Wireless Interrupt: Inter-Device Signaling in Next Generation Wireless Networks

Recent advances in wireless technology have led to the proliferation of wireless devices, ranging from wireless LAN to cellular phones. There has been, and will be, an increase in not only the number of wireless services, but also the number of types of wireless services, and greater demand for mobility, portability, and integrated services. For wireless success to continue, technologies must support a high degree of flexibility and interoperability of wireless devices to scale with such demand. Next Generation Wireless will depend highly upon flexible and interoperable devices in constructing a wireless network that consists of heterogeneous devices that can communicate with each other. Our work investigates the technical issues that must be overcome in bringing such flexibility and interoperability, one of which being device discovery. We propose Wireless Interrupt, an inter-device signaling mechanism that can be employed by software defined radios, such that a device can signal its neighbors of its existence or the services it provides without knowing the protocols or channels used by its neighbors a priori.