FlexMAC: A wireless protocol development and evaluation platform based on commodity hardware

Abstract

Developing and evaluating wireless protocols is challenging because it requires flexible network interface hardware, which is not readily available. To reduce the efforts of conducting realistic wireless experiment, we have developed FlexMAC, a wireless protocol development and evaluation platform based on commodity hardware. FlexMAC targets CSMA wireless protocols and allows customization of functions such as backoff, retransmission, and packet timing. In this demo, we will show that FlexMAC is a useful tool for wireless protocol development. We will demonstrate two projects that are developed using FlexMAC, including a software-based 802.11 implementation and an opportunistic relaying protocol in 802.11.