A real-world framework to evaluate cross-layer protocols for wireless multihop networks

The MAC layer implementation of today's commodity 802.11 wire-less network devices cannot easily be changed. But many cross-layer protocols for MANETs rely on a modified MAC layer. Therefore it is hard to test such protocols in real world environments. We propose to use a sensor network platform, the ESB sensor nodes, for this purpose. We present a software framework to make cross-layer protocol implementations and methodical experimentation feasible. The framework consists of software tools and modules for many frequently occurring tasks. It provides an extended link layer that increases the flexibility for protocol implementations on higher layers and it enables multihop communication on the ESB nodes by a network layer with static routing. An experimenter is supported by mechanisms to deploy routing tables, to gather network topol-ogy information and to obtain packet logs from all network nodes. We also give some experimentation results from an implementation of a cross-layer protocol using the framework.

[1]  Rolf Winter,et al.  ScatterWeb - Low Power Sensor Nodes and Energy Aware Routing , 2005, Proceedings of the 38th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.

[2]  Torsten Braun,et al.  GNU / Linux Implementation of a Position-based Routing Protocol , 2005 .

[3]  Laura Marie Feeney,et al.  An integrated approach to developing sensor network solutions , 2004 .

[4]  Koen Langendoen,et al.  An adaptive energy-efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks , 2003, SenSys '03.

[5]  Adam Dunkels,et al.  Solar-aware clustering in wireless sensor networks , 2004, Proceedings. ISCC 2004. Ninth International Symposium on Computers And Communications (IEEE Cat. No.04TH8769).

[6]  Fred L. Templin,et al.  Topology Dissemination Based on Reverse-Path Forwarding (TBRPF) , 2004, RFC.

[7]  Hartmut Ritter,et al.  Solar-Aware Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks , 2003, PWC.

[8]  Philippe Jacquet,et al.  Optimized Link State Routing Protocol (OLSR) , 2003, RFC.

[9]  Stefan Fischer,et al.  A Security Architecture for Mobile Wireless Sensor Networks , 2004, ESAS.

[10]  Deborah Estrin,et al.  An energy-efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks , 2002, Proceedings.Twenty-First Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies.

[11]  David A. Maltz,et al.  Dynamic Source Routing in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks , 1994, Mobidata.

[12]  Budhaditya Deb,et al.  A topology discovery algorithm for sensor networks with applications to network management , 2001 .

[13]  Satish K. Tripathi,et al.  Improving TCP performance in ad hoc networks using signal strength based link management , 2005, Ad Hoc Networks.

[14]  Alessandro Puiatti,et al.  Experiments with an enhanced MAC architecture for multi-hop wireless networks , 2005 .