Paper Info
Title
Nexmon: Build Your Own Wi-Fi Testbeds With Low-Level MAC and PHY-Access Using Firmware Patches on Off-the-Shelf Mobile Devices.
Abstract
The most widespread Wi-Fi enabled devices are smartphones. They are mobile, close to people and available in large quantities, which makes them perfect candidates for real-world wireless testbeds. Unfortunately, most smartphones contain closed-source FullMAC Wi-Fi chips that hinder the modification of lower-layer Wi-Fi mechanisms and the implementation of new algorithms. To enable researchers' access to lower-layer frame processing and advanced physical-layer functionalities on Broadcom Wi-Fi chips, we developed the Nexmon firmware patching framework. It allows users to create firmware modifications for embedded ARM processors using C code and to change the behavior of Broadcom's real-time processor using Assembly. Currently, our framework supports five Broadcom chips available in smartphones and Raspberry Pis. Our example patches enable monitor mode, frame injection, handling of ioctls, ucode compression and flashpatches. In a simple ping offloading example, we demonstrate how handling pings in firmware reduces power consumption by up to 165 mW and is nine times faster than in the kernel on a Nexus 5. Using Nexmon, researchers can unleash the full capabilities of off-the-shelf Wi-Fi devices.
Year
DOI
Venue
2017
10.1145/3131473.3131476
MobiCom '17: The 23rd Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking Snowbird Utah USA October, 2017
Field
DocType
ISBN
ARM architecture,Wireless,Ping (video games),Computer science,Mobile device,Common Firmware Environment,PHY,Monitor mode,Operating system,Firmware,Embedded system
Conference
978-1-4503-5147-8
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
6
0.56
5
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Matthias Schulz111112.74
Daniel Wegemer2334.91
Matthias Hollick375097.29