Linux enriched design in second generation wireless open-access research platform

Wireless research infrastructure is a central tool in performing applied research. It enables the verification and demonstration of theoretical results in practice. Wireless research infrastructure at the Centre for Wireless Communications (CWC) has been built using second generation second generation wireless open access research platform (WARPv2). The WARPv2s are well suited for wireless research on both physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) layers but they lack the capability for handling network layer operations without an external PC. An on-board operating system is needed for a stand-alone solution. This paper describes Linux system porting to the WARPv2 board. The Linux system was combined with the radio communication system to achieve a flexible MAC interface for building custom protocols. The field-programmable gate array (FPGA) hardware design was created for this combination and needed software of the system was defined and implemented. The developed system consists of the Linux side and the MAC side which together implement all the layers of the open systems interconnection (OSI) model. Both sides use a dedicated processor core of the FPGA. Interprocessor communication between Linux and MAC sides was implemented to enable Linux to control the whole system.