Concept and design of the hybrid distributed embedded systems testbed

Abstract

Wireless mesh networks are an emerging and versatile communication technology. The most common application of these networks is to provide access of any number of users to the world wide Internet. They can be set up by Internet service providers or even individuals joined in communities. Due to the wireless medium that is shared by all participants, effects like short-time fading, or the multi-hop property of the network topology many issues are still in the focus of research. Testbeds are a powerful tool to study wireless mesh networks as close as possible to real world application scenarios. In this technical report we describe the design, architecture, and implementation of our work-in-progress wireless testbed at Freie Universität Berlin consisting of 100 mesh routers that span multiple buildings. The testbed is hybrid as it combines wireless mesh network routers with a wireless sensor network.