Fi LANs played a tremendous role in the promising success of WMNs. and even though very successful, Wi-Fi LANs still suffer from the cost and the overhead of setting the wired backbone that connects the different APs (Access Points)
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