THaW PhD student, Tim Pierson, along with the Wanda team have built a ‘magic wand’ that simplifies the integration of new medical devices into existing wireless networks. A detailed description of their work is found below in the abstract to their recently accepted IEEE INFOCOM paper.

Abstract: Nearly every setting is increasingly populated with wireless and mobile devices – whether appliances in a home, medical devices in a health clinic, sensors in an industrial setting, or devices in an office or school. There are three fundamental operations when bringing a new device into any of these settings: (1) to configure the device to join the wireless local-area network, (2) to partner the device with other nearby devices so they can work together, and (3) to configure the device so it connects to the relevant individual or organizational account in the cloud. The challenge is to accomplish all three goals simply, securely, and consistent with user intent. We present a novel approach we call Wanda – a `magic wand’ that accomplishes all three of the above goals – and evaluate a prototype implementation.

A prepublication version is available here.