[ECOS] Custom WLAN network driver.

[Jason Thomas <thedracle at yahoo dot com>]

   I've managed to port eCos to my custom platform,
and write a simple wireless driver--- which can do
TCP/IP, UDP, etc, using ethernet frames (rather than
802.11). This is an okay solution for the moment,
being that my devices will essentially be
communicating only with eachother, over a network
which spans 30+ kilometers. While creating the driver,
I theorized that I could replace the ethernet stack
above my driver, with a networking stack that would
produce 802.11 frames, allowing communication with a
wireless router--- for instance. 

   This would eliminate a bottleneck I'm currently
experiencing using a 115200 baud serial device for
communication with the host hardware node (Which then
can send wireless ethernet packets to the rest of the
network). I was thinking instead, I could communicate
with the host over 802.11 using a wireless router
perhaps--- and it in turn could act as a proxy to
communicate with other nodes in my network. I would
think, a device driver would only have to implement a
couple more ioctl calls, to implement the interface
needed by a wireless networking stack. I've had poor
luck coming by solutions for doing this, however. I
found some information pertaining to some alteration
of lwIP to produce 802.11 frames--- but not a lot
else. I've seen evidence of 'many' devices that deal
with 802.11 using eCos. Is there any work, progress,
possible methods, for fully implementing the 802.11
protocol in the future? Any direction would be greatly
appreciated!


-Jason Thomas.

TA (Telescope Array Project), University of Utah,
Dept. of Physics.

www.telescopearray.org


       
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