owlps/CHANGELOG

This file is automatically generated from the Git tag messages.


v1.3.5          OwlPS, version 1.3.5 (development point release)

    This release features the usual refactoring and code cleaning, fixes and
    improves the build system (the manual pages are now installed), and also
    brings some more important changes listed below.

    The scripts/ directory was added with two Perl scripts and two Perl
    modules that were formerly developed in another repository:
    - OwlPS AggCheck (owlps-aggcheck.pl), that allows one to analyse an
      aggregation file in various ways: print human-readable information,
      extract signal strength distribution, or extract the number of packets
      per request and per capture point.
    - OwlPS AggSetCoord (owlps-aggsetcoord.pl), that can be used to fill an
      aggregation CSV file with coordinates, either statically or by
      interpolation of existing coordinates. It uses the following two
      modules.
    - The OwlPS::CSV module, that provides functions to deal with the CSV
      format used in OwlPS.
    - The OwlPS::TimeInterpolation module, that provides function to
      interpolate timestamped coordinates.

    Documentation:
    - New manual page owlps-aggregatord(1).
    - New manual page owlps-positionerd(1).
    - New manual page owlps-udp-to-http(1).
    - A bunch of figures where added.
    - Perl files from the scripts/ directory are documented with POD and man
      pages are generated directly from the source files.

    API changes:
    - libowlps: the synopsis of owl_create_udp_trx_socket() has changed
      (deletion of the client_description argument).
    - libowlps-client: the synopsis of owl_create_trx_socket(),
      owl_send_request() and owl_send_packet() has changed (struct sockaddr
      instead of struct sockaddr_in).
    - libowlps-resultreader: struct _owl_result.mobile_mac_addr is now a
      static buffer instead of a dynamically allocated string.

    OwlPS Client:
    - -F now supports either an inter-transmission delay (old behaviour) or
      a delay between the start of two transmissions.

    OwlPS UDP-to-HTTP:
    - The error code when no results are stored has been changed
      ("NoResults" instead of "NoResult").
    - Command-line options are now handled:
      - -h and -V for help and version messages
      - -v and -q for verbose and quiet modes
      - -l and -t to set the port numbers

    All the modules are now able to deal with host names and not only IP
    addresses.


v1.3.4          OwlPS, version 1.3.4 (development point release)

    This is again a big release in terms of number of commits. Many of these
    commits are code cleaning, refactoring, and other invisible
    improvements, but there are also a number of noticeable changes, and
    especially two major ones.

    First of all, this release could be called "mine-ready OwlPS". Indeed,
    the most important change is the new autocalibration method in OwlPS
    Positioner that allows to generate reference points along a path defined
    in the configuration, which enables self-calibrated positioning in a
    network of tunnels.

    The other important change is that the aggregation CSV format is now
    versionned. The first field OwlPS Aggregator's CSV output files is now
    an unsigned integer that defines the version of the CSV format used. The
    format was otherwise untouched, and this version has number 1. An
    aggregation file generated with a previous version can therefore still
    be used by adding "1;" at the beginning of each line.

    A summary of all the noticeable changes since 1.3.3 follows.

    Documentation:
    - CMake rules were added to handle the documentation; manual pages are
      now generated in the man/ directory under the build tree.
    - Doxygen is now used to generate manual pages from the libraries' code.
    - The manual page owlps-client(1) is now complete.
    - New manual page owlps-listenerd(1).
    - New manual page owlps-deployment(7).
    - Some improvements in other existing manual pages.

    libowlps API change:
    - To be consistent, every reference to an "Access Point" has been
      changed to "Capture Point"; the only visible change is that all the
      structures that contained a field named "ap_mac_addr_bytes" now
      contain a field "cp_mac_addr_bytes" instead.

    OwlPS Client:
    - New options verbose (-v) and quiet (-q).

    OwlPS Listener:
    - New option -G to dump the current configuration on the standard output
      and exit.
    - Now builds on *BSD (compilation tested on NetBSD, OpenBSD and
      DragonFly).

    OwlPS Aggregator:
    - New option -G (same as for Listener).
    - New option -F to not flush the output.
    - Option -o is now optional, and the default output file is the standard
      output.
    - When exiting, the requests in memory are output instead of being
      deleted.

    OwlPS Positioner:
    - Should now build with clang++.
    - Now requires to be linked against libclaw_tween.
    - The unit tests were brought back to live, although they are very
      incomplete.
    - A new autocalibration method was implemented, that allows to generate
      reference points along a path instead of a meshing of reference
      points. The behaviour of the positioning.generate-reference-points
      option was changed, and two new options were added:
      positioning.generated-line-path and positioning.generated-line-step.


v1.3.3          OwlPS, version 1.3.3 (development point release)

    We've got a real build system, and that's worth a point release!
    OwlPS has abandoned without any regret its old set of custom Makefiles,
    and is now using CMake. Dependency checks, improved maintainability,
    portability and (hopefully) readability: long story short, it's a great
    improvement.

    This is a big release in terms of number of commits, though not that
    much in terms of features. The important changes since v1.3.2 follow.

    Some initial work has been done on the documentation:
    - README.t2t is an entry point that directs the reader to other
      documentation files.
    - INSTALL.t2t is a guide on how to build and install OwlPS.
    - The doc/ directory contains other txt2tags files that can be built as
      man pages. Beside the owlps(7) and owlps-architecture(7) pages, only
      OwlPS Client has a man page (owlps-client(1)), so there is still some
      work to do in this area.

    libowlps API changes:
    - Doesn't define the owl_bool type any more, we are now using stdbool.h.

    OwlPS Listener:
    - Can now read packets from a pcap file instead of a capture interface,
      which is useful for testing (option -R).
    - The radiotap parser code has been cleaned and two non-trivial bugs
      were fixed: the alignment of the radiotap fields is now handled
      correctly, and the signal strength (Antenna Signal) is now stored as a
      signed 8-bit value instead of an unsigned one (which was problematic
      only with positive signal strengths).

    OwlPS Positioner:
    - Now requires GCC 4.7 with C++11 enabled.
    - New option positioning.generated-points-list, which allows to generate
      a pre-determined list of reference points instead of a regular
      meshing. The positioning.generate-reference-points option is now a
      string with values "false" (autocalibration deactivated), "mesh" (to
      generate a meshing, old default for "true"), "list" (to generate only
      a list of reference point") or "both" (combination of "mesh" and
      "list").


v1.3.2          OwlPS, version 1.3.2 (development point release)

    This is the last release "made in Université de Franche-Comté" by Matteo
    Cypriani (or to be more precise, as an employee of the University). It
    is also the first public release.

    Due to the fact that it is a "time-based" release, it does not
    correspond to a particular important change, but here are the major
    modifications since v1.3.1:
    - OwlPS Positioner can now compute the error in two dimension by setting
      the option output.2d-error.
    - One can now specify the number of requests OwlPS Client will send (-N
      option).
    - libowlps: owl_timestamp_to_string() now always displays nanoseconds on
      9 digits.
    - A bunch of bug and cosmetic fixes, mainly in OwlPS Positioner.


v1.3.1          OwlPS, version 1.3.1 (development point release)

    This release features various important changes.

    First of all, we finally got rid of the OpenWrt-specific makefiles,
    and unified all the makefiles thanks to the new common files
    (common.mk and common-rules.mk). To compile for OpenWrt, one has to
    set the variable OPENWRT_VERSION (for example make
    OPENWRT_VERSION=10.03), or to use the main Makefile_atheros_openwrt.

    The format of the positioning requests has changed, and now includes
    padding bytes. OwlPS Client features a new option (-s) to set the size
    of the transmitted data.

    Major autocalibration bugs fixed in OwlPS Positioner:
    - Segfault with positioning.generate-reference-points.
    - Failed assertion with positioning.calibration-requests-timeout > 0.
    - Several problems preventing the generation of multi-packet reference
      points (positioning.generate-single-packet-reference-points=false).

    The Positioner option generate-single-packet-reference-points has been
    renamed generate-multi-packet-reference-points and the default is now
    to generate multi-packet reference points.

    Positioner now features the option replay (--replay on), which change
    the time-related behaviour, and is useful for the option
    positioning.calibration-requests-timeout: instead of computing the
    elapsed time with the current time on the machine running Positioner,
    we keep track of the most recent received request's timestamp, and use
    it as the current time. Unfortunately, this option is quite useless if
    the clock of the mobile terminals and listeners are not synchronised
    (actually if this is the case, one should run the server without
    enabling the replay mode, because this option could cause the deletion
    of non-obsolete calibration requests).

    Positioner now features the option
    positioning.unique-calibration-request. Thanks to this behaviour
    (which was already the default), it is not too annoying (at least when
    using autocalibration) that the replay option does not work without
    synchronised clocks.

    And last but not least, the OwlPS logo enters the repository.


v1.3.0          OwlPS, version 1.3.0 (development point release)

    This is the first release of the development branch 1.3.

    The positioning requests now contain the total number of packets of
    the request, along with the current packet number (libowlps API
    change).

    This allows for the introduction of new similarity methods for
    cartography-based algorithms, based on the distribution of the SSs:
    - “interval” uses the number of values within the interval
      [mean-std.dev.;mean+std.dev.].
    - “interval2” computes the percent of packets in both the intervals
      [Im-0.674×Is, Im+0.674×Is] and [Im-Is, Im+Is], and selects the
      measurement which have the closest percentage of packets to the
      theoretical percentages of the two intervals (see
      owlps-positioner.conf for details).

    Autocalibration improvements:
    - Due to the availability of packet numbers, we are now able to
      generate multi-packet requests (which is required for the new
      similarity methods to work properly).
    - The APs are now selected not only by their angle, but also in
      function of the coverage with the receiver AP.
    - The APs are now selected with signed angles, which improves the
      selection in some cases. The minimum number of reference AP is
      lowered to one.
    - The building's floors are now handled (2.5-D positioning).

    New Positioner options:
    - positioning.calibration-requests-timeout: allows to delete old
      calibration requests.
    - positioning.generate-single-packet-reference-points: allows to
      choose between single and multi-packet reference points in the
      autocalibration.
    - positioning.generated-meshing-grain-z: vertical grain of the
      autocalibration meshing (should be 1 in most cases, as it is
      currently a floor number).
    - positioning.smallest-ss: allows to specify the smallest possible SS
      value received by the listeners.
    - positioning.ss-similarity: allows to choose the similarity method
      used.


v1.2            OwlPS, version 1.2

    Changes since v1.1.8:
    - The Positioning module has been renamed Positioner, to be consistent
      with the other modules, and the executable file is owlps-positionerd.
    - Positioner: the RADAR algorithm is renamed NSS.
    - CLI option are standardised amongst all the modules (e.g. -i as
      destination IP).
    - A daemon mode has been implemented in Client, Listener and
      Aggregator (option -D).
    - All the requests (positioning, calibration, autocalibration) are now
      sent to the same port by default.
    - Two different ports are now used for autocalibration hello messages
      and autocalibration orders. This allows to run a listener and an
      aggregator on the same machine with the autocalibration enabled.
    - The default time-related values has been updated. By default the
      aggregator will not be able to fully aggregate calibration requests
      any more, only the positioning and autocalibration requests. In
      order to aggregate calibration requests, the aggregation timeout
      needs to be increased, or the number of packets of the request and
      the delay between each of them lowered.
    - Some bug fixes, minor improvements and cosmetic changes.

    Release notes:
    - Those programs are developped and tested on GNU/Linux. All the modules
      but the Listener (which is Linux-specific for the moment) also build
      on NetBSD, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and DragonFly BSD. The Positioner does not
      build with versions of GCC older than 4.4; for some reason, it also
      does not compile on DragonFly BSD with GCC 4.4.
    - The implicit mode is still an experimental feature. It is pretty much
      untested and needs to be redesigned properly.
    - The full changelog is long, please refer to the development point
      releases' changelogs to have an overview of the changes since v1.0.
      Long story short: autocalibration!


v1.1.8          OwlPS, version 1.1.8 (development point release)

    Along with the usual bug fixes, minor improvements, and more or less
    important changes (listed below), two modules were added:
    - owlps-udp-to-http: a program that serves the results of OwlPS
      Positioning through HTTP.
    - libowlps-resultreader: a library that handles results sent by OwlPS
      Positioning (with its sample program owlps-resultreader-udp). It
      supports the previous new module OwlPS UDP-to-HTTP, as well as OwlPS
      Client (for the -l option).

    API changes:
    - libowlps:
      + Listener-specific code was moved into owlps-listener.
      + OWL_TIMESTAMP_STR_LEN was renamed OWL_TIMESTAMP_STRLEN.
      + All the elements declared in owlps.h are now prefixed with "owl_".
    - libowlps-client: the functions are now prefixed with "owl_" instead of
      "owlclient_".

    OwlPS Positioning:
    - The options minmax-start and minmax stop are renamed area-start and
      area-stop.
    - FBCM did not work with autocalibration, this is fixed.
    - Fixed a segfault that occurred in certain circumstances with the
      option positioning.radar-ignore-ap-reference-points activated.
    - CSV format changes (CSV & UDP outputs):
      + Removed the useless "Error" string before the error field.
      + Added the area in which is the result for each algorithm.


v1.1.7          OwlPS, version 1.1.7 (development point release)

    Finally the autocalibration is here! All the commits of this release are
    more or less related to the autocalibration development, in OwlPS
    Positioning. There is some work remaining, but this release features the
    main basis of the autocalibration.

    Most user visible changes: a lot of new options, including reading the
    mobiles' characteristics from a CSV file; see the sample configuration
    file for details.

    Note: this is the version used to participate at the EvAAL 2011
    competition, with the required post-competition cleaning.


v1.1.6          OwlPS, version 1.1.6 (development point release)

    This release was developed in parallel with the autocalibration
    development branch, so it contains a relatively large amount of things
    (as usual, fixes, cleaning and a few new features).

    Here are the most noticeable changes introduced, module by module.

    Positioning:
    - The long-term, unnoticed, and hard to debug ReferencePoint creation
      bug was fixed, and
    - the option --radar-average-reference-points was added; the default is
      to keep the old bug's consequent behaviour, i.e to search for the
      nearest calibration request in SS instead of the nearest reference
      point, since it gives better results (for a calibration with several
      mobile's orientation).
    - The option --verbose was added.

    Aggregator:
    - Semaphores are now used to lock the lists of APs and requests.
    - The verbose mode was changed into a verbose level.
    - The -q (quiet) option was added.

    Listener:
    - The verbose mode was changed into a verbose level.

    Client:
    - The option -f (flood mode) was added, to allow the client to
      continuously send requests.

    Other changes:
    - libowlps, libowlps-client, owlps-client and owlps-aggregator now build
      on OpenBSD and DragonFlyBSD, thanks to some cleaning and fixes (mainly
      in the libraries and makefiles). Untested on FreeBSD and NetBSD, but
      it should work painlessly.
    - All the configurable delays are now in milliseconds or seconds (no
      more microseconds).
    - We finally deleted writeInDb, since it is useless for the moment.


v1.1.5          OwlPS, version 1.1.5 (development point release)

    This small release includes the following changes:
    - Positioning computes the error for each algorithm when the
      pseudo-algorithm "Real" is used.
      That changes the results' CSV format (OutputCSV & OutputUDPSocket).
    - Positioning: add --minmax-start & --minmax-stop to limit the search
      space of MinMax.
    - Positioning's configuration files updated (they are now really example
      files).
    - Add -V to print the version, in each module.
    - A fair amount of bug fixes and small improvements.


v1.1.4          OwlPS, version 1.1.4 (development point release)

    Here are the most noticeable changes for this release:
    - The request type and calibration data (position & direction) are now
      handled in all modules.
    - The listener can send its own position in autocalibration requests.
    - The OwlPS Positioning module:
      + handles SIGINT and SIGTERM to exit correctly;
      + adds the option flush-output-files;
      + includes the algorithm name in the result output;
      + writes all the results for a given request in a bunch;
      + accepts '-' as file names to read the standard input or write to the
        standard output;
      + sends the computed results by UDP (CSV string format); note that
        currently, the mobile cannot receive this format.
    - The last endianness issues have (hopefully) been fixed.
    - libowlps API change: constants for localisation request types
      (PACKET_TYPE_*) are now OWL_REQUEST_*; the global variable run is
      renamed owl_run; owl_request includes the position; float endianness
      conversion functions were added.


v1.1.3          OwlPS, version 1.1.3 (development point release)

    We finally got rid of mobile-centred. The code is still in the memory
    of the VCS, of course, but we do not have time to bother maintaining
    it.

    owlps-positioning is now linked to libowlps, and is able to read
    aggregated requests sent by the aggregator via UDP, thanks to the new
    class InputUDPSocket. This exchange does not concern calibration nor
    autocalibration requests yet, since the aggregator do not send
    calibration data.

    As usual, this release includes some refactoring, code improvement,
    bug fixes and various minor new features. The most important code
    improvement concerns thread handling in the listener and the
    aggregator, that is now far cleaner.

    libowlps API changes: types are now all lowercase and prefixed,
    several new functions were added, and the behaviour of
    owl_mac_bytes_to_string() is changed.


v1.1.2          OwlPS, version 1.1.2 (development point release)

    Note the new case of "OwlPS": Owl Positioning System should make
    easier to memorise "Open Wireless Positioning System".

    We are still on the way to autocalibration, and a lot of things were
    done since v1.1.1, mostly on libowlps and infrastructure-centred code.
    The emission of autocalibration requests by the listeners now works as
    intended. The code has been adapted to be able to work in a complex
    network configuration: multiple Wi-Fi modes (e.g. monitor, master and
    ad-hoc), multiple IP addresses, etc. Endianness issues have been
    addressed, and everything works well now.

    This release includes major library API changes: functions are now
    prefixed, several functions were renamed, and stdint types are used in
    custom types.

    The data format also changes: we now use nanosecond precision in all
    modules, via the new type TIMESTAMP which is inspired from the C++
    class Timestamp created for the Positioning module. Therefore, the
    timestamp field of the CSV outputs has a nanosecond precision, and its
    format is "seconds.nanoseconds".

    Finally, a lot of other less visible things were accomplished: bug
    fixes and improvements, code refactoring, new options, etc.


v1.1.1          OWLPS, version 1.1.1 (development point release)

    We are on the way to autocalibration. The listeners can send Hello
    messages to the aggregator, which now handles a list of listeners and
    schedules autocalibration requests. Emission of autocalibration requests
    by the listeners has been worked on, but is very buggy at this time, and
    therefore not operational yet.


v1.1.0          OWLPS, version 1.1.0 (development point release)

    Cleaning, refactoring, translation of comments from French to English,
    bug fixes and minor features. The only very noticeable thing is the
    creation of the libowlps-client library; it is to prepare the future
    ability of the listener to send autocalibration requests.


v1.0            OWLPS, version 1.0

    Few changes are actually visible since version 0.8. This release is a
    new start for owlps-positioning, which was rewritten almost completely.
    Support for Viterbi-enabled algorithms has been dropped; this could be
    reintegrated someday, but it is not needed for our current researches,
    so it is not in the top-priority list.

    Extensive non-regression tests have not been conducted yet (we need to
    ensure that the results obtained with v1.0 are consistent with those
    obtained with v0.8).


v0.9.0          OWLPS, version 0.9.0 (development point release)

    This release includes the internship work of Julien Graeffly (mostly on
    the positioning server), and some improvements (configuration file
    support, better handling of command-line options, Fonera compilation,
    passive mode, etc.).


v0.8            OWLPS, version 0.8

    Version 0.8, as documented in the technical report "Open Wireless
    Positioning System, Version 0.8".


v0.6            "OWLPS", version 0.6

    The system allows to perform infrastructure-based measurements.
    Computation has to be done manually.

    Note: at this time, the system was not called "OWLPS" yet.


v0.4            "OWLPS", version 0.4

    First, early release of the student works TX (mobile-centred
    measurements) and TO (infrastructure-centred).