On software tools and stack architectures for wireless network experiments

Simulation is still the most widely adopted performance evaluation technique in mobile ad hoc network research, in spite of a growing number of questions about the fidelity of this technique. Implementation-based testing and evaluation of wireless networks tends to produce believable results, but the technique sometimes suffers from poor repeatability, high implementation cost, and complex experimental logistics. The topic of this paper is software tools to enable implementation-based experimental research on wireless networks. We review some of the existing tools and propose the Flexible Internetwork Stack (FINS) framework, our open-source solution for network protocol implementation, integration, and testing. FINS aims to provide researchers with monitoring, logging, and reconfiguring utilities similar to the ones provided by simulation environments or emulation testbeds.