A framework for P2P networking of smart devices using Wi-Fi direct

The use of smart portable devices has become very popular in the society nowadays. Many of these devices are equipped with sensors that can provide a wealth of information about the surroundings once their readings are aggregated. These capabilities have fueled interest in employing these devices in emerging unconventional applications such as crowdsourcing and vehicular networking, where sensors data is shared for better situational awareness, managing road congestion, coordinating disaster recovery, criminals hunting, etc. Internetworking of collocated devices in these applications enables aggregation of sensor readings and decreasing the demand on the carrier´s communication resources, which translate to lower cost, better bandwidth utilization and increased user participation. Wi-Fi Direct is one of the most promising peer-to-peer technologies that can enable such local internetworking of devices. Wi-Fi Direct transceivers are available on almost all new smart devices. However, the software support for Wi-Fi Direct is quite limited. This paper highlights limitations in Android based platforms and presents a framework for supporting formation and management of groups of communicating devices. The proposed framework is validated through the implementation of a chat application over multiple Android based devices.