From Kathmann Labs
Wireless Embedded Project
- The concept behind this project was to build some high powered wireless devices running on WRAP.2C SBCs and running embdded linux. With the madwifi drivers, you are able to configure the device as a wireless Access Point, bridge, Layer 3 Router, or whatever you want really. The linux console is ported to the RS232 port on the SBC and the pinouts were changed to match that of Cisco console cable. You can also SSH into the device, or configure httpd to make configuration changes. Like I said, I hate web development, so that part will be someone else's contribution.
- The range we were able to achieve was pretty nice. With the 5dBi antennas on the 5GHz cards, we were able to pull off about half a mile with minimal obstructions to line of sight. With the 26dBi parabolic dish antennas, we were able to do 3 miles like a joke. The next attempt came at 32 miles, but it started raining (really badly) on us before we were able to finish the testing. The setup is theoretically capable of over 200 miles, although that would be a hard distance to actually pull off.
- Special thanks to Sal DiCarlo for his help on this project.
- Picture Gallery
Expertise Level
- 2 out of 5
Hardware
- WRAP.2C SBC
- Mini-Box WRAP-BOX-4A2E
- UBNT SR2
- UBNT SR5
- UBNT SR9
- PoE Injectors
- Several different antennas
- Misc pigtails
- Misc cables
Software
- Voyage Linux
- madwifi drivers
- hostapd
- Zebra router
Web Links
- MIT Roofnet (awesome project, but the site is kinda outdated)
- Wireless Mesh Pages
- Wireless Network Link Analysis
- IBM Paper on building a WLAN AP on linux
- Wisp-router, cheap place to buy WLAN parts
