Title
ViPMesh: A virtual prototyping framework for IEEE 802.11s wireless mesh networks.
Abstract
WLAN mesh networks are characterized by their flexible and low-cost deployment, scalability, and self-healing capabilities. The new WLAN standard IEEE 802.11s introduces low-level mesh interoperability. However, building large-scale real-world test beds and reproducible setups is challenging and costly. In the majority of research works, network simulation is preferred over practical measurements. Here, the main disadvantage exists in simplified device and protocol models restricting the comparability to practical implementations. In contrast, using device emulation still requires the simulation of wireless channel and environment models. Consequently, a combination of both emulation and simulation is needed to enable virtual prototyping of real applications and protocols in WLAN mesh networks. Nevertheless, the computation of complex wireless channel effects requires a decoupling of wall clock and simulation time. Therefore, we present ViPMesh, a virtual prototyping framework for IEEE 802.11s and its Linux reference implementation. ViPMesh relies on WLAN device emulation and nested virtualization using QEMU and Linux containers to support the analysis of real applications on top of an unmodified protocol stack. Adopting an alternative time source approach for QEMU, ViPMesh acts as discrete-event simulator. It further integrates channel and environment models with support for IEEE 802.11n MIMO techniques, high throughput modes, multi-channel operation, and node mobility. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first approach that combines the IEEE 802.11s reference implementation with the described simulation features. The functionality of ViPMesh is demonstrated in different example scenarios.
Year
Venue
Field
2016
WiMob
IEEE 802.11b-1999,Mesh networking,IEEE 802.1X,Inter-Access Point Protocol,IEEE 802.11e-2005,Computer science,IEEE 802.11s,Computer network,Emulation,Wireless mesh network,Embedded system
DocType
Citations 
PageRank 
Conference
0
0.34
References 
Authors
0
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Michael Rethfeldt1124.47
Hannes Raddatz201.69
Benjamin Beichler311.71
Björn Konieczek400.68
Dirk Timmermann5846101.52
Christian Haubelt679668.77
Peter Danielis700.34