Rapid Prototyping Over IEEE 802.11

This paper introduces Prawn, a tool for rapid prototyping communication protocols over IEEE 802.11 networks. Prawn provides a software environment that makes prototyping as quick, easy, and effortless as possible and thus allows researchers to conduct both functional assessment and performance evaluation as an integral part of the protocol design process. Since Prawn runs on real IEEE 802.11 nodes, prototypes can be evaluated and adjusted under realistic conditions. Once the prototype has been extensively tested and thoroughly validated, and its functional design tuned accordingly, it is then ready for implementation.