| Net-X |
Net-X is a framework being developed by the Wireless Networking Group at UIUC to provide support for exploiting various forms of diversity available in a wireless network in the form of multiple channels, interfaces, transmission rates/power-levels etc.
Several interface capabilities may be available in next generation wireless networks. These include the ability to set the channel of operation and data rate on a frequent basis, and the ability to equip devices with multiple radio interfaces and multiple antennas. It may be possible to significantly improve the performance of wireless networks by exploiting these interface capabilities through carefully designed protocols. However, current operating systems have poor support for implementing protocols that need to use these diverse capabilities. The goal of the Net-X project is to develop generic OS support for utilizing interface capabilities, such that the support is cleanly integrated into the network stack. As a first step in this direction, we have developed an architecture in Linux to support the use of multiple channels, multiple interfaces, and interface switching. The current framework can be easily extended to support other capabilities, and these additional extensions are part of the project's future roadmap.
We have set up a wireless testbed that uses the Net-X framework, and have so far implemented a set of multichannel protocols, that were previously developed in our group.
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