Global view regarding links of a wireless local area network

[BWe are developing a solution to monitor multi-hop wireless LANs. In this paper, we first identify the constraints that are specific to our scope area: the range and quality of links are modified as time and position change. This has led us to a moving topology characterized by the existence of links and their quality values between a given emitter and receiver. A station can know some of its neighbouring links and the given associated information. These data constitute a local view for each station. A local view is defined using listening MPDUs which are specific to multi-hop networks, and also using inference rules. We present the global view required by stations monitoring the network. It is built up and updated from extracts of local views. The proposed functional architecture benefits from management principles and aims to reach a solution that could be extended (analysing various multi-hop networks, monitoring other parameters...). This preliminary paper draws the shape of the tool that we are developing and characterizes network topology from a quality point of view