Prototyping of a WLAN system using C++ based architecture exploration

Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) are currently considered as one of the most popular application domains. In this paper the protyping of a WLAN system on a platform including microprocessors and FPGAs is described. The prototyping started from architecture exploration using a C++ library for hardware/software codesign. The developed prototype allowed evaluation of the system performance and the architecture decisions. The use of the systematic architecture exploration allowed making correct decisions early in the design cycle thus avoiding time consuming iterations from lower design stages (necessary when constraints are not met by the final implementation).