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Device Localisation Through Wireless Mesh Networks

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Device Localisation Through Wireless Mesh Networks Bachelor Informatica Device localisation through wire- less mesh networks: A perfor- mance analysis Jason Kerssens June 17, 2019 Informatica | Universiteit van Amsterdam Supervisor(s): dr. R. G. Belleman; R. de Graaf 2 Abstract A wireless mesh network (WMN) is a type of wireless ad hoc network. It is an easily deployable, self-configuring network which does not make use of any preexisting infrastruc- ture. In this paper an implementation for a WMN making use of the Better Approach To Ad-hoc Networking advanced (batman-adv) routing protocol is described. An application to send GPS data over this network is described as well. A performance analysis is carried out to observe the impact that the number of hops and the signal strength have on metrics such as throughput, jitter, packet loss and round-trip time. We observe that the network's performance is impacted significantly by higher hop counts and lower signal strengths. 3 4 Contents 1 Introduction 7 1.1 Research question . .7 1.2 Structure . .8 2 Theoretical background 9 2.1 Wireless Mesh Network . .9 2.2 Localisation . 10 2.3 Routing protocol . 11 2.4 Related work . 13 3 Design 15 3.1 Network design . 15 3.2 Network hardware . 16 3.3 Wireless communication protocol . 17 3.4 Routing protocol . 18 4 Implementation 19 4.1 Setting up the network . 19 4.2 Messages . 19 4.3 Application . 20 5 Experiments 23 5.1 Round trip time . 24 5.2 Throughput . 24 5.3 Packet loss . 24 5.4 Jitter . 25 5.5 Signal strength . 25 6 Results 27 6.1 Round trip time . 27 6.2 Throughput . 27 6.3 Packet loss . 28 6.4 Jitter . 29 6.5 Signal strength . 30 7 Discussion 31 8 Conclusion 33 8.1 Future research . 33 5 6 CHAPTER 1 Introduction Oftentimes mobile phones are able to communicate with other devices by connecting to the In- ternet through a Wi-Fi access point or through cellular service. Wi-Fi access points are not always available, however, and cellular service may in some cases be unavailable or unreliable. For the average user, not having access to the Internet may be an inconvenience. In other cases, such as in regards to public safety, communication is paramount. In these cases, an alternative approach should be taken if communication over the Internet is not possible. One approach is to set up a local area network (LAN) such that devices can still communicate with other lo- cal devices. If this approach is taken, it is desirable to be able to easily and quickly set up a LAN. With the increasing number of mobile phones equipped with wireless data communication technologies, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, wireless networking has become ever more impor- tant. An advantage of a wireless network over a wired network is that it does have to rely on any preexisting (wired) infrastructure. Instead, it is possible to establish direct connections between devices, called ad hoc connections. By having multiple ad hoc connections, a network can be created, called an ad hoc network. One type of ad hoc network is a Wireless Mesh Network (WMN). WMNs are easily deployable because they are self-configuring and make no use of preexisting infrastructures, making them ideal in situations where local communication is needed. WMNs have been used for public safety applications, being deployed as an Incident Area Network (IAN) which is a temporary network specifically created for incidents [1]. In such cases, knowing the location of all social workers within the area could improve their work efficiency. A way to localise the devices connected to the network may be desired in such cases. 1.1 Research question This research aims to implement a stand-alone wireless mesh network for local communication and to explore the possibilities of localisation of connected devices through such a network, using GPS. The aim of this network is for it to be implemented in crowded areas, such as at festivals, where Internet connections may be unreliable. The GPS data can be used to track the festival's crew members. The network's performance will be evaluated on various aspects. The research questions we will answer are: How can a wireless mesh network be implemented such that the devices connected to it can be localised? How does the implemented wireless mesh network perform? 7 1.2 Structure The following chapters are organized as follows. In chapter 2 the theoretical background is dis- cussed. Chapter 3 discusses the design of the network. In chapter 4 the implementation of the design choices from chapter 3 are discussed. Chapter 5 discusses the experiments done to analyse the network's performance and in chapter 6 the results of these experiments are shown. Finally chapter 7 and 8 are the discussion and conclusion respectively. 8 CHAPTER 2 Theoretical background 2.1 Wireless Mesh Network A wireless mesh network (WMN) is defined as \a two-tier architecture based on wireless multi- hop transmission" [2]. Generally speaking, a WMN consists of mesh clients and mesh routers. These are the two tiers of the architecture. The mesh routers form the backbone of the WMN and create the infrastructure of the network. These routers have minimal mobility and perform routing and configuration [3]. A mesh client can connect to a WMN by establishing a connection to any of the mesh routers. The mesh client can move freely between mesh routers without losing connection. A WMN can either serve as an extension to an already existing network, which may be connected to the Internet, or it can be a stand-alone network [2]. In [3] three types of WMNs are defined: • Infrastructure/Backbone WMN: A WMN consisting of mesh routers forming a self- configuring and self-healing infrastructure of the network to which clients can connect to. Routing and configuration is performed by the mesh routers. • Client WMN: Clients connect to each other forming a network. They also perform routing and configuration themselves. This is essentially a regular mobile ad hoc network (MANET). • Hybrid WMN: A combination of the above WMNs where both routers and clients per- form routing and configuration. Clients can be connected to each other in ad hoc fashion, extending the range of the mesh network. From this point onward, when we speak of a WMN we refer to an infrastructure/backbone WMN. Traditional wireless local area networks (WLANs) consist of access points which are con- nected via a wired link to a network switch, which in turn may serve as a gateway to the Internet. A WMN differs from a traditional WLAN in the sense that it is a wireless, self-healing, self-configuring network with multi-hopping capabilities. The differences between the two types of networks can be seen in figure 2.1 While traditional WLANs rely on wired connections and preexisting (wired) network infras- tructures, WMNs do not. Instead, in the case of WMNs, wireless ad hoc connections between mesh routers are established. When a link between two mesh routers is severed or a mesh router disconnects from the network, an alternative route can often be taken to a destination. In the case of a traditional WLAN, when a link is severed, there is no alternative path that can be taken. This makes WMNs more robust and this also means that there is no single point of failure in a WMN. In the case of WMNs, when a mesh router has to send packets to another mesh router which is not its direct neighbour, it can still reach it by means of multi-hopping. This is when 9 Figure 2.1: Traditional WLAN (a) versus Wireless Mesh Network (b) [2] data is relayed from one mesh router to the next until the destination is reached. This is not the case for traditional WLANs. Here the packets are sent directly to the switch over a wired link [2]. A mesh network can be either fully connected, meaning each node is connected to all other nodes in the network, or it is partially connected, meaning that each node only connects to one or a few nodes. The advantage of a fully connected network is that it is more robust, as there are more paths towards any destination. In a fully connected network there would also be no need for multi-hopping, as there is a direct connection between every node. However, considering that the signal range of mesh routers is limited in practice, implementing a fully connected mesh network is not realistic. 2.2 Localisation There are many different approaches to determining the location of devices within a network. One such method is by calculating the distance between a device and an access point. This can be achieved through the Subtle Partial Range Aware (SPRA) method. The position of the device can then be found by looking at overlapping ranges of devices using the Ring Overlapping based Localisation (ROL) algorithm [4]. Other methods include Wi-Fi positioning systems (WPS) which make use of Wi-Fi signals to determine the position of a device. They may, for example, make use of the received signal strength indicator (RSSI) between devices and access points to determine the position. Fingerprinting is one of such WPS techniques. With this technique the RSSI from nearby access points at various positions is recorded and the combinations of RSSIs and the corresponding positions, called fingerprints, are stored in a database. The acquisition of data is done in advance, before the network is used for localisation. Once sufficient data is acquired, the position of a device can be determined by comparing its RSSI values with the stored fingerprints and matching it with the position of the fingerprint which is most similar.
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