Ad Hoc Networks Testbed Using a Practice Smart Antenna with IEEE802.15.4 Wireless Modules

Recent studies on directional media access protocols (MACs) using smart antennas for wireless ad hoc networks have shown that directional MACs outperform against traditional omini-directional MACs. Those studies evaluate the performance mainly on simulations, where antenna beam is assumed to be ideal, i.e., with neither side-lobes nor back-lobes. Propagation conditions are also assumed to be mathematical model without realistic fading. In this paper, we develop at first a testbed for directional MAC protocols which enables to investigate performance of MAC protocols in the real environment. It incorporates ESPAR as a practical smart antenna, IEEE802.15.4/ZigBee, GPS and gyro modules to allow easy installment of different MAC protocols. To our knowledge, it is the first compact testbed with a practical smart antenna for directional MACs. We implement a directional MAC protocol called SWAMP to evaluate it in the real environment. The empirical discussion based on the experimental results shows that the degradation of the protocol with ideal antennas, and that the protocol still achieves the SDMA effect of spatial reuse and the effect of communication range extension.