[Commotion-dev] Serval Mesh Helper Device / ISM long-range meshing work

[Seamus Tuohy]

Hey Paul,

This sounds great. I would be quite interested in seeing what kind of
QOS and energy consumption you get running various types of traffic over
this device. Having some clearer idea of the throughput, jitter, and
delay would be a great starting point for conversations around use cases.

s2e

On 02/07/2013 12:00 AM, Paul Gardner-Stephen wrote:
> Hi All,
> 
> Just a heads up on some stuff we are doing at Serval that I think will
> be of interest to Commotion deployments more generally.
> 
> We are now actively working on what we call our "Mesh Helper Device",
> the prototype of which will consist of a TP-LINK WR703N running
> Commotion OpenWRT + servald, connected to an RFD900 ISM 915MHz band
> packet radio and a rechargeable battery.
> 
> This gives the potential for much greater range than just WiFi, as
> well as offering some resistance for 2.4GHz jamming in places where
> that is a problem.
> 
> The RFD900s with current firmware in urban settings offer 5x to 10x
> range compared with WiFi.  For example, I could receive a decent
> signal with one radio sitting on my lounge, and the other radio with
> me walking around the block, up to about 150m away -- with the signal
> path obliquely through perhaps 8 or 10 houses, fences, cats, dogs,
> trees and everything else.
> 
> With good clear line of sight, and a low noise floor, ranges of 10km
> or more are possible, with some evidence pointing to the actual limit
> being around 80km - 120km in very ideal conditions.
> 
> We have already managed to get Serval Mesh traffic, including some
> Rhizome transfers (but not yet voice) running over one of these links:
> 
> servalpaul.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/breaking-wifi-barrier-serval-mesh.html
> 
> We think a complete Mesh Helper Device, including these really nice
> radios could be built and sell for <US$200.  It may also be possible
> to use a cheaper compatible (but slightly lower performance) radio and
> get the price down to <US$100.
> 
> The RFD900 firmware only does point-to-point communications, but it is
> entirely possible to make it do "ad-hoc" point-to-multipoint
> communications.  Perhaps this is something for us to look at as a
> follow on after our current work block is complete.
> 
> We are hoping to have a couple of these with us in New Zealand in a
> couple of weeks for the KiwiEx field trial. General outline of our
> thinking for KiwiEx at present is at:
> 
> http://developer.servalproject.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=content:exercises:kiwiex2013
> 
> If there are other things people would like tested while we are there,
> let me know, and we will endeavour to cover them.
> 
> Paul.
> 
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