An Open Wireless Mesh Testbed Architecture with Data Collection and Software Distribution Platform

A Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) is a fast growing network, which is now a popular technology for providing wireless Internet connection to industry as well as community. A WMN is a collection of nodes (usually a computer with one or mint: wireless Network Interface Cards (NICs)) that are connected to one another with single or multiple hop ad hoc links forming a mesh backbone network. Ad hoc links are popular in mesh connectivity as they are self-configuring and self-healing. In this paper, we discuss WMN design and deployment issues with reference to our WiSEMesh testbed. WiSEMesh has 56 nodes deployed in the campus area providing internet connection for over 1000 users. Each node consists of a small form factor computer with three wireless NICs. We developed the WiSEMesh node software stack that contains Unix based operating system, wireless NIC drivers, tools such as DHCP server, NAT etc. WiSEMesh has properties like scalability, open source operating software, heterogeneous hardware support, high performance, globally reachable, and easy to configure network. Hence, it can spread faster as a community wireless network and also provide a flexible platform for testing communication network layers. We also address design issues of a Network Management System (NMS) that can be implemented in any wireless network. Our NMS named WiVi provides platform for software distribution and network configuration with an elaborate data collection and storage facilities. For a large and scalable network like WiSEMesh, a massive database needs to be designed. One of the WiVi design objectives is to provide a robust, flexible and scalable database. WiVi achieves database design goals by implementing a concept "network in database" where network is logically divided into hierarchy of hardware components and each component is treated as an object in the database. The "network in database" implementation guarantees data collection and storage flexibility. By implementing the NMS software distribution platform and the hardware independent WiSEMesh node software stack, our testbed is confirmed to achieve scalability.