Lessons from a Full-Scale Multihop Wireless Ad Hoc Network Testbed

This article describes our experiences building a multihop wireless ad hoc network of eight nodes driving around a 700 m by 300 m site. Each node runs the Dynamic Source Routing protocol and interfaces seamlessly with existing Internet infrastructure and the Mobile IP protocol. We present quantitative results from data collected during runs of our testbed under a composite workload including voice, bulk data, and real-time data. Based on careful analysis of our data, we highlight radio propagation issues that network protocols will need to address in the future.