Characterization of a Wi-Fi Mesh Network for Embedded Electronic Systems

Abstract

The growing adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) applications has increased the demand for resilient and scalable wireless networks, especially in environments where wired infrastructure is limited. This work presents the experimental evaluation of a Wi-Fi mesh network based on the ESP32-C6 microcontroller and the ESP-WIFI-MESH library. The proposed system includes a real-time monitoring platform using MQTT and Node-RED, enabling the analysis of network performance under different topologies. Experimental results show that single-hop configurations achieve low and stable latency between 28 ms and 30 ms, while multi-hop scenarios introduce higher delays, predominantly concentrate between 80 ms and 170 ms, with peaks exceeding 200 ms. Signal quality analysis indicated no significant degradation in RSSI when transitioning to multi-hop configurations. Throughput evaluation demonstrated reliable data transmission under different channel conditions, with higher throughput on the best channel and lower jitter when operating on the same channel as the access point. Additionally, the network demonstrated resilience to gateway failures, with an average recovery time of approximately 31 s. These results indicate that the ESP32-C6 is a viable platform for Wi-Fi mesh deployments, although latency increases with network size.