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 MAC protocols into a single higher layer MAC protocol. We present a proof-of-concept implementation of the meta-MAC protocol by utilizing a programmable wireless MAC processor (WMP) on top of a commodity wireless card in combination with a host-level software module. The implementation allows us to combine, with certain constraints, a number of protocols each represented as an extended finite state machine. To illustrate the combination principle, we combine protocols of the same type but with varying parameters in a wireless mesh network. Specifically, we combine TDMA protocols with all possible slot assignments. We demonstrate that an implementation of the meta-MAC protocol over the WMP rapidly converges to non-conflicting TDMA slot assignments for the nodes.