We implemented the CoopMAC protocol by modifying the Linux wireless driver HostAP (http://hostap.epitest.fi/). HostAP is a driver for wireless LAN cards based on Intersil's Prism 2/2.5/3 chipset. It is one of the widely used drivers for experiments as it supports access point functionality in the software, allowing modifications to the MAC layer functionality.
We set up a testbed and ran experiments using file transfers of various file sizes. We investigate the helper positions and the circumstances under which its participation in the transmission process is efficient. The implementation results show that the protocol performs efficiently in a real implementation and that the added computation overhead in its implementation is negligible.
