IEEE 802.11s Wireless Mesh Networks for Last-Mile Internet Access: An Open-Source Real-World Indoor Testbed Implementation

Due to their easy-to-deploy and self-healing features, WMNs (Wireless Mesh Networks) are emerging as a new promising technology with a rich set of applications. While the standardization of this new technology is still in progress, its main traits are already set in the IEEE 802.11s standard: WMN architecture and MAC Routing. WMNs are attracting considerable research in Academia (And industry as well). However, the lack of open-source testbeds is restricting such a research by limiting it to simulation tools. This paper presents an open-source implementation of a real-world indoor IEEE 802.11s WMN testbed: the implementation is transparent and easy-to-deploy as it uses off-the-shelf commodity hardware and software. The source code and deployment instructions are made available online.