A Low-Cost Open-Source Testbed for Experimental Analysis of Ultra-Dense Wireless Networks

Network densification has been a key contributor to the performance improvements of the wireless ecosystem, particularly in terms of aggregate capacity. In other words, adding more base stations (BSs) or access points (APs) allows for spatial reuse of RF resources. In expectation of a continued increase in network density, we present a low-cost and open-source testbed design for experimental evaluation of network performance in ultra-dense wireless networks (UDNs). The testbed architecture emulates network conditions by generating wireless traffic on distributed Raspberry Pi microprocessors. We have run sample experiments to demonstrate performance impact of a variable number of active devices, device transmit power, and environmental channel effects. The testbed software and setup description are also openly available to the research community in our GitHub repository.