Evaluating the performance of wireless ad hoc network testbed with smart antenna

Abstract

We have developed a wireless ad hoc network testbed using a smart antenna. Our target is to experimentally assess the performance of MAC (medium access control) and routing protocols, when the directional and adaptive beam patterns are used for data communication. This test bed consists of a smart antenna, wireless module and notebook PC with PCMCIA card. Beam control and directional MAC functions are implemented in a wireless module. The directional MAC function not only handles the four way handshake with the instruction of beam pattern to beam control module, but also periodically maintains the directions and signal levels of surrounding terminals as angle-signal table (AST) in order to realize SDMA (space division multiple access). We present the initial experiments of directional MAC with AST and show that the simultaneous communication is possible in a square topology.