Testbed Implementation of the Meta-MAC Protocol

abstract: The meta-MAC protocol is a systematic and automatic method to dynamically combine any set of existing Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols into a single higher level MAC protocol. The meta-MAC concept was proposed more than a decade ago, but until now has not been implemented in a testbed environment due to a lack of suitable hardware. This thesis presents a proof-of-concept implementation of the meta-MAC protocol by utilizing a programmable radio platform, the Wireless MAC Processor (WMP), in combination with a host-level software module. The implementation of this host module, and the requirements and challenges faced therein, is the primary subject of this thesis. This implementation can combine, with certain constraints, a set of protocols each represented as an extended finite state machine for easy programmability. To illustrate the combination principle, protocols of the same type but with varying parameters are combined in a testbed environment, in what is termed parameter optimization. Specifically, a set of TDMA protocols with differing slot assignments are experimentally combined. This experiment demonstrates that the meta-MAC implementation rapidly converges to non-conflicting TDMA slot assignments for the nodes, with similar results to those in simulation. This both validates that the presented implementation properly implements the meta-MAC protocol, and verifies that the meta-MAC protocol can be as effective on real wireless hardware as it is in simulation