FEW-PNets - A framework for emulation of wireless personal networks

With the advent of miniaturization and higher computing capabilities of wireless devices, there is an exponential rise in the number of devices such as personal digital assistants, etc. Application development for these devices is the main focus for many device manufacturers and software developers. The applications developed need to be tested and tried before releasing it to the market. There are cross-compilers to produce the binary files of the software applications that can run on these devices. However, it is rather difficult for developers to test it on the actual devices every time a change is made in the program. Further, a wireless network infrastructure should also be in place for testing. To expedite application development FEW-PNets - a Framework for Emulation of Wireless Personal Networks is proposed. It is a networked application to emulate a Personal Network (PN) owned by a person. It supports emulation of the most functions of PNs. We explain our model by emulating simple PN devices. In this article we elucidate the concepts, advantages, application domains and limitations of FEW-PNets.