An in-situ measurement approach for IEEE 802.11 wireless multihop networks

A wireless multihop network is a communications network composed of nodes equipped with wireless interfaces and organized in an ad hoc manner. It has become an attractive and practical solution for providing flexible and extended wireless coverage over large areas. Measurement of physical layer quantities can provide useful information in the design of networking protocols and cross-layer optimization. In this paper, we present a cost-effective approach of performing physical-layer and link-layer measurements by exploiting the capabilities of inexpensive commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) wireless routers and open-source software tools. Our experimental results show that the measurements made using inexpensive wireless routers are consistent with theoretical models and hence reliable. It is therefore possible to utilize the measurements to devise models or algorithms that will improve the performance of networking protocols.