Testbed implementation for Autonomic Network Performance Management of wireless mesh networks

In previous work, we proposed an Autonomic Network Performance Management (ANPM) framework that follows a control-theoretic approach. We built and verified the framework using network simulations but there were many questions needed to be accurately answered concerning the feasibility of such framework in real networks. In this paper, we are going from simulation to testbed implementation to accurately answer such key questions. We use over-the-counter platforms and open source software to build the test-bed that supports 700 MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5 GHz frequency bands. Multithreaded code is written to verify the ability of the ANPM framework to react, in a timely manner, to the increase in network traffic load.