The purpose of this research was to develop a mobile ad-hoc network for collaborative Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) based on a mesh networking standard called IEEE 802.11s. A low-cost, small form-factor, IEEE 802.11a based wireless modem was selected and integrated with the existing flight control system developed at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) UAV Laboratory. A self-configurable user-space application on the wireless modem was developed to provide functionality to collaborative algorithms, and to monitor the performance of the wireless network. The RAMS simulator, developed at VCU, was upgraded to support the simulation of advanced networking capabilities by integrating with a simulator called ns-3. The reconfigurability and performance of the IEEE 802.11s mesh network was validated and evaluated by conducting real-world flights. The results show that the IEEE 802.11s is a promising solution for collaborative UAV applications.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:48:09Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 DhiegoFC_DISSERT.pdf: 2315369 bytes, checksum: 0b56b1d402d2c768528a0bcc9847d87f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-31 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico / A Wireless Mesh Network (WMN - Wireless Mesh Network) IEEE 802.11s standard to become operational it is necessary to configure the parameters that meet the demands of its users, as regards, for example, the frequency channels, the power antennas, IPs addresses, meshID, topology, among others. This configuration can be done via a CLI (Command - Line Interface) or a remote interface provided by the equipment manufacturer, both are not standardized and homogeneous, like black boxes for the developers, a factor that hinders its operation and standardization. The WMN, as a new standard, is still in the testing phase, and tests are necessary to evaluate the performance of Path Discovery Protocol, as in this case of HWMP (Hybrid Wireless Mesh Protocol), which still has many shortcomings. The configuration and test creation in a WMN are not trivial and require a large workload. For these reasons this work presents the AIGA, a Management Integrated Environment for WMN IEEE 802.11s, which aims to manage and perform testbeds for analyzes of new Path Discovery Protocols in a WMN / Por serem redes com diversas caracter?sticas interessantes como auto-organiza??o e toler?ncia a falhas, as Wireless Mesh Networks (WMN) vem sendo estudadas a bastante tempo pela comunidade cient?fica. Muitos desses estudos tipicamente s?o conduzidos utilizando redes em ambientes controlados conhecidos como testbeds. Al?m disso, ap?s a conclus?o do processo de padroniza??o do IEEE 802.11s as WMN baseadas nessa tecnologia vem sendo cada vez mais utilizadas como redes de produ??o nas organiza??es. Como s?o redes bastante flex?veis no que diz respeito ao seu modo de opera??o, pois suportam um elevado n?mero de par?metros de configura??o, a tarefa de gerenciamento dessas redes tende a ser muito complexa. N?o existe uma configura??o ideal que atenda a qualquer cen?rio, sendo preciso identificar o conjunto de valores que oferecem o melhor desempenho para cada caso. Desse modo, ap?s a configura??o da rede ? importante verificar se ela se comporta conforme esperado. Para isso, ? necess?rio injetar tr?fego na rede e monitorar seu comportamento. Este trabalho prop?e o AIGA, um Ambiente Integrado de Ger?ncia para Redes em Malha Sem Fio IEEE 802.11s, que facilita o gerenciamento de WMNs de produ??o bem como da utiliza??o de testbeds para realiza??o de experimentos

為了降低無線網路基地台後端之backhaul成本及解決Ad hoc網路涵蓋面積問題，無線網狀網路WMNs(Wireless Mesh Networks)因此應運而生。WMNs網路上的節點裝置與Ad hoc網路上的行動裝置對電量消耗及負載的需求是非常不同的，所以在Ad hoc網路上可使用之路由協定在WMNs網路上是無法直接適用的。 在Pure Ad hoc網路上考量Power之MMBCR(Min-Max Battery Cost Routing)及考量Loading之CSLAR(Contention Sensitive Load Aware Routing)等路由協定並沒有考量到WMNs網路上不同元件間的不同特性。有鑑於此，我們著重在Hybrid WMNs網路環境上，並提出了在Mesh Clients及Routers上同時考量Power及Loading的路徑演算法，我們稱之為POLAR。實驗結果顯示我們的路由協定能夠提昇整體的網路效能及延長網路存活時間。 / In order to reduce the backhaul cost and solve Ad hoc network coverage problem, WMNs (Wireless Mesh Networks) arise at the historic moment. The requirements on power efficiency and loading are much different between mesh nodes of WMNs and mobile hosts of ad hoc networks. The routing protocol used in Ad hoc networks would be not suitable in WMN networks. The power-aware routing in MMBCR (Min-Max Battery Cost Routing) and load-aware routing in CSLAR (Contention Sensitive Load Aware Routing) used in pure Ad hoc networks don‘t consider the different characteristics of the components in WMNs. In view of this, we focus on the Hybrid WMNs environment, and propose a combined POwer-Aware with Load-Aware Routing algorithm (Called POLAR) along mesh clients and routers. The experimental results show that our routing protocol can enhance the network efficiency and lengthen the network live time.

The demand for ubiquitous networks has pushed the designs of networks all the way. The requirement for access point to be integrated into IEEE 802.3 standard and other networks has always been a sore point in the limitation of wireless coverage of IEEE 802.11 standard networks. Wireless Mesh Network (WMN) is expected to be the future of the next generation wireless network. It is experiencing a fast growing development due to its attractive features which includes high reliable connectivity, easy deployment, self healing, self configuring, flexible network expansion etc. Hence the mobility of the WMN nodes has been of paramount importance, which would make it independent of wired infrastructure and flexible interoperability with various networks and devices. The requirements like mobility, transparency etc. have led to the amendment of the WMN standard by the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineering (IEEE) 802.11 Working Group (WG), Task Group (TG) “S. The IEEE 802.11s standard tackles these issues by its operation on layer 2 of Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) reference model and creates a transparent IEEE 802 broadcast domain that supports any higher layer protocol. In our work we give the evaluation of the upcoming IEEE 802.11s standard based on its features some of which include routing at layer 2 and medium access control to enable its design and implementation in the existing mesh frame work of Communication Research Labs (CRL) using the proposed IEEE 802.11s routing protocols with focus on RA-OLSR and HWMP. We concentrate on how to integrate these features into the existing CRL’s C-CORE which runs other layer 3 routing protocols and complex functions as Application Programming Interface (API) modules. The implementation of the IEEE 802.11s standard creates major challenges as we have to create a roadmap on integrating the new wireless kernel interfaces like the nl80211, cfg80211 and the Wireless Extension (Wext) into the CRL’s C-CORE framework for communication between user space and kernel space, especially taking into consideration of the existing HAL and madwifi wireless drivers of the CRL’s framework. To support the evaluation of the features like the layer 2 routing and the modified MAC performance, we compare results of the CRL’s real time mesh network test with our simulation result of the IEEE 802.11s standard using the Qualnet 4.5 simulator with focus on the basic network parameters like delay, jitter and throughput. The comparison shows that the CRL’s network has higher throughput running its existing layer 3 protocols. The analysis also proves that the 802.11s is flexible, scalable and efficient in delivering multi hop capabilities to clients that cannot afford the deployment time or the cost for wired networks that use access points. With the complete integration, of the 802.11s standard specifications the CRL’s C-CORE framework can be much more capable of supporting more diverse network scenario deployments. / +46-736318897

The transformation of the legacy electric grid to Smart Grid (SG) poses numerous challenges in the design and development of an efficient SG communications network. While there has been an increasing interest in identifying the SG communications network and possible SG applications, specific research challenges at the network protocol have not been elaborated yet. This dissertation revisited each layer of a TCP/IP protocol stack which basically was designed for a wired network and optimized their performance in IEEE 802.11s-based Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) communications network against the following challenges: security and privacy, AMI data explosion, periodic simultaneous data reporting scheduling, poor Transport Control Protocol (TCP) performance, Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) broadcast, and network interoperability. To address these challenges, layered and/or cross-layered protocol improvements were proposed for each layer of TCP/IP protocol stack. At the application layer, a tree-based periodic time schedule and a time division multiple access-based scheduling were proposed to reduce high contention when smart meters simultaneously send their reading. Homomorphic encryption performance was investigated to handle AMI data explosion while providing security and privacy. At the transport layer, a tree-based fixed Retransmission Timeout (RTO) setting and a path-error aware RTO that exploits rich information of IEEE 802.11s data-link layer path selection were proposed to address higher delay due to TCP mechanisms. At the network layer, ARP requests create broadcast storm problems in IEEE 802.11s due to the use of MAC addresses for routing. A secure piggybacking-based ARP was proposed to eliminate this issue. The tunneling mechanisms in the LTE network cause a downlink traffic problem to IEEE 802.11s. For the network interoperability, at the network layer of EPC network, a novel UE access list was proposed to address this issue. At the data-link layer, to handle QoS mismatch between IEEE 802.11s and LTE network, Dual Queues approach was proposed for the Enhanced Distributed Channel Access. The effectiveness of all proposed approaches was validated through extensive simulation experiments using a network simulator. The simulation results showed that the proposed approaches outperformed the traditional TCP/IP protocols in terms of end to end delay, packet delivery ratio, throughput, and collection time.

Denna rapport behandlar prestandaproblem i den nyligen standardiserade Mesh kommunikationsstandarden (IEEE 802.11s). I denna rapport, undersöker och förbättra vi ett förhållande som resulterar i reduktion av genomströmningen i en kedja av noder topologi. IEEE802.11s är mycket lovande med många fördelar för både IoT-systemen och trådlösa nätverk i båda hemmet och arbete.Vi arbetar med frågan om orättvisa när CSMA/CA tillämpas, vilket orsakar genomströmningsreduktion på grund av paketförluster och indikerar svältning. Vi analyserar konsekvenserna av Collision Avoidance (CA) mekanism och föreslår en ersättning för CA som är både rättvist och samtidigt kan upprätthålla undvikande av kollisioner. Vi implementera detta i en simulator och resultatet visar på betydligt högre end-to-end-genomströmning än standard CSMA/CA och inga paketförluster på grund av buffertspill. / This thesis rapport deals with the performance issues of the newly standardized Wireless mesh protocol (IEEE 802.11s). In this thesis, we work on improving the conditions that results in throughput degradation in a chain of nodes topology. The mesh standard is very promising with many advantages for both IoT systems and home wireless networks.We work on the issue of unfairness when CSMA/CA is applied, which causes throughput degradation due to packet loss and indicates starvation. We analyze the implication of the Collision Avoidance (CA) mechanism and propose a replacement for the CA that is both fair and able to maintain collision avoidance. We implement this in a simulator and the result shows significantly higher end-to-end throughput compared to the original CSMA/CA and no packet loss due to buffer overflow.