Η αλματώδης πρόοδος στις ασύρματες επικοινωνίες έχει φέρει ως αποτέλεσμα την δυνατότητα δημιουργίας μικρών σε μέγεθος μικροϋπολογιστικών συστημάτων που έχουν την δυνατότητα ασύρματης διασύνδεσης. Λόγω του μικρού μεγέθους αυτών είναι δυνατή η μεταφορά τους ακόμα και από φυσικά πρόσωπα και άρα προσφέρουν με τον τρόπο αυτό το πλεονέκτημα φορητότητας. Παράλληλα η επιθυμία για δημιουργία δικτύων μεγάλης κλίμακας με χρήση τέτοιων συσκευών χωρίς την δυνατότητα σταθερής παροχής ενέργειας δημιούργησε την ανάγκη μικρής εμβέλειας μετάδοσης και άρα πολλαπλών επαναμεταδόσεων ανά πακέτο δεδομένων μέχρι να φτάσει στον τελικό προορισμό του. Το ερευνητικό αντικείμενο αυτής της διδακτορικής διατριβής είναι η πρόταση μίας ολοκληρωμένης ασύρματης δομής που θα παρέχει δυνατότητες ασύρματης διασύνδεσης σε δίκτυα μεγάλης κλίμακας χωρίς ύπαρξη κεντρικής διαχείρισης. Το πρόβλημα της εύρεσης διαδρομών σε ένα ασύρματο δίκτυο κινούμενων αισθητήρων αποτελεί ένα πολύ δύσκολο εγχείρημα, ακόμα δε περισσότερο αν λάβουμε υπόψη μας και το ασύρματο μέσο που είναι ένα μη-ντετερμινιστικό φυσικό μέσο δικτύου. Η ύπαρξη απαιτήσεων πραγματικού χρόνου παρ’ όλες τις δυσκολίες υπάρχει σε εφαρμογές δικτύων κινούμενων αισθητήρων και δυσκολεύει περαιτέρω την σχεδίαση μιας δομής που θα διατηρεί διασυνδεσιμότητα μεταξύ των αισθητήρων του δικτύου ενώ παράλληλα θα ικανοποιεί τις απαιτήσεις πραγματικού χρόνου. Πρόσθετα οι δυναμικές συνθήκες που παρατηρούνται σε ένα ασύρματο δίκτυο κινούμενων αισθητήρων όσον αφορά σημαντικές παραμέτρους λειτουργίας όπως μεταβλητό φορτίο εφαρμογής, ταχύτητα φυσικής κίνησης του κινούμενου αισθητήρα και αριθμός συγκέντρωσης τους στην ίδια ασύρματη περιοχή καθώς και η μη ύπαρξη σταθερής παροχής ενέργειας, δημιουργούν την ανάγκη σχεδίασης μιας ασύρματης δομής που θα έχει την δυνατότητα να προσαρμόζεται στις εκάστοτε συνθήκες του δικτύου. Υποστηρίζοντας δυνατότητα προσαρμογής στις εκάστοτε συνθήκες του δικτύου ενώ παράλληλα εξυπηρετούνται οι απαιτήσεις πραγματικού χρόνου, δημιουργείται η δυνατότητα μείωσης του προσθετόμενου πρωτοκολλικού δικτυακού φόρτου άρα και μείωση της ενεργειακής κατανάλωσης του κινούμενου αισθητήρα. Προχωρώντας περαιτέρω, η λειτουργία του πρωτοκόλλου δρομολόγησης μπορεί επίσης να βελτιστοποιηθεί ώστε να εξυπηρετεί τα δρομολογούμενα πακέτα με μεγαλύτερη επιτυχία. Η παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή έρχεται να καλύψει την ανάγκη για τεχνικές προσαρμοστικότητας σε ασύρματα δίκτυα στις εκάστοτε συνθήκες του δικτύου και να παρουσιάσει μια πρόταση πρότυπης υλοποίησης που να βελτιστοποιεί την λειτουργία του ασύρματου δικτύου, παρακολουθώντας σε πραγματικό χρόνο κρίσιμες μεταβλητές της λειτουργίας. Τα κυριότερα αποτελέσματα της παρούσας διδακτορικής διατριβής παρουσιάζονται παρακάτω: • Μελέτη και ανάλυση της εν γένη συμπεριφοράς υπαρχόντων προτεινόμενων δομών για την δρομολόγηση σε ασύρματα κινούμενα δίκτυα αισθητήρων. • Σχεδίαση και ανάλυση πρότυπης υβριδικής δομής στηριζόμενη σε γνωστούς αποδεκτούς αλγορίθμους δρομολόγησης. • Μελέτη και ανάλυση των μεταβλητών λειτουργίας και εξαγωγή των κρίσιμων μεταβλητών μέσω των οποίων μπορεί να γίνει η αναγνώριση κατάστασης του ασύρματου δικτύου. • Σχεδίαση, ανάλυση και υλοποίηση πρότυπου αλγορίθμου ελέγχου και προσαρμογής λειτουργίας της ασύρματης δομής στις εκάστοτε συνθήκες λειτουργίας του δικτύου. • Πλήρης υλοποίηση πρότυπης δικτυακής ασύρματης αρχιτεκτονικής με δυνατότητες αναπροσαρμογής σε μεταβλητές συνθήκες δικτύου. • Λήψη και δημοσίευση πλήρους συνόλου μετρήσεων μέσω προσομοίωσης της προτεινόμενης δομής με χρήση παγκοσμίου φήμης λογισμικού προσομοίωσης δικτύων και απόδειξη της επιτυγχανόμενης βελτίωσης λειτουργίας του δικτύου. / The progress in wireless telecommunications has resulted in the creation of small sized microprocessor systems that are wireless enabled. Due to the small size of these systems, they are considered portable since they can even be carried by a person. Furthermore, the need to create large scale wireless networks using such systems, without a fixed power supply, has created the constraint of small communication range for such devices. This leads to multiple retransmissions of data packets in order to reach their final destination within the wireless network. This communication is often referred to as multihop communication. The research objective of this thesis is to propose a new wireless architecture that will provide wireless connectivity for large scale wireless ad-hoc networks without the need of central management. The problem of finding a route, or even worse, the optimal route in a wireless ad-hoc network is very difficult and gets even worse if we consider the nature of the wireless medium that is un-deterministic and probably the less predictable medium used in networks. The need of real time constraints in wireless ad-hoc networks exists however, making even more difficult the design of a wireless architecture that will provide connectivity in the domain of a wireless network while managing to succeed in satisfying the real time constraints. Furthermore the dynamic nature of a wireless mobile network as far as important functional variables are concerned, like application load, speed of node movement, rate of connectivity in the same wireless domain, as well as the lack of a fixed power supply, create the need of adaptivity support, based on network status, in any wireless module designed to address the above problems. Supporting an adaptivity functionality based on the wireless network status, while managing to meet the real time constrains imposed from the application, we manage to lower the overhead of the network protocol, hence reducing the energy consumption of the wireless node. Moving forward, the functionality of the routing protocol itself is enhanced so as to route the data packets to the destination node with higher rates of success. This dissertation manages to fulfill the need for techniques of adaptivity in wireless ad-hoc networks by presenting a new wireless architecture, that is enhancing the general behavior of a wireless network by monitoring in real time various critical network variables and change the protocols behavior to adapt to changing network condition. The more important results of this dissertation are presented below: • Study and analysis of general behavior of already existing routing protocols for ad-hoc wireless networks. • Design and analysis of a prototype hybrid module, based on existing routing algorithms. • Study and analysis of functional variables, extraction of critical functional variables that can be used to identify the status of the wireless network within a certain domain. • Design, analysis and implementation of a prototype algorithm that controls and adapts the general functionality of the wireless module based on the network status. • Implementation prototype of a wireless architecture supporting automatic real time adaptability to network status based on real time monitoring of network variables. • Collection and publication of a full set of tests by using a world wide known software tool to simulate data networks, and proof of the resulted functionality enhancement of the wireless network’s behaviour.

Submitted by Emanuel Varela Cardoso (emanuel.varela@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-08-24T20:51:57Z No. of bitstreams: 1 RUAN DELGADO GOMES – TESE (PPGEEI) 2017.pdf: 20190080 bytes, checksum: c170f5c01c9d6fd739d197414aee12e7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-24T20:51:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RUAN DELGADO GOMES – TESE (PPGEEI) 2017.pdf: 20190080 bytes, checksum: c170f5c01c9d6fd739d197414aee12e7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-06-14 / O uso de Redes de Sensores sem Fio Industriais (RSSFIs) para implementar aplicações de monitoramento ou controle apresenta vantagens em comparação ao uso de redes cabeadas, como a maior flexibilidade e o menor custo de implantação. No entanto, é necessário lidar com problemas típicos das redes sem fio, como interferência e o alto nível de atenuação em pequena e larga escala. Além disso, as características do canal sem fio variam com o tempo e uma RSSFI deve ser capaz de se adaptar a essas variações para manter boa qualidade de serviço durante sua operação. Estratégias adaptativas, como a alocação dinâmica de canais, permitem lidar com os problemas mencionados. Para isso, o primeiro passo é estimar a qualidade dos enlaces, de modo que os nós da rede possam decidir se uma mudança de canal é necessária. Esta tese apresenta como contribuição um novo estimador de qualidade de enlace (LQE) e um novo tipo de nó, o nó LQE, que estima a qualidade dos enlaces em tempo real, usando informações obtidas a partir do transceptor, e informações extraídas de pacotes de dados recebidos. O estimador proposto considera problemas causados pelo perfil de multipercurso do ambiente na qualidade do canal,interferência e assimetria. Um protótipo foi desenvolvido e a solução foi validada por meio de experimentos em um ambiente industrial real. Diferente de outros LQEs encontrados na literatura, a solução proposta não gera tráfego extra na rede e não causa sobrecarga nos nós finais. Com base no LQE proposto, um novo protocolo de acesso ao meio foi desenvolvido. O protocolo usa adaptação de canal para a transmissão de pacotes de dados e salto em frequência para a transmissão de pacotes em broadcast. A taxa de recepção de pacote média na camada de aplicação permaneceu perto do pico para todos os cenários avaliados com o protocolo proposto, mesmo considerando as variações na qualidade dos canais ao longo do tempo. Os resultados indicam que o protocolo proposto apresenta desempenho superior aos protocolos de acesso ao meio definidos pelos padrões para RSSFI, em termos de confiabilidade e determinismo. Vários resultados experimentais obtidos em ambientes industriais também são descritos e é proposto um novo modelo para simulação de protocolos multicanais. O modelo é capaz de capturar os efeitos de atenuação por multipercurso, sombreamento, assimetria, as características não estacionárias do canal sem fio e a descorrelação entre diferentes canais. / Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs), that is used to implement monitoring and control applications, presents certain advantages when compared to wired networks, including higher flexibility and lower deployment costs. However, it is necessary to deal with typical problems of wireless networks, such as interference and a high attenuation, in small and large scale. In addition, the characteristics of the wireless channel may change over time, and an IWSN needs to self adapt to these variations to maintain a good quality of service during its operation. Adaptive mechanisms, such as, dynamic channel allocation, are used to deal with the aforementioned problems. For this, the first step is to estimate the link quality, so that the network nodes can decide if a channel change is needed. This thesis presents as a contribution a novel Link Quality Estimator (LQE), and a new type of node, the LQE node, that estimates the quality of the links in real-time, using information obtained from the transceiver, and information obtained from received data packets. The proposed LQE deals with the problems caused by the multipath profile of the environment in channel quality, interference and asymmetry. A prototype was developed and the LQE was validated by experiments in an actual industrial environment. Different from other LQEs in the literature, the solution proposed in this thesis does not cause overhead at the end-nodes and on the network. Based on the proposed LQE, a novel MAC protocol was developed. The protocol uses channel adaptation for the transmission of unicast data packets, and frequency hopping for the transmission of broadcast packets. The packet reception rate at the application layer was at the peak for all scenarios that were evaluated using the proposed protocol, even considering the variations in channel quality over time. The results indicate that the proposed protocol presents a better performance in comparison to the MAC protocols defined by the standards for IWSN, in terms of reliability and determinism. Several experimental results obtained in industrial environments are also described, and a new model for simulation of multi-channel protocols is proposed. The model includes the effects of multipath fading, shadowing, asymmetry, the non-stationary characteristics of the channel, and the uncorrelation of the different channels.