CAPES / Neste trabalho é realizada a análise da eficiência energética para algumas redes sem fio de curto alcance, como as redes de sensores sem fio, e algumas redes sem fio de longo alcance, como as redes de telefonia celular. Na análise de sensores sem fio são empregados esquemas de transmissão cooperativos e não-cooperativos, considerando que um canal de retorno pode estar disponível ou não. Para a análise de redes celulares, considera-se o uso de técnicas de transmissão com múltiplas antenas, modelos realistas de consumo de potência, além de um modelo de custos para a análise financeira de diferentes projetos de redes. São consideradas nas análises do desempenho de eficiência energética restrições como uma probabilidade de outage e uma vazão fim-a-fim alvos ao sistema. Os resultados obtidos indicam os esquemas de transmissão e projetos de redes mais eficientes para diferentes condições. Além disso, o planejamento dos direcionamentos para os trabalhos futuros é apresentado. / The energy efficiency analysis for some short-range wireless networks, such as wireless sensor networks, and for some long-range wireless networks, such as cellular networks is performed in this work. For the wireless sensor networks analysis, non-cooperative and cooperative transmission schemes (considering that a return channel is available or not) are employed. Multiple antennas transmission schemes, realistic power consumption models, and a cost model for different system designs are considered for the cellular networks analysis. We consider that the system is under constraints such as a target end-to-end outage probability and a target end-to-throughput. The results show the most efficient transmission schemes and network designs under different system conditions. The future works plans are also detailed.

Investiga-se uma forma de energy harvesting que consiste em recuperar a energia do sinal eletromagnético de rádio frequência (RF), processo que também é conhecido como transferência de energia sem fio. Aplica-se o protocolo time switching (TS) para coordenar o processo de energy harvesting, o qual divide o período de envio de um pacote em dois blocos, o primeiro é dedicado à transferência de energia e o segundo ao envio de informação. A fração do tempo dedicada a cada tarefa, dada pelo parâmetro TS, tem grande impacto no desempenho do sistema. Esta dissertação mostra a investigação do uso do protocolo TS em conjunto com esquemas de retransmissão (HARQ) para o envio da informação. Os resultados mostram que os esquemas HARQ melhoram o desempenho do sistema para a alta relação sinal-ruído (SNR). Essa melhoria é ainda maior quando o destino aplica combinação de Chase entre as diversas cópias do quadro recebido. / We investigate a form of energy harvesting consisting of gathering energy from the radio frequency (RF) electromagnetic waves, also known as wireless power transfer. We employ a time switching (TS) protocol to coordinate the harvesting process, which separates a time slot into two parts, one devoted to wireless energy transfer and the other to wireless information transmission. The fraction of time devoted to each task, the TS parameter, has great impact on the overall performance. This thesis presents an investigation on the usage of the TS protocol, including the numerical optimization of the TS parameter, when hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) schemes are used for information transmission. Our results demonstrate that HARQ schemes can improve the system performance for high SNR. This improvement is even better if the destination applies Chase combining among the previously received copies of a frame.

This thesis addresses software design within the field of Information and Communications Technology for Development (ICTD). Specifically, it makes a case for the design and development of software which is custom-made for the context of marginalised rural areas (MRAs). One of the main aims of any ICTD project is sustainability and such sustainability is particularly difficult in MRAs because of the high costs of projects located there. Most literature on ICTD projects focuses on other factors, such as management, regulations, social and community issues when discussing this issue. Technical matters are often down-played or ignored entirely. This thesis argues that MRAs exhibit unique technical characteristics and that by understanding these characteristics, one can possibly design more cost-effective software. One specific characteristic is described and addressed in this thesis – a characteristic we describe here for the first time and call a network island. Further analysis of the literature generates a picture of a distributed network of access nodes (DANs) within such network islands, which are connected by high speed networks and are able to share resources and stimulate usage of technology by offering a wide range of services. This thesis attempts to design a fitting middleware platform for such a context, which would achieve the following aims: i) allow software developers to create solutions for the context more efficiently (correctly, rapidly); ii) stimulate product managers and business owners to create innovative software products more easily (cost-effectively). A given in the context of this thesis is that the software should use free/libre open source software (FLOSS) – good arguments do also exist for the use of FLOSS. A review of useful FLOSS frameworks is undertaken and several of these are examined in an applied part of the thesis, to see how useful they may be. They form the basis for a walking skeleton implementation of the proposed middleware. The Spring framework is the basis for experiments, along with Spring-Webservices, JMX and PHP 5’s web service capabilities. This thesis builds on three years of work at the Siyakhula Living Lab (SLL), an experimental testbed in a MRA in the Mbashe district of the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Several existing products are deployed at the SLL in the fields of eCommerce, eGovernment and eLearning. Requirements specifications are engineered from a variety of sources, including interviews, mailing lists, the author’s experience as a supervisor at the SLL, and a review of the existing SLL products. Future products are also investigated, as the thesis considers current trends in ICTD. Use cases are also derived and listed. Most of the use cases are concerned with management functions of DANs that can be automated, so that operators of DANs can focus on their core business and not on technology. Using the UML Components methodology, the thesis then proceeds to design a middleware component architecture that is derived from the requirements specification. The process proceeds step-by-step, so that the reader can follow how business rules, operations and interfaces are derived from the use cases. Ultimately, the business rules, interfaces and operations are related to business logic, system interfaces and operations that are situated in specific components. The components in turn are derived from the business information model, that is derived from the business concepts that were initially used to describe the context for the requirements engineering. In this way, a logical method for software design is applied to the problem domain to methodically derive a software design for a middleware solution. The thesis tests the design by considering possible weaknesses in the design. The network aspect is tested by interpolating from formal assumptions about the nature of the context. The data access layer is also identified as a possible bottleneck. We suggest the use of fast indexing methods instead of relational databases to maintain flexibility and efficiency of the data layer. Lessons learned from the exercise are discussed, within the context of the author’s experience in software development teams, as well as in ICTD projects. This synthesis of information leads to warnings about the psychology of middleware development. We note that the ICTD domain is a particularly difficult one with regards to software development as business requirements are not usually clearly formulated and developers do not have the requisite domain knowledge. In conclusion, the core arguments of the thesis are recounted in a bullet form, to lay bare the reasoning behind this work. Novel aspects of the work are also highlighted. They include the description of a network island, and aspects of the DAN middleware requirements engineering and design. Future steps for work based on this thesis are mapped out and open problems relating to this research are touched upon.

The growth of Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) was considered to be the ideal carrier of the high bandwidth applications like video on demand and multimedia e-learning. ATM emerged commercially in the beginning of the 1990's. It was designed to provide a different quality of service at a speed up 100 Gbps for both real time and non real time application. The turn of the 90's saw a variety of technologies being developed. This project analyzes these technologies, compares them to the Asynchronous Transfer Mode and assesses the future of ATM.

Cette thèse traite de l’adaptation automatique des applications sensibles au contexte par l’utilisation d’informations liées à l’environnement social des utilisateurs afin d’enrichir le service rendu par les applications. Pour cela, notre contribution s’articule autour de la modélisation multidimensionnelle des différents niveaux de contextes sociaux, notamment le poids de la relation entre les acteurs. Plus spécifiquement, nous synthétisons des contextes sociaux non seulement liés à la familiarité mais aussi liés à la similitude des communautés statiques et dynamiques. Deux modèles basés respectivement sur les graphes et les ontologies sont proposés afin de satisfaire l’hétérogénéité des réseaux sociaux de la vie réelle. Nous utilisons les données réelles recueillies sur les réseautages sociaux en ligne pour conduire nos expérimentations et analysons les résultats en vérifiant l’efficacité de ces modèles. En parallèle nous traitons le point de vue de l’application, et nous présentons deux algorithmes utilisant des contextes sociaux pour améliorer la stratégie de transmission des données dans le réseau opportuniste, et particulièrement la contre-mesure aux nœuds égoïstes. Les simulations des scénarios réels confirment les avantages liés à l’introduction des contextes sociaux, en termes de taux de succès et de délais de transmission. Nous effectuons une comparaison avec d'autres algorithmes de transmission traditionnellement décrits dans la littérature pour compléter notre démonstration / This thesis deals with the dynamic adaptation of context-aware applications using information related to the social environment of users to enrich the service rendered by the applications. To achieve this goal our contribution mobilizes multidimensional modeling of the different levels of social contexts, especially the weight of the relationship between the actors. Particularly, we synthesize not only social contexts related to familiarity but also social contexts reasoned from the similarity of static and dynamic communities. Two models based on respectively graphs and ontologies are proposed in order to satisfy the heterogeneity of the social networks in real life. We use the actual data gathered on online social networking services for conducting experiments and the results are analyzed by checking the effectiveness of the models. In parallel we consider the point of view of the application, and we present two algorithms using social contexts to improve the strategy of transmission of data in the opportunistic network, particularly countermeasure against selfish nodes. The simulations of real scenarios confirm the advantages of introducing social contexts in terms of success rate and delay of transmission. We carry out a comparison with other popular transmission algorithms in the literature

CAPES / Nesta Tese de Doutorado propõe-se um modelo de consumo de energia para redes acústicas subaquáticas que leva em consideração as especificidades do ambiente subaquático, como a comunicação utilizando ondas acústicas, a dependência da largura de banda do canal com a perda de percurso, que varia tanto com a distância quanto com a frequência, e o ruído. O desvanecimento, resultado do multipercurso, normalmente modelado pelas distribuições Rayleigh e Rice nas transmissões terrestres, é modelado pela distribuição K, que melhor representa a severidade do ambiente subaquático. O modelo considera uma rede subaquática linear de múltiplos saltos e a possibilidade de retransmissões para calcular a energia total consumida para cada bit de informação transmitido com sucesso entre a fonte e o destino. A fim de obter o menor consumo de energia, a SNR e a frequência de operação também são otimizadas, sendo considerado o uso de códigos convolucionais, cuja taxa ótima que leva ao menor consumo é determinada. Uma análise teórica é desenvolvida para cenários com e sem limitação de atraso. No primeiro caso avalia-se o consumo de energia quando retransmissões não são permitidas ou devem ser limitadas e, portanto, uma FER residual deve ser tolerada. No segundo caso infinitas retransmissões são permitidas até que um pacote seja recebido sem erros. Para ambos cenários o número ótimo de saltos que minimiza o consumo de energia é determinado, e na sequência o impacto do número de tentativas de transmissão é considerado. Resultados numéricos são apresentados, mostrando que o esquema de múltiplos saltos é mais eficiente em termos de consumo de energia que a transmissão direta. Além disso, os resultados mostram que um número pequeno de tentativas de transmissão é suficiente para alcançar uma redução considerável no consumo de energia em redes de múltiplos saltos, limitando o atraso médio por pacote transmitido, o que é muito interessante em aplicações reais. / In this Thesis, an energy consumption model for underwater acoustic networks is proposed. The model takes into account the specificities of the underwater environment, such as the use of acoustic waves for communication, dependence of the underwater acoustic channel bandwidth with the path loss, which varies with both the distance and frequency, and noise. The fading, usually modeled by Rayleigh and Rice distributions on terrestrial communications, in this work, is modeled by the K distribution, which best represents the severity of the underwater environment. The model considers a linear multi-hop underwater network and the possibility of retransmissions to calculate the total energy consumed for each bit of information successfully transmitted between the source and the destination. In order to obtain the minimum energy, the SNR and the operating frequency are also optimized. The use of convolutional codes is considered and the optimal code rate, which leads to the minimum energy consumption, is determined. A theoretical analysis was developed for two scenarios: delay constrained and delay unconstrained networks, indicating the optimal number of hops which minimizes energy consumption. Next, the impact of the number of transmission trials was considered. A numerical analysis was also performed for both the scenarios. The numerical results validate the theoretical analysis, showing that the multi-hop scheme is more efficient in terms of energy consumption when compared to direct transmission. Furthermore, the results show that a small number of transmission trials is sufficient to achieve a considerable reduction in energy consumption in multi-hop networks, limiting the average delay per packet transmitted, which is very interesting in real applications.

VINNOVA;KTH;URBS / Um conceito bastante em voga atualmente e o de cidades inteligentes. Ele define um tipo de desenvolvimento urbano capaz de reduzir os impactos ambientais, melhorando os modelos atuais de acesso a recursos naturais, transportes, gestão do lixo, climatização residencial e sobretudo a gestão da energia (produção e distribuição). O massivo volume de dados produzidos por cidades inteligentes oferece uma grande oportunidade para analisar, compreender e melhorar o modo como elas funcionam e se desenvolvem. Esta explosão na quantidade de informações tem elevado a importância do aprendizado a partir de dados a um patamar extremamente elevado. Esta dissertação tem por objetivo descrever uma metodologia para aquisição e exploração de dados de um dos mais importantes pilares de cidades inteligentes: o sistema de transporte público. Como obter, armazenar e utilizar tais dados a fim de prover a todos os envolvidos, serviços telemáticos de alto valor agregado e o problema que se busca resolver neste trabalho. Cinco serviços telemáticos são propostos sob forma de prova de conceito: avaliação da cobertura da rede de transporte atual, seguida de uma proposta de novas linhas de ônibus; avaliação indireta da ocupação diária dos ônibus da cidade; cerca-eletrônica com os limites geográficos definidos pelos itinerários das linhas; serviços de alerta de velocidade e de manutenção. Os resultados são bastante coerentes e promissores, abrindo um grande leque de possíveis trabalhos futuros a serem explorados. / Smart city is a very trendy concept today. It defines a type of urban development capable of reducing environmental impacts, enhancing current models of access to natural resources, better transportation systems, waste management, residential climatization and, above all, energy management (production and distribution). The huge data volume produced by smart cities offers a great opportunity to analyze, understand and improve the way cities work and grow. This explosion in the amount of digital information has elevated the importance of learning from data to a higher level. This document aims at describing a methodology for acquiring and exploring data from one of the most important pillars of smart cities: the public transportation system. How to acquire, store and use such data in order to provide to all stakeholders telematics services with high added value is the problem that is sought to solve in this work. Five telematics services proof of concept are proposed: assessment of current network coverage followed by the proposal of some new bus lines; indirect evaluation of buses’ passengers occupation during the day; geofence with geographical boundaries according to itineraries; speed alert and maintenance reminder services. The results are very coherent and promising, opening up a wide range of possible future work to be explored.

O presente trabalho aborda a aplicação de códigos fontanais em redes subaquáticas. Tais redes transmitem dados abaixo da água fazendo uso de sinais acústicos e possuem diversas aplicações. No entanto, é sabido que esse tipo de rede é caracterizado por uma baixa velocidade de propagação e largura de banda menor que as redes que operam em meios de transmissão mais conhecidos, tais como a transmissão sem fio via ondas de rádio frequência, resultando num maior atraso na entrega de pacotes. Para tentar minimizar estes atrasos e aumentar a eficiência energética das redes subaquáticas, o trabalho otimizou o sistema de transmissão inserindo um código corretor de erros fontanal no transmissor de mensagens. Dentro desse contexto, foi necessário modelar o consumo energético necessário para a transmissão correta de pacotes de dados em redes subaquáticas utilizando códigos fontanais. Dentre os resultados do trabalho, o mais relevante conclui que o uso dos códigos fontanais é capaz de reduzir em até 30% o consumo de energia quando a distância de transmissão é de 20 km para o caso com a taxa de erro de quadro alvo (FER) de Po = 10^−5, e em ate 25% para a FER alvo de Po = 10^−3. / The present work employs fountain codes in an underwater network, in which data is transmitted using acoustic signals and has many applications. However, underwater networks are usually characterized by low propagation speed and smaller bandwidth than networks that use radio frequency signals, resulting in larger transmission delays. Then, aiming at minimizing the delays and increasing the energy efficiency of underwater networks, the present work employs fountain error-correcting codes at the transmitter. To that end, it was first necessary to model the energy consumption of a success data packet transmission in an underwater network using fountain codes. Our results show that the use of fountain codes is able to reduce up to 30% of energy consumption when the transmission distance is of 20 km for the case with a target frame error rate (FER) of Po = 10^−5 , and 25% for the same distance with a target FER of Po = 10^−3.

The field buses, and particularly the ‘PROFIBUS’, are currently widely used in automation systems, with the intention to automate industrial applications. It is of the utmost importance that one should understand how these systems operate, because failure to understand may result in improper applications, which can ultimately lead to intense network problems and, consequently, lead to potential catastrophic failures in industrial equipment, as well as compromising the health and safety of the people. This research was the performance evaluation of SAMANCOR PROFIBUS network that controls the chrome manufacturing plant. The problem with the network was that it was failing intermittently. These network failures resulted in loss of production, loss of throughput, compromised quality, downtime due to reworks, high costs in energy used to rework, and equipment damage or failure. One of the OBJECTIVES of the research was to carry out a performance evaluation of the PROFIBUS network in terms of the possible electromagnetic interference (EMI) within the plant’s PLC network. This topic emanated from the network service providers that kept insisting that the network was unstable, due to possible electromagnetic interference caused by possible high voltage cables running next to the plant network cables. This assumption was without fact, and hence the research was conducted. The QUANTITATIVE research method was used to conduct the research, where simulation of the plant network, using external parameters, were used to carry out the research. Furthermore, experiments were conducted and the physical measurements were performed on the network, where parameters derived from these measurements were used to compare the two networks. In essence, the network was tested under known configurations. The manner in which the network was simulated was that of stepping up the electrical current from the external device, and recording the response of the network. A stand-alone network rig was built and used to carry out the tests, and the results were compared with those obtained from the plant network. / Electrical and Mining Engineering / M. Tech. (Electrical Engineering)

A avaliação de qualidade de vídeo possui um papel fundamental no processamento de vídeo e em aplicações de comunicação. Uma métrica de qualidade de vídeo ideal deve garantir a alta correlação entre a predição da distorção do vídeo e a percepção de qualidade do Sistema Visual Humano. Este trabalho propõe o uso de modelos de atenção visual com abordagem bottom up baseados em saliências para avaliação de qualidade de vídeo. Três métricas objetivas de avaliação são propostas. O primeiro método é uma métrica com referência completa baseada na estrutura de similaridade. O segundo modelo é uma métrica sem referência baseada em uma modelagem sigmoidal com solução de mínimos quadrados que usa o algoritmo de Levenberg-Marquardt e extração de características espaço-temporais. E, a terceira métrica é análoga à segunda, porém usa a característica Blockiness na detecção de distorções de blocagem no vídeo. A abordagem bottom-up é utilizada para obter os mapas de saliências que são extraídos através de um modelo multiescala de background baseado na detecção de movimentos. Os resultados experimentais apresentam um aumento da eficiência de predição de qualidade de vídeo nas métricas que utilizam o modelo de saliência em comparação com as respectivas métricas que não usam este modelo, com destaque para as métricas sem referência propostas que apresentaram resultados melhores do que métricas com referência para algumas categorias de vídeos. / Video quality assessment plays a key role in the video processing and communications applications. An ideal video quality metric shall ensure high correlation between the video distortion prediction and the perception of the Human Visual System. This work proposes the use of visual attention models with bottom-up approach based on saliencies for video qualitty assessment. Three objective metrics are proposed. The first method is a full reference metric based on the structural similarity. The second is a no reference metric based on a sigmoidal model with least squares solution using the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm and extraction of spatial and temporal features. And, the third is analagous to the last one, but uses the characteristic Blockiness for detecting blocking distortions in the video. The bottom-up approach is used to obtain the salient maps, which are extracted using a multiscale background model based on motion detection. The experimental results show an increase of efficiency in the quality prediction of the proposed metrics using salient model in comparission to the same metrics not using these model, highlighting the no reference proposed metrics that had better results than metrics with reference to some categories of videos.