contiki/doc/sicslowmac-doc.txt

/**
\addtogroup rf230mac
@{
*/

/**
 * \defgroup macdoc SICSLoWMAC Implementation
 * @{

    \section macintro 1. Introduction

The phase1 MAC implemented to support the IPv6/6LoWPAN stack within the Contiki
project is a light weight yet adequate beginning. This phase supports point to
point data connectivity between a router device and an end device. The router is
the RZ USB stick from the ATAVRRZRAVEN kit. The end node is the AVR
Raven from the ATAVRRZRAVEN kit. The picture below shows the complete ATAVRRZRAVEN kit.

    \image html raven.png

The next phases will implement a commissioning concept including scan, and
beacon generation. These kinds of primitives will allow dynamic network
formation. Additionally, routing and low power/sleep will be implemented in
following phases.

    \section macprereqs 2. Prerequisites

See the \ref tutorialraven for required systems setup configuration.

    \section macoverview 3. MAC Overview

This MAC follows the recommendations of RFC4944 with respect to data frames and
acknowledgements (i.e. all data frames are acknowledged). At the time of this
writing (phase 1) beacons (frames) and association events are not implemented.
Additionally, data frames always carry both source and destination addresses.
PANID compression (intra-pan) is not used so both source and destination PANID's
are present in the frame.

The SICSLoWMAC supports the IEEE 802.15.4 Data Request primitive and the Data
Request Indication primitive. The data request primitive constructs a <b>proper</b>
802.15.4 frame for transmission over the air while the data indication parses a
received frame for processing in higher layers (6LoWPAN). The source code for
the mac can be found in the sicslowmac.[c,h] files.

To assemble a frame a MAC header is constructed with certain presumptions:
-#  Long source and destination addresses are used.
-#  A hard coded PANID is used.
-#  A hard coded channel is used.
-#  Acknowledgements are used.
-#  Up to 3 auto retry attempts are used.

These and other variables are defined in mac.h.

Given this data and the output of the 6LoWPAN function, the MAC can construct
the data frame and the Frame Control Field for transmission.

An IEEE 802.15.4 MAC data frame consists of the fields shown below:

    \image html dataframe.png

The Frame Control Field (FCF) consist of the fields shown below:

    \image html fcf.jpg

    \note The MAC address of each node is expected to be stored in EEPROM and
retrieved during the initialization process immediately after power on.

    \section macrelationship 4. 6LoWPAN, MAC and Radio Relationship

The output function of the 6LoWPAN layer (sicslowpan.c) is the input function
to the MAC (sicslowmac.c). The output function of the MAC is the input function
of the radio (radio.c). When the radio receives a frame over the air it processes
it in its TRX_END event function. If the frame passes address and CRC filtering
it is queued in the MAC event queue. Subsequently, when the MAC task is processed,
the received frame is parsed and handed off to the 6LoWPAN layer via its input
function. These relationships are depicted below:

    \image html layers.png

    \section maccode 5. Source Code Location

The source code for the MAC, Radio and support functions is located in the path:
- \\cpu\\avr\\radio
    - \\rf230
    - \\mac
    - \\ieee-manager

-#  The \\rf230 folder contains the low level HAL drivers to access and control
the radio as well as the low level frame formatting and parsing functions.
-#  The \\mac folder contains the MAC layer code, the generic MAC initialization
functions and the defines mentioned in section 3.
-#  The \\ieee-manager folder contains the access functions for various PIB
variables and radio functions such as channel setting.

The source code for the Raven platforms is located in the path:
- \\platform
    - \\avr-raven
    - \\avr-ravenlcd
    - \\avr-ravenusb
-#  The \\avr-raven folder contains the source code to initialize and start the
raven board.
-#  The \\avr-ravenlcd folder contains the complete source code to initialize
and start the ATmega3209P on raven board in a user interface capacity. See the
Doxygen generated documentation for more information.
-#  The \\avr-ravenusb folder contains the source code to initialize and start
the raven USB stick as a network interface on either Linux or Windows platforms.
Note that appropriate drivers are located in the path:
    - \\cpu\\avr\\dev\\usb\\INF

    \section macavrstudio 6. AVR Studio Project Location

There are two projects that utilize the Logo Certified IPv6 and 6LoWPAN layers
contributed to the Contiki project by Cisco. These are ping-ipv6and webserver-ipv6
applications. They are located in the following paths:
- \\examples\\webserver-ipv6
and
- \\examples\\ping-ipv6

The ping-ipv6 application will allow the USB stick to ping the Raven board while
the webserver-ipv6 application will allow the raven board to serve a web page.
When the ravenlcd-3290 application is programmed into the ATmega3290P on the
Raven board, the Raven board can ping the USB stick and it can periodically update
the temperature in the appropriate web page when served.


*/
/** @} */
/** @} */