CCSR - Facilities - Wireless Network Testbed

The Wireless Network Testbed, or WNT provides a complete research platform to actually implement the integration of wireless and wired voice, multimedia and data services. Proof of the feasibility of integration of legacy and forthcoming mobile/cellular telecommunication networks with data networks and broadcast technologies into a homogeneous wireless communication platform is one of the major objectives of this testbed. The WNT, a campus-wide wireless network, facilitates the evaluation and optimisation of various technologies (e.g. ad-hoc routing, run-time protocol stack reconfiguration, reconfiguration management, etc.) developed within CCSR.

The uniqueness of the WNT is the possibility to undertake practical research in mobile and fixed-wired data-communication systems based on mixed transmission technologies.

The system 'beyond 3G' can be seen as the Network of Networks, incorporating the existing (and future) infrastructure into an integrated communication environment. All IP networks are regarded as the technology able to connect the various networks, the WNT provides the platform to investigate issues like: mobility management, multimedia QoS, service discovery and routing in PANs, reconfigurability, ad hoc networking, etc. The wireless part of the WNT is based on the IEEE802.11 standard for wireless data communications, and IP enabled network as the infrastructure. The wireless network offers ad hoc and infrastructure connectivity, whilst the hard-wired section consists of LAN and ATM networking equipments. A SUN Enterprise 10000 is used as the central network management server.

In this context, the major research objectives of the WNT are:

• investigation of the features of 'All-IP' Networks.
• service discovery in mobile environments.
• reconfigurability support for wireless communication systems.

The architecture of the Wireless Network Testbed is as follows:

For more details about the Wireless Network Testbed, contact: Prof. Rahim Tafazolli.