The focus of the ORCA project was to set up open experimentation facilities to promote wireless innovation in market segments which require low-latency communication and real-time interactions, including manufacturing, automotive industry, healthcare, ambient assisted living, public events, home automation, and utilities. End-to-end networking experimentation was realized going from Software-Defined Radio (SDR), with Software-Defined Networking (SDN) to Dynamic Spectrum Sharing (DSS). One of the outcomes was an open source full-stack real-time SDR Wi-Fi on FPGA with embedded ARM and Linux, eventually becoming openwifi.

At FOSDEM 2020, just before the outbreak of COVID-19, openwifi was presented for the first time by Xianjun Jiao. This in-person event was a significant milestone, showcasing the open-source Wi-Fi project that captivated the audience. The presentation highlighted the potential for Wi-Fi research and customization, drawing interest from wireless network and security researchers, as well as tech enthusiasts. The live demo and engaging discussions made it a memorable experience.

In May 2020, openwifi was presented at the IEEE 91st Vehicular Technology Conference. The paper "Openwifi : a free and open-source IEEE802.11 SDR implementation on SoC" described the full-stack IEEE802.11a/g/n SDR implementation and in parallel the source code was released under AGPLv3. With this, researchers no longer have to rely on simulation, hack a commercial chip or buy an expensive reference design to test their ideas. It filled in a gap in wireless system research, where 4G/5G already had open designs such as srsLTE and Open Air Interface (OAI), but there was no open and free counterpart for Wi-Fi.

In 2019, the idea to leverage openwifi for bringing Time-Sensitive Networking to the wireless domain took root. In 2020, a Strategic Basic Research project - funded by FWO - on deterministic wireless networking was granted. This accelerated the W-TSN research with first breakthrough results on time synchronization and scheduling by end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, resulting in a multitude of publications on W-TSN in the following years, showing that openwifi TSN is capable of offering performances that today can only be promised by URLLC.

In March 2021, the UGent IoF EQUIP was approved, which enabled the acquisition of state-of-the-art Wi-Fi testing equipment, specifically the Rohde & Schwarz CMW 270. With this advanced equipment, the openwifi project can accelerate bug fixes, performance improvements, and the development of cutting-edge features in Wi-Fi 6.

In 2025, the openwifi - TSN subscription model is being launched enabling partners to get access to unique features that are not present in the open source domain. It marks our ambition to accelerate our roadmap, growing the available feature set and increasing the maturity level.