A MIMO demonstration of Hydra

The evaluation of cross-layer protocols for wireless networking requires analysis, simulation, and experimentation. The final step in this process is often overlooked, but is equally important. Prototyping and experimentation with testbeds not only provides a mechanism for evaluating the performance of wireless networks, but also provide keen insight into the design of new wireless protocols. Hydra, a flexible wireless network testbed developed at UT Austin, was designed to investigate cross-layer issues in wireless protocol design. In this paper, we propose a demonstration of the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) functionality of Hydra. We will investigate rate and spatial mode adaptation using this MIMO system.