Implementation of software defined radio for low speed protocols

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In this work-in-progress paper, we explore the expected impacts, the reality, and the technical issues of making MAC / PHY protocols downloadable softwares (like apps) for mobile devices. The notion of software radio on a small number of fixed stations has been investigated for decades, but moving its platform to billions of mobile devices like smart phones and making it downloadable could open new fronts for the technology. In the positive light, it could unlock the traditionally closed process of lower layer protocol development and deployment to a wider public, leading to accelerated progress of communication technologies in areas like Internet of Things. On the flip side, however, it could cause babelization and illegitimate uses of wireless spectrum. Aside from considering possible impacts, we demonstrate through measurement that the reality is that the hardware capability of mobile devices today is already strong enough to support the real-time execution of downloadable MAC/PHY software in low-rate technologies such as ZigBee, and within the grasping distance from higher-speed ones like WiFi.
We conclude the paper by considering three technical aspects to make the downloadable MAC/PHY for mobile devices a full-fledged reality; the device architecture, the operating system, and the protocol design.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 1. Introduction 1
• 2. BACKGROUND ON SDR 4
• 3. SETUP FOR REALITY CHECK 7
• 3.1 Smart phones 7
• 3.2 Software radios 8
• 3.3 Emulating the radio front 8
• 3.4 Real-time requirements 10
• 4. ZIGBEE AS APP: FEASIBLE 12
• 4.1 Encoding and decoding 12
• 4.2 Response 15
• 5. WIFI AS APP: NOT YET 16
• 5.1 IEEE 802.11b 16
• 5.2 IEEE 802.11a 18
• 6. DISCUSSION 21
• 7. RELATED WORK 22