Integration of WiFi ToF Positioning System in the Open, Flexible and Adaptive WiSHFUL Architecture
We integrate a prototypeWiFi Time-of-Flight (ToF) ranging and positioning system in the WiSHFUL software platforms and hardware radios for experimental prototyping. Users have access to ToF measurements as well as computed positions through unified programming interfaces that make possible to investigate innovative positioning and networking solutions. TRUE pub
WiSHFUL : enabling coordination solutions for managing heterogeneous wireless networks
The paradigm shift toward the Internet of Things results in an increasing number of wireless applications being deployed. Since many of these applications contend for the same physical medium (i.e., the unlicensed ISM bands), there is a clear need for beyond-state-of-the-art solutions that coordinate medium access across heterogeneous wireless networks. Such solutions demand fine-grained control of each device and technology, which currently requires a substantial amount of effort given that the control APIs are different on each hardware platform, technology, and operating system. In this article an open architecture is proposed that overcomes this hurdle by providing unified programming i…
Wireless software and hardware platforms for flexible and Unified Radio and Network Control (WiSHFUL)
In the last years, we have assisted to an impressive evolution of wireless technologies for short distance communication (like IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.15.4. Bluetooth Low Energy, etc.) due to the need of coping with the heterogeneous requirements of emerging applications, such as Internet of things, the Industry 4.0, the Tactile Internet, the ambient assistant living, and so on. Indeed, for optimizing the technology performance in these scenarios, it is often required to support some forms of protocol adaptation, by allowing the dynamic reconfiguration of protocol parameters and the dynamic activation of optional mechanisms, or some targeted protocol extensions.In both cases, prototyping, tes…
Coexistence between IEEE802.15.4 and IEEE802.11 through cross-technology signaling
When different technologies use the same frequency bands in close proximity, the resulting interference typically results in performance degradation. Coexistence methods exist, but these are often technology specific and requiring technology specific interference detection methods. To remove the root cause of the performance degradation, devices should be able to negotiate medium access even when using different technologies. To this end, this paper proposes an architecture that allows crosstechnology medium access by means of a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) scheme. In order to achieve cross-technology synchronization, which is required for the TDMA solution, an energy pattern beacon…
A unified radio control architecture for prototyping adaptive wireless protocols
Experimental optimization of wireless protocols and validation of novel solutions is often problematic, due to limited configuration space present in commercial wireless interfaces as well as complexity of monolithic driver implementation on SDR-based experimentation platforms. To overcome these limitations a novel software architecture is proposed, called WiSHFUL, devised to allow: i) maximal exploitation of radio functionalities available in current radio chips, and ii) clean separation between the logic for optimizing the radio protocols (i.e. radio control) and the definition of these protocols.
Unified Radio and Network Control Across Heterogeneous Hardware Platforms
Experimentation is an important step in the investigation of techniques for handling spectrum scarcity or the development of new waveforms in future wireless networks. However, it is impractical and not cost effective to construct custom platforms for each future network scenario to be investigated. This problem is addressed by defining Unified Programming Interfaces that allow common access to several platforms for experimentation-based prototyping, research, and development purposes. The design of these interfaces is driven by a diverse set of scenarios that capture the functionality relevant to future network implementations while trying to keep them as generic as possible. Herein, the d…
Cross-technology wireless experimentation: Improving 802.11 and 802.15.4e coexistence
In this demo we demonstrate the functionalities of a novel experimentation framework, called WiSHFUL, that facilitates the prototyping and experimental validation of innovative solutions for heterogeneous wireless networks, including cross-technology coordination mechanisms. The framework supports a clean separation between the definition of the logic for optimizing the behaviors of wireless devices and the underlying device capabilities, by means of a unifying platform-independent control interface and programming model. The use of the framework is demonstrated through two representative use cases, where medium access is coordinated between IEEE-802.11 and IEEE-802.15.4 networks.
Demo abstract: Cross-technology TDMA synchronization using energy pattern beacons
When different technologies use the same frequency bands in close proximity, the resulting interference typically results in performance degradation. Coexistence methods exist, but these are often technology specific and require technology specific interference detection methods. To remove the root cause of the performance degradation, devices should be able to negotiate medium access even when using different technologies. To this end, an architecture that allows cross-technology medium access by means of a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) scheme was devised. In order to achieve cross-technology synchronization, which is required for the TDMA solution, an energy pattern beacon is trans…
Exploiting programmable architectures for WiFi/ZigBee inter-technology cooperation
The increasing complexity of wireless standards has shown that protocols cannot be designed once for all possible deployments, especially when unpredictable and mutating interference situations are present due to the coexistence of heterogeneous technologies. As such, flexibility and (re)programmability of wireless devices is crucial in the emerging scenarios of technology proliferation and unpredictable interference conditions. In this paper, we focus on the possibility to improve coexistence performance of WiFi and ZigBee networks by exploiting novel programmable architectures of wireless devices able to support run-time modifications of medium access operations. Differently from software…