A Synchronous and Deterministic MAC Protocol for Wireless Communications on Linear Topologies

Linear topology is useful in several pervasive application scenarios. Even though a linear topology can be handled by unspecific routing algorithms over general purpose MAC protocols, better performance can be obtained by specialized techniques. This paper describes a new communication scheme called Wireless Wire (WiWi), which builds up a bidirectional wireless communication channel with deterministic properties in terms of throughput and latency over a strip of pervasive devices with short-range transmission capabilities. The system is synchronous and fault tolerant. With low cost and extremely simple devices, WiWi builds up a "wire-like" dielectric link, but its applications are not limited to end-to-end communications. For example, WiWi can be used to collect data from sensors along the path, thus acting as a virtual conveyor belt.