A Channel Assignment Extension of Active Access-Point Configuration Algorithm for Elastic WLAN System and Its Implementation Using Raspberry Pi

Abstract

Recently, Wireless Local-Area Network (WLAN) has become prevailing as it provides flexible Internet access to users with low cost through installation of several types of access points (APs) in the network. Previously, we proposed the active AP configuration algorithm for the elastic WLAN system using heterogeneous APs, which dynamically optimizes the configuration by activating or deactivating APs based on traffic demands. However, this algorithm assumes that any active AP may use a different channel from the other ones to avoid interferences, although the number of non-interfered channels in IEEE 802.11 protocols is limited. In this paper, we propose the extension of the AP configuration algorithm to consider the channel assignment to the active APs under this limitation. Besides, AP associations of the hosts are modified to improve the network performance by averaging loads among channels. The effectiveness of our proposal is evaluated using the WIMNET simulator in two topologies. Finally, the elastic WLAN system including this proposal is implemented using Raspberry Pi for the AP. The feasibility and performance of the implementation are verified through experiments using the testbed.