Advisor:

developed a slightly larger than ID-card sized wearable computer, the so-called SmartBadge. This device is designed for low power consumption and equipped with a 200 MHz RISC processor, 1 MB of FLASH and 1 MB of SRAM memory, various communication channels, audio input and output, video output, and a socket for PCMCIA cards, which allows to use for example wired or wireless network cards. In addition to this equipment, which is comparable to other PDA-like devices it also contains a variety of sensors. These sensors allow it to extend its range of possible applications by adding knowledge about the environment which can be used to provide new context- and location-aware services. In the first chapters of this thesis I give an introduction to the hardware platform. The operation and configuration of several processor units is explained and their use is shown via a set of example routines and programs.These samples together with their explanations allows a new user to quickly write simple applications. The second part of this thesis, which comprises the main work of this thesis, concerns a port of the Linux IrDA-stack to the SmartBadge. The IrDA-stack is a set of protocols that allow wireless communication between devices via an infrared link. These protocols are already widely used for data exchange between Laptops (and increasingly also PDAs), mobile phones and other mobile devices. Together with the use of Infrared-Access-Points this implementation provides wireless network-connectivity for the Badge. Through such wireless network access th