MSB-A2 Wireless Sensor Boards as Network Interface Card - 1

The MSB-2 wireless sensor node is the current generation of the ScatterWeb platform and is used in the DES-Testbed. Each sensor node is connected by USB to a mesh router which are also equipped with multiple IEEE 802.11 transceivers. As the channels of IEEE 802.11 are not really orthogonal or the network interfaces are not up at all times, it is reasonable to use the sensor node for the wireless communication of the mesh router.

We have a prototype implementation for this task. A daemon creates a TUN interface that it connects with any  /dev/tty* device node. This works fine but lacks many important features.

Objectives

• Get familiar with the prototype implementation
• Specify and implement a communication protocol for the serial line between daemon and MSB-A2
• Modify the firmware of the MSB-2 as required