Research Testbed for Field Testing of Multi-Hop Cellular Networks using Mobile Relays

Abstract

Multi-hop Cellular Networks have recently emerged as a promising technology to overcome the current limitations of cellular systems through the integration of cellular and ad-hoc networking technologies. Several studies have addressed the challenges of Multi-hop Cellular Networks based on Mobile Relays, and demonstrated their performance and potential to improve the user-perceived Quality of Service. However, most of these studies are based on analytical and simulation techniques, and there is yet the need for field tests that confirm their performance. In this context, this paper introduces a novel testbed to investigate Multi-hop Cellular Networks using Mobile Relays through field testing. In addition, this paper also presents the first field test results that demonstrate the performance improvements that can be achieved with Multi-Hop Cellular Networks over traditional cellular systems.