Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology: Electrical Engineering at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2012 / This research project addresses the unique challenges of extensive farming in terms of monitoring and controlling remote equipment or events. Poorly maintained roads and escalating fuel costs increase difficulty of farming and the time spent on physically monitoring remote sites further reduces financial yields. The research showed that there are very few solutions that implement wireless or electronic technology to overcome the challenges associated with these isolated and arid areas and that a low-cost, long range wireless telemetry solution that is easy to use would be beneficial for the extensive farming industry. It was therefore the aim of this project to develop a remote monitoring and controlling solution that implements wireless technology to convey information of activities around the farm utilising electronic means. To be able to successfully develop a wireless telemetry solution that will accurately meet the needs of this specific sector of industry, market research was conducted. To guide the research, the QFD (quality function deployment) process for product development has been implemented. The research consisted out of various aspects including a survey, financial considerations and international comparisons. The research also aided in the understanding of the day-to-day activities and also the physical parameters of extensive farms. Also, currently available technologies and products were evaluated to establish whether similarities exist that will aid in the development of a new product. The development process was based on the results obtained in the market research and resulted in a wireless telemetry solution that overcame all the design challenges and proved to be technically feasible, successfully addressing the application requirements. Zigbee technology was utilized for wireless communication because it provided an off-the-shelf solution with a number of readily available development platforms from various technology providers. A communication range of up to 6 kilometres with a transmitted power of 11dBm was achieved for point-to-point communication and a mesh network topology has been implemented for even longer range and complete coverage on farms. Various types of measurements have been catered for, with custom-designed instrumentation which enabled measurements such as water levels, movement and analogue signals. Also, a basic user interface was developed to enable the user to monitor or control the equipment or events remotely from a personal computer, locally or even over the internet. The results of this research project showed that by carefully selecting available technologies and understanding the application, it is possible to develop a solution that addresses the monitoring and controlling needs associated with extensive farming. The wireless telemetry system that was developed resulted in a saving equal to 10% of the total expenses of the farms per year. The telemetry system is therefore a financially feasible solution with a payback period of less than 1 year and far below the initial estimated budget. Without the need to physically monitoring equipment and events, an increase in productivity and the expansion of the overall enterprise is a further benefit added unto the monetary savings. In addition to the financial benefits of implementing new wireless technology, this is an opportunity to contribute to a cleaner and more sustained future as a legacy for the next generation by reducing the carbon footprint of the farm.

Fundação Araucária / O gerenciamento do tráfego na Internet tornou-se essencial devido à grande utilização de serviços em rede nos últimos anos. Assim, para executar alguns serviços que demandam um certo grau de qualidade é necessário otimizar o uso de recursos existentes. Organizações mantenedoras de backbones são responsáveis por rotear o tráfego, utilizando protocolos que encaminham dados da origem ao destino. Um dos protocolos de roteamento mais utilizados mundialmente é o Open Shortest Path First (OSPF). A qualidade das rotas oferecidas pelo protocolo OSPF depende dos pesos atribuídos pelo operador de rede às ligações (enlaces). A determinação destes pesos depende dos critérios técnicos ou econômicos considerados necessários por parte da empresa provedora de serviços telemáticos. Nesta dissertação aborda-se o problema de rotear a demanda de tráfego na rede com o objetivo de oferecer uma qualidade de serviço satisfatória por meio de uma atribuição inteligente de pesos aos enlaces. O problema de atribuição de pesos (WSP), consiste em encontrar um conjunto de pesos OSPF que otimiza o desempenho da rede. Para solução deste problema, a literatura científica apresenta algoritmos que, na sua maioria, buscam equilibrar o tráfego na rede pelo ajuste correto da carga de cada enlace. Essa dissertação visa solucionar o WSP propondo uma nova abordagem que leva em consideração a perda de pacotes em caminhos origem-destino e a sobrecarga gerada em cada enlace. Também uma formulação estendida é proposta, permitindo a obtenção de um conjunto de pesos operacionais em ambientes normais e em ambientes onde ocorrem falhas de nós. A aplicação de duas heurísticas conhecidas, Simulated Annealing e Harmony Search, a este problema permite encontrar soluções satisfatórias para os critérios de desempenho especificados. / Internet traffic management becomes essential due the large use of the Internet the past decades. Balancing the use of existing IP resources improves the performance of services. Backbone manteiners are responsible for routing data that are sent along the network links from a source to a destination host. A routing protocol is used to perform this task. One of the most commonly used internal routing protocol is OSPF (Open Shortest Path First). The quality of the routes offered by the OSPF protocol mainly depends on weights that are assigned by the network operator to the links. The determination of these weights depends on technical or economic criteria deemed necessary by the ISPs. This master dissertation addresses the routing problem aiming at providing network quality of service by optimizing the weights assigned to links. The weight setting problem (WSP) corresponds to find a set of OSPF weights that optimize network performance. To solve this problem, the literature shows algorithms that mostly seek to balance the network traffic by correctly setting link loads. This work aims at solving WSP proposing a new approach that takes into account packet losses over origin-destination paths and link overhead. Also an extended formulation is proposed, to obtain a set of operating weights in normal environments and in environments where node failures can occur. The application of two well known heuristics, Simulated Annealing and Harmony Search, to this problem allows to find satisfactory solutions to the performance criteria specified.

Técnicas de gerenciamento de filas e descarte de pacotes são empregadas pelos escalonadores de pacotes presentes nos roteadores internos de uma rede de telecomunicações. Devido às características auto-similares do tráfego presente nas redes, o desenvolvimento de modelos para análise de desempenho de protocolos e de elementos de rede é enormemente dificultado. Tais características auto-similares são oriundas da ação dos protocolos predominantes nas redes em questão, e dos mecanismos fim-a-fim de controle de congestionamento existentes, determinantes no comportamento do fluxo de informações entre diferentes camadas na hierarquia de protocolos TCP/IP. Esta tese tem como objetivo principal propor modelos analíticos de baixo esforço computacional que permitam fazer uma análise de desempenho de um nó de rede (podendo este nó ser do tipo: DiffServ, IntServ, IP, Multi Protocol Label Switching, entre outros) com o escalonador WFQ. O tráfego considerado é do tipo TCP, devido ao fato que este protocolo é o mais utilizado na Internet atualmente, apresentando, portanto, características auto-similares. Foram desenvolvidos modelos para o escalonador WFQ quando o mesmo é alimentado com tráfego Poissoniano e tráfego do tipo auto-similar. O primeiro modelo está baseado em uma cadeia de Markov bidimensional para representar o comportamento do escalonador WFQ alimentado por dois fluxos de prioridades diferentes. O segundo modelo faz uso de duas filas separadas com taxas de serviço ajustadas de modo a simular o comportamento do escalonador WFQ. As filas são do tipo M[X]/M/1/B para levar em conta o comportamento auto-similar do tráfego. Como resultado, mostra-se que o segundo modelo é capaz de estimar as métricas de desempenho, com erro aceitável, dentro de uma faixa adequada de valores dos parâmetros do sistema, conforme demonstra a validação de resultados conduzido com uso do software NS-2. / Internal routers of telecommunication networks employ a variety of queue management and packet discarding techniques. The development of models for analyzing performance of different protocols and devices is made difficult by the self-similar nature of network traffic. Traffic self-similarity stems from the action of predominant protocols and end-to-end congestion control systems, which are key factors in determining the behavior of data flow between layers of the TCP/IP protocol stack. This thesis proposes analytical models that allow for the evaluation of a (DiffServ, IntServ, IP, Multi Protocol Label Switching etc.) network node's performance at a low computational cost. Only TCP traffic is considered, since it accounts for most of current Internet traffic and therefore exhibits self-similar characteristics. Models were developed for the WFQ scheduler with Poisson and self-similar traffic inputs. The former is based on a bi-dimensional Markov chain representing the behavior of the WFQ scheduler with two input flows with different priorities. The latter consists in two separate queues whose service rates are tuned so as to simulate the behavior of a WFQ scheduler. M[X]/M/1/B queues are used to account for the self-similar nature of traffic. As a result, it is shown that the second model accurately estimates performance metrics for certain ranges of parameter values, as confirmed by NS-2 simulations.

Fundação Araucária / O gerenciamento do tráfego na Internet tornou-se essencial devido à grande utilização de serviços em rede nos últimos anos. Assim, para executar alguns serviços que demandam um certo grau de qualidade é necessário otimizar o uso de recursos existentes. Organizações mantenedoras de backbones são responsáveis por rotear o tráfego, utilizando protocolos que encaminham dados da origem ao destino. Um dos protocolos de roteamento mais utilizados mundialmente é o Open Shortest Path First (OSPF). A qualidade das rotas oferecidas pelo protocolo OSPF depende dos pesos atribuídos pelo operador de rede às ligações (enlaces). A determinação destes pesos depende dos critérios técnicos ou econômicos considerados necessários por parte da empresa provedora de serviços telemáticos. Nesta dissertação aborda-se o problema de rotear a demanda de tráfego na rede com o objetivo de oferecer uma qualidade de serviço satisfatória por meio de uma atribuição inteligente de pesos aos enlaces. O problema de atribuição de pesos (WSP), consiste em encontrar um conjunto de pesos OSPF que otimiza o desempenho da rede. Para solução deste problema, a literatura científica apresenta algoritmos que, na sua maioria, buscam equilibrar o tráfego na rede pelo ajuste correto da carga de cada enlace. Essa dissertação visa solucionar o WSP propondo uma nova abordagem que leva em consideração a perda de pacotes em caminhos origem-destino e a sobrecarga gerada em cada enlace. Também uma formulação estendida é proposta, permitindo a obtenção de um conjunto de pesos operacionais em ambientes normais e em ambientes onde ocorrem falhas de nós. A aplicação de duas heurísticas conhecidas, Simulated Annealing e Harmony Search, a este problema permite encontrar soluções satisfatórias para os critérios de desempenho especificados. / Internet traffic management becomes essential due the large use of the Internet the past decades. Balancing the use of existing IP resources improves the performance of services. Backbone manteiners are responsible for routing data that are sent along the network links from a source to a destination host. A routing protocol is used to perform this task. One of the most commonly used internal routing protocol is OSPF (Open Shortest Path First). The quality of the routes offered by the OSPF protocol mainly depends on weights that are assigned by the network operator to the links. The determination of these weights depends on technical or economic criteria deemed necessary by the ISPs. This master dissertation addresses the routing problem aiming at providing network quality of service by optimizing the weights assigned to links. The weight setting problem (WSP) corresponds to find a set of OSPF weights that optimize network performance. To solve this problem, the literature shows algorithms that mostly seek to balance the network traffic by correctly setting link loads. This work aims at solving WSP proposing a new approach that takes into account packet losses over origin-destination paths and link overhead. Also an extended formulation is proposed, to obtain a set of operating weights in normal environments and in environments where node failures can occur. The application of two well known heuristics, Simulated Annealing and Harmony Search, to this problem allows to find satisfactory solutions to the performance criteria specified.

Orientador: Michel Daoud Yacoub / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-10T01:21:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CaceresZuniga_YusefRafael_D.pdf: 1196886 bytes, checksum: b589961266e398a3fd22bfd7b30719e4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007 / Resumo: Nesta tese, estuda-se o problema da alocação de potência através de duas abordagens: estocástica e robusta, sendo os ganhos do canal, que descrevem o estado do sistema de comunicações sem fio, parcialmente observados pelo decisor. Na abordagem estocástica, considera-se que os ganhos do canal são variáveis aleatórias, que representam a variação rápida do sinal de rádio. Nesse contexto, reformula-se o índice de desempenho do sistema através do CVaR (Conditional. Value-at-Risk). Na abordagem robusta, considera-se que os ganhos do canal e o ruído pertencem a um determinado conjunto convexo. Em ambas as abordagens, a solução ótima é obtida em termos de um problema de otimização convexa. Adicionalmente, na abordagem estocástica, apresenta-se um algoritmo recursivo e distribuído, que converge para uma solução subótima, quando o ruído é nulo e a potência transmitida é limitada tanto superior como inferiormente. Também mostra-se que, em um sistema onde os ganhos do canal coincidem com o seu valor esperado, esse algoritmo converge para a soluçãã ótima quando a qualidade do enlace é muito maior que a mínima requerida / Abstract: This thesis deals with the power allocation problem under the stochastic and robust approaches, where the channel gains describe the wireless communication system state and are partially known by the controller. The stochastic approach considers the channel gains as random variables which represent the fast fading of the radio signal. Under these settings, the system performance index is reformulated using CVaR (Conditional Value-at-Risk). The robust approach considers that the channels gains and noise belong to a determined convex set. ln both approaches, the optimal solution is determined in terms of a convex optimization problem. Additionally, under the stochastic approach, a recursive and distributed algorithm is presented which converges to its suboptimal solution when noise is null and the transmitted power is upper and lower bounded. It is also show that this algorithm converges to its optimal solution when the link quality is much greater than the minimum required quality in a system where the channels gains match its expected value / Doutorado / Telecomunicações e Telemática / Doutor em Engenharia Elétrica

Orientadores: Fábio Violaro, Edmilson da Silva Morais / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Elétrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-17T02:12:55Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Barreira_RamiroRoqueAntunes_M.pdf: 2303475 bytes, checksum: 72e03fe8e41e9e440f2d4a266666763d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: A análise Mel-Cepstral Generalizada (MGC) corresponde a uma abordagem para estimação de envoltória espectral de fala que unifica as análises LPC, Mel-LPC, Cepstral e Mel-Cepstral. A forma funcional do modelo MGC varia continuamente com dois parâmetros reais ? e ?, possibilitando que o modelo assuma diferentes características. A flexibilidade oferecida pelo modelo MGC aliada à sua estabilidade e bom desempenho sob manipulação de parâmetros tem feito com que os parâmetros MGC sejam empregados com sucesso em codificação de fala e síntese de fala via HMM (Hidden Markov Models). O presente trabalho foca os aspectos matemáticos da análise MGC, abordando e demonstrando, em extensão, a formulação em seus vieses analítico e computacional para a solução do modelo. As propriedades e formulações básicas da análise MGC são tratadas na perspectiva do espectro mel-logarítmico generalizado. Propõe-se um método para a computação dos coeficientes MGC e Mel-Cepstrais que não envolve o uso de fórmulas recursivas de transformação em freqüência. As análises e experimentos relacionados ao método encontram-se em estágio inicial e devem ser completados no sentido de se identificar a relação ganho computacional × qualidade da representação. / Abstract: Mel-Generalized Cepstral analysis (MGC) is an approach for speech spectral envelope estimation that unifies LPC, Mel-LPC, Cepstral and Mel-Cepstral Analysis. The functional form of the MGC model varies continuously with the real parameters ? e ?, enabling the model to acquire different characteristics. The flexibility of MGC model associated with its stability and good performance under parameter manipulation have made MGC parameters to be successfully employed in speech codification and HMM speech synthesis. The present study focuses on mathematical aspects of MGC analysis, treating and proving, in a fairly extended way, analytical and computational formulation for model solution. MGC analysis properties and basic formulation are treated in melgeneralized logarithmic spectrum perspective. A method for the computation of MGC and Mel-Cepstral coefficients that do not require frequency transformation recursion formulas is proposed. Experiments and analysis concerning the method are in their initial stage and needs to be completed in the sense to identify computational × representation performances. / Mestrado / Telecomunicações e Telemática / Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica

M. Tech. (Department of Process Control and Computer Systems, Faculty of Engineering and Technology), Vaal University of Technology. / The telecommunication and utility cable monitoring system was implemented to protect the cable tampering. Cable tampering occurs despite the fact that methods have been developed, to solve and decrease cable tampering cases such as cable tampering prevention campaigns at the national and international level, organizing security patrols, replacing existing cable with fiber cables and I-Watch system installation. The objective of the research was to design and implement a cable tampering monitoring system which is able to monitor, detect, pinpoint the location and give the distance from the sensor at which the cable tampering took place. The system is an improvement on the traditional cable anti-theft monitoring system, the method of tracking resonance signal frequency was implemented. The system incorporates a sensing circuit which detects a change on the capacitance value of the cable and converts it into an equivalent frequency value, Field-Programable Gate Array (FPGA) board is utilized to convert the frequency into the cable length (the distance from sensor of cable which was taken away), after detecting an anomaly on the cable (tampered with) the output of the system is divided into two parts which are display mode and messaging mode. For display mode, the system uses a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) which displays the GPS Coordinates of the location where the cable tampering took place and the distance from sensor of the cable which has been tampered with. In the messaging mode, the FPGA activates the GSM module and the module sends alert flag message to the user when the cable is tampered with.

Η παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία έγινε στα πλαίσια του Προγράμματος Μεταπτυχιακών Σπουδών Ηλεκτρονικής και Υπολογιστών, στο Τμήμα Φυσικής του Πανεπιστημίου Πατρών. Αντικείμενό της αποτελεί η μελέτη του φυσικού επιπέδου συστημάτων κινητής τηλεφωνίας τρίτης γενιάς και η εξομοίωση χαρακτηριστικού καναλιού του φυσικού επιπέδου σύμφωνα με την παγκόσμια προτυποποίηση 3GPP. Στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο γίνεται ιστορική ανασκόπηση των συστημάτων προηγούμενων γενεών. Αναφέρονται βασικά προβλήματα που πρέπει να αντιμετωπίσει ένα τηλεπικοινωνιακό σύστημα καθώς και η βασική δομή των κυψελοειδών συστημάτων. Γίνεται εισαγωγή στα συστήματα τρίτης γενιάς ως προς τις απαιτήσεις, τις υπηρεσίες που προσφέρουν, την προτυποποίηση και την αρχιτεκτονική τους. Στο δεύτερο κεφάλαιο μελετώνται οι τρόποι πολλαπλής πρόσβασης με ιδιαίτερη έμφαση στην προσπέλαση με διαίρεση κωδικών. Αναλύονται τα συστήματα διάχυσης φάσματος. Γίνεται εκτενής αναφορά και υλοποίηση προγραμμάτων για τις ψευδοτυχαίες ακολουθίες και τις ακολουθίες Gold. Στο τρίτο κεφάλαιο μελετάται η δομή δικτύων επικοινωνίας κατά το μοντέλο OSI. Αναφέρονται τα επίπεδα των τηλεπικοινωνιακών συστημάτων με διεξοδική μελέτη του φυσικού επιπέδου και στις διεπαφές που χρησιμοποιεί για επικοινωνία καθώς και στις υπηρεσίες που προσφέρει. Αναλύεται η δομή όλων των φυσικών καναλιών και εξομοιώνεται η διαδικασία ενθυλάκωσης του καναλιού PRACH. Στο τέταρτο κεφάλαιο αναλύονται οι κώδικες διάχυσης των φυσικών καναλιών ανερχόμενης ζεύξης καθώς και η διαδικασία διάχυσης τους. Δημιουργούνται προγράμματα που παράγουν αυτούς τους κώδικες και γίνεται εξομοίωση της διάχυσης και της αποδιάχυσης του PRACH καναλιού. Στο πέμπτο κεφάλαιο αναφέρεται η διαδικασία κωδικοποίησης πηγής και μελετάται η PSK διαμόρφωση και αποδιαμόρφωση που χρησιμοποιούν τα συστήματα τρίτης γενιάς. Υλοποιούνται προγράμματα που εξομοιώνουν τη συνολική διαδικασία σε ενθόρυβο κανάλι AWGN μελετώντας την επίδραση του θορύβου σε μεταδιδόμενο σήμα. Όλες οι εξομοιώσεις υλοποιήθηκαν με το πρόγραμμα Matlab 7.1. / This master thesis is a part of the post-graduate course of the Physics department of the University of Patras, on Electronics and Computers. Its main objective is the study of the physical layer of 3rd generation telecommunication systems and the simulation of a particular channel, in accordance to 3GPP specifications. In the first chapter we review telecommunication systems of previous generations. We also refer to major problems that need to be dealt with and also the basic structure of cellular networks. 3rd generation telecommunication systems, their requirements, offered services, standardisation and architecture are all introduced. In the second chapter we study multiple access methods, emphasising CDMA methods. Moreover, spread spectrum systems are analysed. Finally we refer to pseudorandom and Gold sequences. Programs are created which generate these sequences. In the third chapter we look into the structure of communication networks according to the OSI model. The layers of telecommunication systems are mentioned, laying emphasis on the physical layer, the interfaces used for communication as well as the offered services. We report all physical channels and we simulate the encapsulation of the PRACH channel. In the fourth chapter we analyse the spreading and scrambling codes referring to the uplink channels. Next we point out the code allocation process. Programs are created which generate these spreading and scrambling codes and we finally simulate the spreading and de-spreading process of the PRACH channel. In the fifth chapter we outline the source coding process using PCM, and we study PSK modulation and demodulation which are used by 3rd generation telecommunication systems. We create programs that simulate the whole procedure in a noisy channel, and we study the effect of AWGN. The programs were created and the simulations were run using Matlab version 7.1.

Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Master of Technology Design in the Faculty of Informatics and Design at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology Supervisor: Prof J Messeter Cape Town, 2013 / The aim of this research project was to provide an answer to the question: “How can an understanding of online trust be used to build valuable online applications in Higher Education?” In order to present an answer to this question, a literature survey was conducted to establish: • An understanding of the phenomenon of online trust • What the factors are that influence a loss of trust in the online environment The literature survey highlighted several factors that influence a loss of trust in the online environment, called trust cues. These factors, however, were often tested within the E-commerce environment, and not in organization-specific contexts, such as online platforms in use in Higher Education. In order to determine whether or not these factors would influence the development of trust in context-specific environments, the author of this research grouped the indentified trust factors into three focus areas, i.e. content, ease of use, and navigation. These factors were then incorporated into a series of nine different prototypes. These prototypes were different versions of a particular online platform currently in use at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT). The prototypes were tested over a three week period, with certain staff members at the institution in question recruited as test participants. During each week of user observations, a different focus area was targeted, in order to establish the impact that it would have on the perceived trustworthiness of the platform in question. User observations were conducted while test participants completed a standard process using the various prototypes. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted while participants completed the specific process. Participants were asked to evaluate each screen in the process according to its perceived trust worthiness, by assigning a trust level score. At the completion of the three rounds of user observations, in-depth interviews were conducted with test participants. The participants’ trust level scores for each prototype were captured and graphed. A detailed description for the score given for a particular screen was presented on each graph. These scores were combined to provide an analysis of the focus area tested during the specific round. After the three rounds of user observations were completed, an analysis of all the trust factors tested were done. Data captured during interviews were transcribed, combined with feedback received from questionnaires, and analysed. An interpretation of the results showed that not all trust factors had a similar influence in the development of trust in the online platform under investigation. Trust cues such as content organization, clear instructions and useful content were by far the most significant trust factors, while others such as good visual design elements, professional images of products, and freedom from grammatical and typographical errors had little or no impact in the overall trustworthiness of the platform under investigation. From the analysis done it was clear that the development of trust in organization-specific contexts is significantly different than developing trust in an E-commerce environment and that factors that influence the development of trust in one context might not always be significant in another. In conclusion, it is recommended that when software applications are developed in organization-specific contexts, such as Higher Education, that trust factors such as good content organization, clear instructions and useful content be considered as the most salient. Organization-specific contexts differ quite significantly in that the users of these systems often convey a certain degree of trust toward the online platforms that they work with on a daily basis. Trust factors that are geared toward developing an initial or basic trust in a particular platform, which is often the case with first time users engaging in an E-commerce platform, would therefore not be as significant in the development of a more developed level of trust, which is what is needed within the development of organization-specific online platforms.

In ant societies, and, more in general, in insect societies, the activities of the individuals, as well as of the society as a whole, are not regulated by any explicit form of centralized control. On the other hand, adaptive and robust behaviors transcending the behavioral repertoire of the single individual can be easily observed at society level. These complex global behaviors are the result of self-organizing dynamics driven by local interactions and communications among a number of relatively simple individuals.<p><p>The simultaneous presence of these and other fascinating and unique characteristics have made ant societies an attractive and inspiring model for building new algorithms and new multi-agent systems. In the last decade, ant societies have been taken as a reference for an ever growing body of scientific work, mostly in the fields of robotics, operations research, and telecommunications.<p><p>Among the different works inspired by ant colonies, the Ant Colony Optimization metaheuristic (ACO) is probably the most successful and popular one. The ACO metaheuristic is a multi-agent framework for combinatorial optimization whose main components are: a set of ant-like agents, the use of memory and of stochastic decisions, and strategies of collective and distributed learning.<p><p>It finds its roots in the experimental observation of a specific foraging behavior of some ant colonies that, under appropriate conditions, are able to select the shortest path among few possible paths connecting their nest to a food site. The pheromone, a volatile chemical substance laid on the ground by the ants while walking and affecting in turn their moving decisions according to its local intensity, is the mediator of this behavior.<p><p>All the elements playing an essential role in the ant colony foraging behavior were understood, thoroughly reverse-engineered and put to work to solve problems of combinatorial optimization by Marco Dorigo and his co-workers at the beginning of the 1990's.<p><p>From that moment on it has been a flourishing of new combinatorial optimization algorithms designed after the first algorithms of Dorigo's et al. and of related scientific events.<p><p>In 1999 the ACO metaheuristic was defined by Dorigo, Di Caro and Gambardella with the purpose of providing a common framework for describing and analyzing all these algorithms inspired by the same ant colony behavior and by the same common process of reverse-engineering of this behavior. Therefore, the ACO metaheuristic was defined a posteriori, as the result of a synthesis effort effectuated on the study of the characteristics of all these ant-inspired algorithms and on the abstraction of their common traits.<p><p>The ACO's synthesis was also motivated by the usually good performance shown by the algorithms (e.g. for several important combinatorial problems like the quadratic assignment, vehicle routing and job shop scheduling, ACO implementations have outperformed state-of-the-art algorithms).<p><p>The definition and study of the ACO metaheuristic is one of the two fundamental goals of the thesis. The other one, strictly related to this former one, consists in the design, implementation, and testing of ACO instances for problems of adaptive routing in telecommunication networks.<p><p>This thesis is an in-depth journey through the ACO metaheuristic, during which we have (re)defined ACO and tried to get a clear understanding of its potentialities, limits, and relationships with other frameworks and with its biological background. The thesis takes into account all the developments that have followed the original 1999's definition, and provides a formal and comprehensive systematization of the subject, as well as an up-to-date and quite comprehensive review of current applications. We have also identified in dynamic problems in telecommunication networks the most appropriate domain of application for the ACO ideas. According to this understanding, in the most applicative part of the thesis we have focused on problems of adaptive routing in networks and we have developed and tested four new algorithms.<p><p>Adopting an original point of view with respect to the way ACO was firstly defined (but maintaining full conceptual and terminological consistency), ACO is here defined and mainly discussed in the terms of sequential decision processes and Monte Carlo sampling and learning.<p><p>More precisely, ACO is characterized as a policy search strategy aimed at learning the distributed parameters (called pheromone variables in accordance with the biological metaphor) of the stochastic decision policy which is used by so-called ant agents to generate solutions. Each ant represents in practice an independent sequential decision process aimed at constructing a possibly feasible solution for the optimization problem at hand by using only information local to the decision step.<p>Ants are repeatedly and concurrently generated in order to sample the solution set according to the current policy. The outcomes of the generated solutions are used to partially evaluate the current policy, spot the most promising search areas, and update the policy parameters in order to possibly focus the search in those promising areas while keeping a satisfactory level of overall exploration.<p><p>This way of looking at ACO has facilitated to disclose the strict relationships between ACO and other well-known frameworks, like dynamic programming, Markov and non-Markov decision processes, and reinforcement learning. In turn, this has favored reasoning on the general properties of ACO in terms of amount of complete state information which is used by the ACO's ants to take optimized decisions and to encode in pheromone variables memory of both the decisions that belonged to the sampled solutions and their quality.<p><p>The ACO's biological context of inspiration is fully acknowledged in the thesis. We report with extensive discussions on the shortest path behaviors of ant colonies and on the identification and analysis of the few nonlinear dynamics that are at the very core of self-organized behaviors in both the ants and other societal organizations. We discuss these dynamics in the general framework of stigmergic modeling, based on asynchronous environment-mediated communication protocols, and (pheromone) variables priming coordinated responses of a number of ``cheap' and concurrent agents.<p><p>The second half of the thesis is devoted to the study of the application of ACO to problems of online routing in telecommunication networks. This class of problems has been identified in the thesis as the most appropriate for the application of the multi-agent, distributed, and adaptive nature of the ACO architecture.<p><p>Four novel ACO algorithms for problems of adaptive routing in telecommunication networks are throughly described. The four algorithms cover a wide spectrum of possible types of network: two of them deliver best-effort traffic in wired IP networks, one is intended for quality-of-service (QoS) traffic in ATM networks, and the fourth is for best-effort traffic in mobile ad hoc networks.<p><p>The two algorithms for wired IP networks have been extensively tested by simulation studies and compared to state-of-the-art algorithms for a wide set of reference scenarios. The algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks is still under development, but quite extensive results and comparisons with a popular state-of-the-art algorithm are reported. No results are reported for the algorithm for QoS, which has not been fully tested. The observed experimental performance is excellent, especially for the case of wired IP networks: our algorithms always perform comparably or much better than the state-of-the-art competitors.<p><p>In the thesis we try to understand the rationale behind the brilliant performance obtained and the good level of popularity reached by our algorithms. More in general, we discuss the reasons of the general efficacy of the ACO approach for network routing problems compared to the characteristics of more classical approaches. Moving further, we also informally define Ant Colony Routing (ACR), a multi-agent framework explicitly integrating learning components into the ACO's design in order to define a general and in a sense futuristic architecture for autonomic network control.<p><p>Most of the material of the thesis comes from a re-elaboration of material co-authored and published in a number of books, journal papers, conference proceedings, and technical reports. The detailed list of references is provided in the Introduction.<p><p><p> / Doctorat en sciences appliquées / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished