Measurements from an 802.11b mobile ad hoc network

This paper analyzes the characteristics of a multi-hop 802.11b mobile ad hoc network. We present data gathered from a mobile network of 20 devices carried by test users over 5 days in an indoor environment. The data is analyzed with regard to (i) the number of reachable devices, (ii) the node degree, (iii) the average path length, (iv) the link lifetime, (v) and the route lifetime. Despite the relatively high node density and low node mobility in our setup, we observe frequent network partitioning and considerably high path lengths (as large as 7 hops). However, the usability of these long paths is questionable as their lifetime is short. We believe that our measurements are representative for typical indoor environments and that the results can and should be used for evaluating networking protocols as well as to validate existing or to derive new mobility models