OpenAirMesh—An Experimental Platform for Cooperative Mesh Networks

Abstract—OpenAirInterface (www.openairinterface.org) is an experimental,real-time hardware,and software,platform,for air- interface experimentation. It comes in two configurations, cellular and,cooperative,mesh,network,topologies. Here we,present the platform,architecture,for mesh,networks. The network,is organized in clusters, where dynamically-allocated cluster-heads (CHs) manage,radio,resources. CHs are,typically the,best- connected,nodes,in a particular,geographical,area,and,are synchronized,in a distributed fashion by using special relaying nodes on the cluster boundaries. The physical (PHY) layer of the platform,targets WiMax and UMTS LTE like networks,and,thus,uses MIMO-OFDMA as modulation,and multiple access technique. The current hardware supports,5MHz bandwidth,and,two,transmit/receive antennas. The media,access,(MAC) layer of the,platform,supports,an abundant two-way signalling for enabling collaboration, schedul- ing protocols as well as traffic and,channel,measurements.,The platform is designed for a full software-radio implementation, in the sense that all protocol layers run on the host PCs under,the control of a Linux real time operation,system. Applications of the OpenAirMesh,platform,include,demon- stration,of broadband,ad,hoc,communications,systems,for public,safety units as well as demonstration,of collaborative communication,in a cognitive radio system. In addition,to the basic architecture of OpenAirMesh we highlight some,application examples.