Piconet II

 

This project is a continuation of the Piconet project by Israel Keys and Alec Siu in 2000. Piconet provides a hardware and software solution that enables the Handspring™ Visor with the ability to form an ad-hoc network. An ad-hoc network is a network that is dynamically created without the aid of pre-existing network architectures such as wired LANs or fixed wireless gateways. For further information, see the Piconet thesis: http://www.pc.elec.uq.edu.au/innovexpo/341472962/thesis.pdf

 

The goal of this project is to extend the Piconet work to the point where you can demonstrate some useful applications (such as a collaborative whiteboard, web browser, email) running on some iPAQ handheld computers connected by the Piconet hardware.

Hardware

The idea would be to use the hardware from the Piconet project to connect to the iPAQ handheld using either the serial or USB interface. Alternatively, you could produce a “jacket” for the iPAQ to directly interface the Piconet RF module to the iPAQ.

Software

A suggested starting point would be to implement the Piconet protocol stack to Linux on the iPAQ. The demonstration applications could then either be modified to run over the Piconet protocol stack, or you could choose to experiment with running TCP/IP over the adhoc protocol. It is expected that the software from this project would be contributed back to the Open Source community.

Sponsorship

This project is being sponsored by Compaq Computer Australia, and Compaq will be providing two iPAQ H3600 handheld computers for use in the project.