Insights from Experimental Research on Distributed Channel Assignment in Wireless Testbeds

This article presents the DES-Chan framework for experimental research on distributed channel assignment algorithms in wireless mesh testbeds. The implementation process of channel assignment algorithms is a difficult task for the researcher since common operating systems do not support channel assignment algorithms. DES-Chan provides a set of common services required by distributed channel assignment algorithms and eases the implementation effort. The results of experiments to measure the channel characteristics in terms of intra-path and inter-path interference according to the channel distance on the DES-Testbed are also presented. The DES-Testbed is a multi-radio WMN with more than 100 nodes located on the campus of the Freie Universität Berlin. These measurements are an important input to validate common assumptions of WMNs and derive more realistic, measurement-based interference models in contrast to simplified heuristics.