Transferring a distributed user interface in an AD HOC network

The goal of this work was to develop a wireless terminal that could be used in an ad hoc network where it could search for services and receive user interfaces from them. The work concerned finding the most suitable wireless radio technique as well as developing the client software, the server module and the transfer protocol between them. The implemented client application captures the user input, such as key clicks and touch screen, taps and forwards them to the simulation server. Based on these events, the server invokes commands in the simulation and updates the simulation and the terminal user interfaces. The server transfers the user interface to the client in the form of a series of images. The study also analyses three different user interface techniques, one of which functions very much like the one implemented in this work. AODV was chosen to be the ad hoc network used in the study and it is run on top of IPv6. In addition, Mobile IPv6 was used. In structure-less networks it is not always easy to find services and the user interface transfer becomes difficult. The thesis also discusses how service discovery protocols could make the user interface transfer easier. According to our measurements, there can be up to three second pause in data transfer when the route changes. The user notices this pause because the user interface freezes for this period of time. When a new route is established the routing delay is not noticeable to the user.