Important Notes:
Introduction
Welcome to the Mesh Networking Academic Resource Toolkit 2005!
If you are a faculty member or researcher at an accredited academic institution such as a university or college, you are invited to apply for our Mesh Networking Academic Resource Toolkit -- a research and teaching resource for exploring core technologies in ad-hoc multi-hop wireless networks.
The kit contains Microsoft Research's Mesh Connectivity Layer (MCL) and Virtual WiFi software in both source and binary form along with documentation and supporting softwre to get you started. You will just need a PC with a wireless card and DVD/CD drive(s) to work with this kitDESCRIPTION
If you are interested in learning the details of implementing Layer 2.5 multihop routing and understanding the virtualization architecture for wireless cards on Windows then this kit is for you. If you are interested in simply getting a mesh network up and running so you can do additional research, or if you want to write multi-radio applications using only one IEEE 802.11 radio, then this kit is for you.
Contents
- Full Source code and binaries for Virtual WiFi (previously known as MultiNet) along with build tools & documentation
- Full Windows XP and Windows CE source code and binaries for Mesh Connectivity Layer (MCL) along with build tools & documentation
- Full source code and binaries for mesh performance measurement tools & utilities
- Binaries for automatic setup for WinXP and tools such as MeshConfig, Setup for Windows Mobile
- Hours of video talks on multihop wireless networking
- 19 papers & technical presentations on mesh networking
- Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 Edition
- Microsoft Windows Device Driver Develpment Kit (DDK)
- Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (Platform DDK)
- Visual Studio .NET 2003, Trail Edition
- Windows CE 5.0 Evaluation Software
The toolkit is provided as six separate disks:
- Disk 1 – Mesh Software, Mesh-related supplementary materials, this README.
- Disk 2 – Microsoft® Windows® Driver Development Kit (DDK).
- Disk 3 – Microsoft® Windows® Software Development Kit (Platform SDK).
- Disk 4 – Visual Studio® .NET 2003, Trial Edition.
- Disk 5 – Windows® CE 5.0 Evaluation Software.
- Disk 6 – Windows® XP Professional Service Pack 2 Edition.
REQUESTING KITS
To apply for the kit, please send your full name, mailing address, phone number (required for shipping), and academic affiliation details to: meshkit@microsoft.com. Kit requests will be honored according to availability of the kit and the academic credentials of the applicant. Microsoft reserves the right to refuse any requests for any reason without explanation. In particular, requests from non-academics will not be honored. We will endeavor to respond to successful kit requests within 30 days. Microsoft may end this program at any time without notice.Special Note to Students
We only have limited numbers of the kits, and therefore we can only send one kit per professor/staff researcher. Research students can get the kit by asking their faculty advisor to send in a request, or leverage an existing request made by their advisor. If you are a student and have made a request, please send another email with your advisor's contact details (name, address, phone number -- required for shipping) and we will send the kit to your advisor.ADDITIONAL NOTES
Not all users of this kit will need to install all of these items, but they have been provided together to save you the time and expense of acquiring these items separately as and when you may need them.
http://research.microsoft.com/mesh – home page for MSR Mesh Networking resources.
http://research.microsoft.com/mesh/#mailing – mailing list instructions for Mesh discussions.
The sections linked above are designed to help you get the best out of this toolkit.