Evaluation of Wireless Mesh Network Implementation for Backup Network Access

Abstract

Mobile AdHoc NETworks (MANETs) have been identified as a key emerging technology for scenarios in which IEEE 802.11 or cellular communications are either infeasible, inefficient, or cost-ineffective. Smartphones are the most adequate network nodes in many of these scenarios, but it is not straightforward to build a network with them. We extensively survey existing possibilities to build applications on top of ad-hoc smartphone networks for experimentation purposes, and introduce a taxonomy to classify them. We present AdHocDroid, an Android package that creates an IP-level MANET of (rooted) Android smartphones. AdHocDroid supports standard TCP/IP applications, providing real smartphone IEEE 802.11 MANET and the capability to easily change the routing protocol. We validate the MANET with off-the-shelf applications and experimental performance evaluation, including network metrics and battery discharge rate.