Developing Practical Wireless Applications

Dean A. Gratton9781555583101, 1555583105

In a constant stream of new ideas, wireless technologies continue to emerge offering a range of capabilities, each affording simplicity and ease-of-use. Such diversity and choice should surely beg the question, are manufacturers using the right technology for the right product?Developing Practical Wireless Applications will explore this question and, in doing so, will illustrate many of the wireless technologies currently available whilst drawing upon their individual strengths and weaknesses. More specifically, the book will draw your attention to the diverse collection of standardized and proprietary solutions available to manufacturers. As developers and innovators your choices are not restricted to any norm and, as such, a standardized or proprietary solution may afford you greater benefits in realising any product roadmap.Developing Practical Wireless Applications will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of how each technology works, coupled with an exploration into overlapping, complementary and competing technologies. In establishing this foundation, we will explore wireless applications in their context and address their suitability. In contrast, the book also considers the practicality of a wireless world in an attempt to better understand our audience and specific demographic groups. Coupled with a richer understanding of our consumers, along with our technology make-up we can indeed target wireless products more effectively.

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Table of contents :
Developing Practical Wireless Applications……Page 1
Contents……Page 8
Preface……Page 14
Introduction……Page 17
Part One – Understanding a Wireless World……Page 20
Making Sense of Wireless Technology……Page 22
Where are We Today with New Wireless Technology?……Page 23
Reasons for Choosing Wireless……Page 24
Where is the Original Thought?……Page 25
A New Way of Thinking……Page 26
Summary……Page 27
Understanding the Wireless Audience……Page 29
The Diffusion of Wireless Innovation……Page 32
Cultural Economic Effects on Product Pricing……Page 34
Summary……Page 35
Wide-area vs. Personal-area……Page 38
First Generation (1G)……Page 42
Second Generation (2G), 2.5G and 2.75G……Page 46
Third Generation (3G)……Page 52
Wireless Convergence……Page 56
Broadband wireless……Page 58
Manufacturers’ Refocus of Consumer Perception and Usage Models……Page 59
Summary……Page 60
Can we Confidently Rely on Wireless Communication?……Page 62
How Safe is Your House?……Page 63
Access Control……Page 65
WarXing: War-Walking, War-Driving and War-Storming……Page 66
BlueJacking/BlueSnarfing……Page 68
Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP)……Page 69
WiFi Protected Access……Page 71
Bluetooth authentication, pairing and encryption……Page 77
Security features in other wireless technologies……Page 84
Enabling Intelligent Connectivity……Page 85
Coexistence and Interoperation……Page 87
Ignoring unwanted noise……Page 89
How can we talk with each other?……Page 90
Summary……Page 94
Defining Quantitative Needs for Technology……Page 97
In Technology we Trust……Page 99
Working with technology……Page 102
Living with technology……Page 104
Summary……Page 108
Part Two – A Proprietary Approach to Developing Wireless Applications……Page 110
An Introduction to the Notion of Proprietary-based Wireless Application Development……Page 112
Case Studies……Page 113
ZenSys: An Open Standard for Wireless Home Control……Page 114
Enabling Wireless Home Control……Page 116
The RF transceiver……Page 117
The mesh networking topology……Page 119
Self-organization, self-healing and ease-of-use……Page 121
A different kind of class……Page 122
Conclusion……Page 123
Summary……Page 125
Cypress Semiconductor: Introducing WirelessUSB……Page 129
The WirelessUSB Challenge……Page 131
The RF composition……Page 132
WirelessUSB for sensor networks……Page 134
Summary……Page 137
Aura Communications Technology: Creating the Personal Bubble……Page 140
Background……Page 141
Making bubbles……Page 142
Propagation……Page 145
Coexistence and interference……Page 147
Quality of service……Page 148
Summary……Page 149
Part Three – A Standards Approach to Developing Wireless Applications……Page 152
An Introduction to the Notion of Standards-based Wireless Application Development……Page 154
Case Studies……Page 155
Bluetooth: A Cable Replacement Technology……Page 156
Bluetooth vs. Infrared……Page 157
The Odd Couple: Bluetooth and Ultra-Wideband……Page 158
Bluetooth over UWB……Page 159
WiMedia Me……Page 160
The Radio Architecture……Page 161
The frequency hopping scheme……Page 162
Adaptive frequency hopping……Page 163
Basic rate and enhanced data rate……Page 164
Bluetooth clock……Page 165
The Bluetooth Protocol Stack……Page 167
Link Controller (LC)……Page 168
Link Manager (LM)……Page 171
Host Controller Interface (HCI)……Page 172
Service Discovery Protocol (SDP)……Page 175
RFCOMM……Page 176
What are Bluetooth Profiles?……Page 177
The Adopted Profiles……Page 178
Conclusion……Page 180
Summary……Page 181
ZigBee: Untethered and Unlicensed……Page 185
Our Reasons to Believe……Page 187
ZigBee’s Networking Topology……Page 188
The Radio Architecture……Page 190
802.15.4: Low data rate, low power Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN)……Page 191
The ZigBee Protocol Stack……Page 192
Understanding the application context……Page 193
ZigBee Device Objects……Page 194
Summary……Page 196
WiFi: Enabling True Ubiquitous Connectivity……Page 200
Overcoming the Obvious……Page 203
WiFi Protected Setup……Page 204
Comparing WiFi and WiMAX……Page 205
Generating Revenue from WiFi……Page 209
The WiFi Network Topology……Page 211
Improved authentication and privacy……Page 212
Distributed System (DS)……Page 213
The Extended Service Set (ESS)……Page 214
The WiFi Story Begins with the Letter B……Page 216
The WiFi Protocol Stack……Page 218
The MAC (Data Link) layer……Page 219
The PHY layer……Page 224
The Next Generation of WiFi……Page 229
A new range of WiFi products 802.11n……Page 230
Summary……Page 231
What is RFID?……Page 235
Operating frequencies……Page 236
Active and passive tags……Page 237
What is NFC?……Page 238
Enabling intelligent connectivity……Page 240
Application types……Page 241
Summary……Page 242
WiMedia……Page 244
Using near field communications as an enabler……Page 246
Conflicting UWB standards……Page 247
Summary……Page 248
Glossary and Definitions……Page 250
Bibliography……Page 270
Internet-based references……Page 272
Index……Page 273