Android-based Mobiles as Mobile Wireless Mesh Routers

Modern mobile phones are nearly as powerful as desktop PCs just from some years ago. Most notably they use IEEE 802.11 based transceivers which enables them to be used as mobile clients in wireless local area networks. In future networks we can expect mobile devices to act as routers that extent the coverage of the network and allow others to use the provided services.

The DES-Testbed is a wireless mesh network  where each node is equipped with at least three IEEE 802.11 network interface cards. One focus is the research of routing protocols in a testbed environment and to provide solutions for scenarios where these protocols fail. For this objective we provide the Distributed Embedded Systems – Simple and Extensible Routing-Framework for Testbeds (DES-SERT) which is available for Linux, BSD, and OSX. In the current state the DES-Testbed is a network of stationary nodes. In the next step mobile nodes shall extend the testbed and allow the research of mobility induced issues.

Objectives

• Compile, test, and maybe port our DES-SERT routing framework to the Android platform
• Provide suitable graphical user interfaces for configuration and monitoring
• Run experiments to evaluate the performance of routing protocols in a semi-mobile network
• Collaborate with other students that are developing tracing and monitoring applications for mobile networks