Multi-client emulation platform for performance testing of high density 802.11 networks

During the last years the world has witnessed the great success of the IEEE 802.11 standard with an exponential increase in the number of Wi-Fi networks deployed around the globe. This fact was also accompanied by a great evolution of the technology, originally created for a few clients and today supporting thousands of users in a single wireless LAN. One of the most important verticals for Wi-Fi today is education, with several one-to-one programs running around the world, such as the nationwide Plan Ceibal in Uruguay. The present paper describes the development of an 802.11 portable multi-client testing platform, which enables the emulation of a typical high density classroom scenario to test the wireless infrastructure. The prototype was successfully validated for two different laptop models used by Plan Ceibal, considering both throughput and lower network layers performance. The results indicate this might be the first step towards an open platform to enable active in-site Wi-Fi performance testing for large scale scenarios.