Experiences from the Design, Deployment, and Usage of the UCSB MeshNet Testbed

Henrik Lundgren, Krishna Ramachandran, Elizabeth Belding-Royer, Kevin Almeroth,
Michael Benny, Andrew Hewatt, Alexander Touma, Amit Jardosh

In this paper we report on our effort and experience to design, deploy
and use our 30 node wireless mesh testbed, the UCSB MeshNet.  Compared 
to simulation, the construction and utilization of a wireless mesh 
testbed poses many new challenges. We discuss the challenges with 
distributed testbed management, non-intrusive and distributed
monitoring, and node status visualization. These are vital components
in a sustainable wireless mesh testbed, but at the same time,
non-trivial to design and realize. As a case study, we present the
UCSB MeshNet architecture, including its management, monitoring, and
visualization systems. We share our lessons learned from this effort
and believe that they will be valuable to other researchers who
develop experimental wireless mesh networks.