Performance analysis of an ad hoc network for emergency and collaborative environments

Ad hoc networks can be used for quickly set up small spontaneous networks, such as in emergency situations or during sessions of cooperative works as in conferences, teaching rooms or meetings. Real-life tests of such networks are invaluable in order to assess models used in simulation. However, the number of factors affecting the performance of an ad hoc network is high, theoretically infinite. There are, for example, system factors, such as routing protocols, MAC and physical layer protocols and their cross-layer interaction, as well as environment factors, such the presence of walls, foliage and surrounding moving objects. In order to optimize protocols, it is important both to design repeatable experiments of the network and to identify the parameters which really affect the system behavior. We accomplish the former demand by building a simple network by means of off-the-shelf hardware and software. For the latter point, we propose to use methods of statistical testing theory to identify these parameters in a compact manner. In particular, we use OLSR as a routing protocol. Results from real experiments in outdoor and indoor scenarios confirm the horizon effect of ad hoc multi-hop networks and show that there is a treatment effect caused by the window size of OLSR.