The objective of this research is to investigate improved methods for distributing certificate revocation lists (CRLs) in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). VANETs are a subset of mobile ad hoc networks composed of network-equipped vehicles and infrastructure points, which will allow vehicles to communicate with other vehicles and with roadside infrastructure points. While sharing some of the same limitations of mobile ad hoc networks, such as lack of infrastructure and limited communications range, VANETs have several dissimilarities that make them a much different research area. The main differences include the size of the network, the speed of the vehicles, and the network security concerns. Confidentiality, authenticity, integrity, and availability are some of the standard goals of network security. While confidentiality and authenticity at times seem in opposition to each other, VANET researchers have developed many methods for enhancing confidentiality while at the same time providing authenticity. The method agreed upon for confidentiality and authenticity by most researchers and the IEEE 1609 working group is a public key infrastructure (PKI) system. An important part of any PKI system is the revocation of certificates. The revocation process, as well as the distribution of revocation information, is an open research problem for VANETs. This research develops new methods of CRL distribution and compares them to existing methods proposed by other researchers. The new methods show improved performance in various vehicle traffic densities.

This work focuses on the performance characterization of distributed collaborative ad-hoc networks, focusing on such metrics as the lifetime, latency, and throughput capacity of two such classes of networks. The first part concerns modeling and optimization of static Wireless Sensor Networks, specifically dealing with the issues of energy efficiency, lifetime, and latency. We analyze and characterize these performance measures and discuss various fundamental design tradeoffs. For example, energy efficiency in wireless sensor networks can only be improved at the cost of the latency (the delay incurred during communication). It has been clearly shown that improvement in energy efficiency through data aggregation increases the latency in the network. In addition, sleep-active duty cycling of nodes (devices constituting the network), a commonly employed mechanism to conserve battery lifetime in such networks, has adverse effects on their functionality and capacity. Hence these issues deserve a detailed study. The second part of this work concerns performance modeling of Delay Tolerant Networks (DTNs) and Sparse Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (SPMANETs) in general. We first investigate the effect of modern coding, such as the application of packet-level rateless codes, on the latency, reliability, and energy efficiency of the network. These codes provide us the means to break large messages into smaller packets thereby enabling efficient communication. The work then focuses on developing and formalizing an information-theoretic framework for Delay Tolerant- and other Sparse Mobile Networks. This is enabled by the use of an embedded-Markov-chain approach used for complex queuing-theoretic problems. An important goal of this work is to incorporate a wide range of mobility models into the analysis framework. Yet another important question will be the effect of changing the mobility on the comparative performance of networking protocols. Lastly, the framework will be extended to various communication paradigms such as two-hop vs multi-hop routing, unicast, and multicast.

In the wake of major disasters, the failure of existing communications infrastructure and the subsequent lack of an effective communication solution results in increased risks, inefficiencies, damage and casualties. Currently available options such as satellite communication are expensive and have limited functionality. A robust communication solution should be affordable, easy to deploy, require little infrastructure, consume little power and facilitate Internet access. Researchers have long proposed the use of ad hoc wireless networks for such scenarios. However such networks have so far failed to create any impact, primarily because they are unable to handle network transience and have usability constraints such as static topologies and dependence on specific platforms. LifeNet is a WiFi-based ad hoc data communication solution designed for use in highly transient environments. After presenting the motivation, design principles and key insights from prior literature, the dissertation introduces a new routing metric called Reachability and a new routing protocol based on it, called Flexible Routing. Roughly speaking, reachability measures the end-to-end multi-path probability that a packet transmitted by a source reaches its final destination. Using experimental results, it is shown that even with high transience, the reachability metric - (1) accurately captures the effects of transience (2) provides a compact and eventually consistent global network view at individual nodes, (3) is easy to calculate and maintain and (4) captures availability. Flexible Routing trades throughput for availability and fault-tolerance and ensures successful packet delivery under varying degrees of transience. With the intent of deploying LifeNet on field we have been continuously interacting with field partners, one of which is Tata Institute of Social Sciences India. We have refined LifeNet iteratively refined base on their feedback. I conclude the thesis with lessons learned from our field trips so far and deployment plans for the near future.

Dynamic address assignment is one of the most important features in wireless ad hoc networks if nodes should be enabled to join and to work in the network by automatically configuring all necessary settings. Different approaches have been developed throughout the last years to achieve this objective of Dynamic Address Autoconfiguration but research primarily focused on efficiency and correctness, less on security issues. Whereas Duplicate Address Detection has become reliable in commonplace scenarios, it is still relatively easy to suspend the whole network functionality in extraordinary situations within the boundaries of a Dynamic Address Configuration Protocol. In this paper, we therefore want to point out shortcomings and weaknesses in existing protocol solutions which address dynamic IP address assignment. We concentrate on a leader-based approach called ODACP and want to propose several solutions which improve the original protocol in such a way that it is safer against malicious host activities. Finally, we will demonstrate the improvements of our solution in a separate test scenario.

Μέχρι σήμερα στη δρομολόγηση στα ασύρματα αδόμητα δίκτυα λαμβάνεται ως κριτήριο ένα μοναδιαίο μέγεθος για κάθε σύνδεσμο του δικτύου, το οποίο αναπαριστά το κόστος της μετάδοσης πάνω στον συγκεκριμένο σύνδεσμο. Στη δρομολόγηση με βάση πολλαπλά κριτήρια η βασική ιδέα είναι ότι σε κάθε σύνδεσμο ανατίθεται ένα διάνυσμα από παραμέτρους-κόστη με βάση το οποίο προκύπτει και ένα αντίστοιχο διάνυσμα για κάθε μονοπάτι. Για κάθε ζευγάρι κόμβων αποστολέα-παραλήπτη γίνεται καταρχήν η εύρεση όλων των υποψήφιων για χρήση μονοπατιών. Τα υποψήφια μονοπάτια, που λαμβάνονται υπόψη κατά τη διαδικασία επιλογής, έχουν την ιδιότητα να είναι μη-κυριαρχημένα μεταξύ τους. Στη συνέχεια εφαρμόζεται στο σύνολο των μη-κυριαρχημένων μονοπατιών μια συνάρτηση που συνδυάζοντας τις συνιστώσες του κάθε διανύσματος παράγει το κόστος χρήσης κάθε μονοπατιού και έτσι το μονοπάτι με το ελάχιστο κόστος επιλέγεται για χρήση. Στα πλαίσια της εργασίας, καταρχήν μελετήθηκε ο αλγόριθμος δρομολόγησης με πολλαπλά κόστη χρησιμοποιώντας παραμέτρους-κόστη σχετικές με την ενέργεια, όπως η τρέχουσα διαθέσιμη ενέργεια στους κόμβους και η ισχύς μετάδοσής τους. Στη συνέχεια στις παραμέτρους προστέθηκε και η παρεμβολή που δημιουργείται από τη μετάδοση πάνω σε ένα σύνδεσμο. Τα αποτελέσματα των προσομοιώσεων έδειξαν ότι ο αλγόριθμος δρομολόγησης με πολλαπλά κόστη, σε σχέση με τον ελάχιστου μήκους διαδρομής, κατανέμει πιο ομοιόμορφα την κίνηση στο δίκτυο, επιμηκύνει τον χρόνο ζωής του δικτύου και αυξάνει το ποσοστό των παραδιδόμενων πακέτων. Στο επόμενο στάδιο της εργασίας έγινε μια κατανεμημένη υλοποίηση του αλγορίθμου δρομολόγησης με πολλαπλά κόστη, που επιπλέον λαμβάνει υπόψη την κινητικότητα των κόμβων του δικτύου, η οποία και πάλι φάνηκε να υπερέχει έναντι πιο παραδοσιακών πρακτικών. Τέλος η ιδέα της δρομολόγησης με πολλαπλά κόστη εφαρμόστηκε για τη λύση του προβλήματος ενεργο-αποδοτικής πολλαπλής ή ολικής εκπομπής (multicasting ή broadcasting, αντίστοιχα). Στόχος ήταν να βρεθεί η βέλτιστη ενεργο-αποδοτικά ακολουθία συνδέσμων πάνω στους οποίους πρέπει να γίνει μετάδοση ενός πακέτου προκειμένου να υλοποιηθεί η επιθυμητή εκπομπή. Σαν παράμετροι-κόστη χρησιμοποιήθηκαν η τρέχουσα διαθέσιμη ενέργεια και η ισχύς μετάδοσης των κόμβων. Τα αποτελέσματα δείχνουν σαφή υπεροχή του αλγορίθμου με πολλαπλά κόστη έναντι παραδοσιακών λύσεων τόσο για πολλαπλή εκπομπή όσο και για ολική εκπομπή. / Until now, routing in wireless ad hoc networks has been studied by taking into account a single scalar metric for every network link, representing the cost of transmitting through this link. In multicost routing a vector of cost parameters is assigned to each link, based on which a respective cost vector is produced for every path in the network. For every source-destination pair all the candidate paths are initially calculated that are non-dominated to each other. At the cost vectors of the candidate paths, an optimization function is applied in order to produce a cost for each path based on which the selection of the optimal one is made. In the present thesis multicost routing in wireless ad hoc networks was studied initially using as cost parameters the node residual energy and transmission power. As a next step the interference cause by the transmission of each link was added to the cost vectors assigned to each network link. The simulation results showed that multicost routing in comparison to traditional routing practices achieves more uniform traffic distribution and energy consumption in the network, prolongs the network lifetime and increases the percentage of the packets that are successfully delivered to their destinations. Expanding these ideas, the multicost routing algorithm was next implemented in a fully distributed fashion in which additionally the node mobility was taken into account. The results again proved that a significant improvement was accomplished compared to minimum-hop routing. Finally, multicost routing was applied in the field of multicasting and broadcasting in wireless ad hoc networks. The emphasis was again on energy-efficiency by incorporating energy-related cost parameters like node residual energy and transmission power. The multicost algorithm calculates the optimal energy-efficient sequence of nodes that by transmitting implement the desired communication task (multicasting or broadcasting). Simulation results illustrate a clear advantage of our algorithm over established solutions for energy-efficient multicasting and broadcasting.

Network protocol construction is a complex and error prone task. The challenges originate both from the inherent complexity of developing correct program code and from the distributed nature of networked systems. Protocol errors can have devastating consequences. Even so, methods for ensuring protocol correctness are currently only used to a limited extent. A central reason for this is that they are often complex and expensive to employ. In this thesis, we develop methods to perform network protocol testing and verification, with the goal to make the techniques more accessible and readily adoptable. We examine how to formulate correctness requirements for ad hoc routing protocols used to set up forwarding paths in wireless networks. Model checking is a way to verify such requirements automatically. We investigate scalability of finite-state model checking, in terms of network size and topological complexity, and devise a manual abstraction technique to improve scalability. A methodology combining simulations, emulations, and real world experiments is developed for analyzing the performance of wireless protocol implementations. The technique is applied in a comparison of the ad hoc routing protocols AODV, DSR, and OLSR. Discrepancies between simulations and real world behavior are identified; these are due to absence of realistic radio propagation and mobility models in simulation. The issues are mainly related to how the protocols sense their network surroundings and we identify improvements to these capabilities. Finally, we develop a methodology and a tool for automatic verification of safety properties of infinite-state network protocols, modeled as graph transformation systems extended with negative application conditions. The verification uses symbolic backward reachability analysis. By introducing abstractions in the form of summary nodes, the method is extended to protocols with recursive data structures. Our tool automatically verifies correct routing of the DYMO ad hoc routing protocol and several nontrivial heap manipulating programs.

In Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), disseminating warning messages in a timely and efficient way through wireless short-range communications can save many lives and reduce traffic congestion. A geographical broadcast protocol provides data delivery to specified geographical areas, using multi-hop communications if needed. Among the main challenges for such protocols are forwarder selection and the reduction of the number of hops required to reach and cover the destination area.  In this thesis we propose an efficient geographical broadcast protocol called Preferred and Contention Based Forwarding (PCBF) and evaluate it through simulations. PCBF uses a combination of contention-based forwarding and selecting preferred forwarders also found in other protocols like Emergency Message Dissemination for Vehicular Environments (EMDV). Since the preferred forwarder is allowed to immediately forward the packet (evading contention among other potential forwarders), this approach reduces end-to-end delays. Notable extensions of PCBF compared to EMDV are the use of direct negative acknowledgements in case of unnecessary rebroadcasts and the use of forwarders outside the target region.  Our simulation results show that the PCBF protocol outperforms selected other protocols in terms of end-to-end delay, re-broadcast overhead and reliability in both sparse and dense networks.

La rapide progression des technologies sans fil au cours de ces dernières années a vu naître de nouveaux systèmes de communication dont les réseaux véhiculaires. Ces réseaux visent à intégrer les nouvelles technologies de l’information et de la communication dans le domaine automobile en vue d’améliorer la sécurité et le confort sur le réseau routier. Offrir un accès Internet aux véhicules et à leurs occupants peut sans doute aider à anticiper certains dangers sur la route tout en rendant plus agréables les déplacements à bord des véhicules. Le déploiement de ce service nécessite que des messages soient échangés entre les véhicules. Le routage constitue un élément crucial dans un réseau, car définissant la façon dont les différentes entités échangent des messages. Le routage dans les VANETS constitue un grand défi car ces derniers sont caractérisés par une forte mobilité entraînant une topologie très dynamique. Des protocoles ont été proposés pour étendre Internet aux réseaux véhiculaires. Toutefois, la plupart d’entre eux nécessitent un coût élevé de messages de contrôle pour l’établissement et le maintien des communications. Ceci a pour conséquence la saturation de la bande passante entrainant ainsi une baisse de performance du réseau. Nous proposons dans ce mémoire, un protocole de routage qui s’appuie sur des passerelles mobiles pour étendre Internet aux réseaux véhiculaires. Le protocole prend en compte la mobilité des véhicules et la charge du réseau pour l’établissement et le maintien des routes. / The fast progression of wireless technologies has motivated the emergence of new communications system called VANETS (Vehicular Adhoc Networks). VANETS enable vehicles on the roadway to communicate with each other and with road infrastructure using wireless capabilities. The applications of VANETS include improving safety and comfort on the road. For example, by providing Internet to vehicles, traveling can be safer and more comfortable. To provide Internet connectivity, messages need to be exchanged between the vehicles. However, it is hard to design an efficient routing protocol for connecting vehicles to Internet with a reasonable cost due to high mobility in VANETS. Although, several existing routing protocols have been proposed in the open literature to extend Internet to VANETS, they generate considerable overhead. This leads to unfairly consumption of bandwidth decreasing network performance. We design a routing protocol to connect vehicles to Internet through mobile gateways with the objective to make efficient use of the network bandwidth. Indeed, the protocol significantly reduces the communication overhead required to establish and maintain the routes relying on the mobility of the gateways and the network’s load.

Abstract available in digital copy. / Thesis (M.Sc.Eng.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2003.

Wireless multi-hop ad hoc and sensor networks provide a promising solution to ensure ubiquitous connectivity for the Future Internet. Good network connectivity requires designing a reliable Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol, which is a challenging task in the ad hoc and sensor environments. The broadcast and shared nature of the wireless channel renders the bandwidth resources limited and expose the transmissions to relatively high collisions and loss rates. The necessity to provide guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS) to the upper layers triggered the design of conflict-free MAC protocols. The TDMA synchronization constraint is basically behind the rush of MAC protocol design based on a fixed frame size. This design shows inflexibility towards network variations and creates a network dimensioning issue that leads to a famine risk in case the network is under-dimensioned, and to a waste of resources, otherwise. Moreover, the alternative dynamic protocols provide more adaptive solutions to network topology variations at the expense of a fair access to the channel. Alongside with the efficient channel usage and the fair medium access, reducing the energy consumption represents another challenge for ad hoc and sensor networks. Solutions like node activity scheduling tend to increase the network lifetime while fulfilling the application requirements in terms of throughput and delay, for instance. Our contributions, named OSTR and S-OSTR, address the shortcomings of the medium access control protocol design in the challenging environment of wireless multi-hop ad hoc and sensor networks, respectively. For OSTR the idea consists in adopting a dynamic TDMA frame size that increases slot-by-slot according to the nodes arrival/departure to/from the network, and aiming to achieve a minimum frame size. For this end, OSTR couples three major attributes: (1) performing slot-by-slot frame size increase, (2) providing a spatial reuse scheme that favors the reuse of the same slot if possible, (3) and ensuring an on-demand frame size increase only according to the node requirements in terms of throughput. To tackle different frame sizes co-existence in the network, OSTR brings a cooperative solution that consists in fixing an appointment, a date when the frame size in the network is increased. Concerning S-OSTR, it is an amendment of OSTR for wireless sensor networks. It brings the idea of a dynamic active period, since it deploys a dynamic frame size that is built slot-by-slot according to nodes arrival to the network. S-OSTR enforces the slot-by-slot frame size increase by a node activity scheduling to prolong the inactivity period in the network, and hence prolong the overall network lifetime for wireless sensor networks. Our contributions are both based on the new dynamic TDMA frame size increase that consists in increasing the frame size slot-by-slot aiming to achieve a shorter frame size, and hence improve the channel utilization, and reduce the energy consumption. The performance analysis of OSTR and S-OSTR shows that they present good potentials to support QoS requirements, to provide energy-efficiency, to ensure fair medium access, to accommodate network topology changes and finally, to enhance robustness against scalability. The impact of this new TDMA frame size increase technique on the medium access control protocol performance is highlighted through multiple simulations of OSTR and S-OSTR. Multiple comparative studies are also handled to point out the effectiveness of this new technique and the soundness of our contributions