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FreeMAC: framework for multi-channel mac development on 802.11 hardware

Published: 22 August 2008 Publication History

Abstract

Exponential growth in the number of wireless devices that operate in the limited unlicensed frequency spectrum necessitates the next generation of radio devices to be reconfigurable and sensitive to changes in network conditions and spectrum availability. Most modern wireless devices offer increased software programmability and control over radio communication parameters. Since a large portion of the MAC protocol is implemented in software, with the firmware providing a set of functional primitives, it is possible to design and implement alternate MAC protocols in real testbeds equipped with commodity 802.11 devices. This paper describes FreeMAC, a reconfigurable MAC protocol development framework that enables the design and implementation of a general class of multi-channel MAC protocols on a typical Linux system. FreeMAC provides support for frequent channel switching and fine control over the timing of packet transmissions. We also propose a mechanism to reduce the latency in the scheduling of periodic operations of a software MAC protocol that have strict timing requirements. Results from our six node testbed indicate that using our approach, the scheduling latency of slot transitions in a TDMA-style MAC can be improved by up to an order of magnitude, with minimal overhead. FreeMAC also exports a number of radio configuration parameters as API functions to enable cross layer interactions among wireless networking protocols. As a proof of concept, we implement a simple multi-channel TDMA MAC on our testbed to demonstrate the utility of FreeMAC as a development framework.

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      PRESTO '08: Proceedings of the ACM workshop on Programmable routers for extensible services of tomorrow
      August 2008
      82 pages
      ISBN:9781605581811
      DOI:10.1145/1397718
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Publication History

      Published: 22 August 2008

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      Author Tags

      1. mac
      2. medium access
      3. multi channel
      4. tdma
      5. wireless networks

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      SIGCOMM '08
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      SIGCOMM '08: ACM SIGCOMM 2008 Conference
      August 22, 2008
      WA, Seattle, USA

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      • (2020)Simultaneous Transmit-Receive Multi-Channel Operation in Next Generation WLANs2020 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC)10.1109/WCNC45663.2020.9120641(1-8)Online publication date: May-2020
      • (2019)A Survey on the Programmability of Wireless MAC ProtocolsIEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials10.1109/COMST.2018.288176121:2(1064-1092)Online publication date: Oct-2020
      • (2018)A Routing and Interface Assignment Algorithm for Multi-Channel Multi-Interface Ad Hoc NetworksMobile Networks and Applications10.1007/s11036-018-1041-z23:5(1318-1329)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2018
      • (2018)An Efficient Routing and Interface Assignment Algorithm for Multi-Channel Multi-Interface (MCMI) Ad Hoc NetworksAd Hoc Networks10.1007/978-3-319-74439-1_12(131-142)Online publication date: 20-Jan-2018
      • (2017)Principles of organizing the interoperability of equipollent nodes in a wireless mesh-network with time division multiple accessAutomatic Control and Computer Sciences10.3103/S014641161606003150:6(415-422)Online publication date: 22-Jan-2017
      • (2017)Sniffer-Channel Assignment in Multichannel Wireless NetworksSequential Learning and Decision-Making in Wireless Resource Management10.1007/978-3-319-50502-2_6(71-90)Online publication date: 6-Jan-2017
      • (2016)P-TDMA-SYS: A TDMA System over Commodity 802.11 Hardware for Mobile Ad-Hoc NetworksJournal of Communications10.12720/jcm.11.8.710-725Online publication date: 2016
      • (2016)Evaluation of channel switching overhead for multicast communications in wireless mesh networks2016 IEEE 7th Annual Ubiquitous Computing, Electronics & Mobile Communication Conference (UEMCON)10.1109/UEMCON.2016.7777921(1-7)Online publication date: Oct-2016
      • (2016)Making 802.11 DCF near-optimalIEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking10.1109/TNET.2015.243205324:3(1745-1758)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2016
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