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Increasing number of ageing population and people who need continuous health monitoring and rising the costs of health care have triggered the concept of the novel wireless technology-driven human body monitoring. Human body monitoring can be performed using a network of small and intelligent wireless medical sensors which may be attached to the body surface or implanted into the tissues. It enables carers to predict, diagnose, and react to adverse events earlier than ever. The concept of Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) was introduced to fully exploit the benefits of wireless technologies in telemedicine and m-health. The main focus of this research is the design and performance evaluation of strategies and architectures that would allow seamless and efficient interconnection of patient’s body area network and the stationary (e.g., hospital room or ward) wireless networks. I first introduce the architecture of a healthcare system which bridges WBANs and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). I adopt IEEE 802.15.6 standard for the patient’s body network because it is specifically designed for WBANs. Since IEEE 802.15.6 has strict Quality of Service (QoS) and priorities to transfer the medical data to the medical server a QoS-enabled WLAN for the next hop is needed to preserve the end-to-end QoS. IEEE 802.11e standard is selected for the WLAN in the hospital room or ward because it provides prioritization for the stations in the network. I investigate in detail the requirements posed by different healthcare parameters and to analyze the performance of various alternative interconnection strategies, using the rigorous mathematical apparatus of Queuing Theory and Probabilistic Analysis; these results are independently validated through discrete event simulation models. This thesis has three main parts; performance evaluation and MAC parameters settings of IEEE 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA), performance evaluation and tuning the MAC parameters of IEEE 802.15.6, and designing a seamless and efficient interconnection strategy which bridges IEEE 802.11e EDCA and IEEE 802.15.6 standards for a healthcare system.

Security and privacy are among the growing concerns of a Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) which requires a high degree of liability from its participants. In this dissertation, We address security, anonymity and privacy challenges of VANETs in the light of the IEEE standards for vehicular communications. VANET provides a variety of road-safety and other applications through wireless devices installed in vehicles and roadside infrastructure. A roadside infrastructure in VANET is generally public, and is prone to several different malicious attacks including node compromise, impersonation, and false message delivery attacks. Therefore, a user of a VANET must verify the integrity of a message that is delivered from a roadside infrastructure. On the other hand, a vehicle-originated message should be anonymous in order to ensure user-privacy in a VANET. However, a vehicle must not be able to take advantage of its anonymity for any misbehavior like sending false messages or malicious updates to other vehicles or a roadside infrastructure. We use proxy signature, identity-based signature, and elliptic curve cryptosystems to provide authentication for infrastructure generated messages, and anonymous authentication for vehicle originated messages. Authentication in a dense traffic condition is a challenge for a receiving entity as it incurs a processing delay at the receiving end. We address this issue with a dynamic approach that selectively verifies received messages based on a message's MAC-layer priority and a sender's information relevance. This approach makes a trade-off between priority and fairness in vehicular message authentication. We develop a network simulator to measure the impact of our authentication schemes over a WAVE protocol stack. Also, we investigate how some of the MAC-layer weaknesses may impair the security of a VANET. Our solutions are lightweight, bandwidth friendly and compatible to the current standards of vehicular communications.

Increasing number of ageing population and people who need continuous health monitoring and rising the costs of health care have triggered the concept of the novel wireless technology-driven human body monitoring. Human body monitoring can be performed using a network of small and intelligent wireless medical sensors which may be attached to the body surface or implanted into the tissues. It enables carers to predict, diagnose, and react to adverse events earlier than ever. The concept of Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) was introduced to fully exploit the benefits of wireless technologies in telemedicine and m-health. The main focus of this research is the design and performance evaluation of strategies and architectures that would allow seamless and efficient interconnection of patient’s body area network and the stationary (e.g., hospital room or ward) wireless networks. I first introduce the architecture of a healthcare system which bridges WBANs and Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs). I adopt IEEE 802.15.6 standard for the patient’s body network because it is specifically designed for WBANs. Since IEEE 802.15.6 has strict Quality of Service (QoS) and priorities to transfer the medical data to the medical server a QoS-enabled WLAN for the next hop is needed to preserve the end-to-end QoS. IEEE 802.11e standard is selected for the WLAN in the hospital room or ward because it provides prioritization for the stations in the network. I investigate in detail the requirements posed by different healthcare parameters and to analyze the performance of various alternative interconnection strategies, using the rigorous mathematical apparatus of Queuing Theory and Probabilistic Analysis; these results are independently validated through discrete event simulation models. This thesis has three main parts; performance evaluation and MAC parameters settings of IEEE 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA), performance evaluation and tuning the MAC parameters of IEEE 802.15.6, and designing a seamless and efficient interconnection strategy which bridges IEEE 802.11e EDCA and IEEE 802.15.6 standards for a healthcare system.

Security and privacy are among the growing concerns of a Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) which requires a high degree of liability from its participants. In this dissertation, We address security, anonymity and privacy challenges of VANETs in the light of the IEEE standards for vehicular communications. VANET provides a variety of road-safety and other applications through wireless devices installed in vehicles and roadside infrastructure. A roadside infrastructure in VANET is generally public, and is prone to several different malicious attacks including node compromise, impersonation, and false message delivery attacks. Therefore, a user of a VANET must verify the integrity of a message that is delivered from a roadside infrastructure. On the other hand, a vehicle-originated message should be anonymous in order to ensure user-privacy in a VANET. However, a vehicle must not be able to take advantage of its anonymity for any misbehavior like sending false messages or malicious updates to other vehicles or a roadside infrastructure. We use proxy signature, identity-based signature, and elliptic curve cryptosystems to provide authentication for infrastructure generated messages, and anonymous authentication for vehicle originated messages. Authentication in a dense traffic condition is a challenge for a receiving entity as it incurs a processing delay at the receiving end. We address this issue with a dynamic approach that selectively verifies received messages based on a message's MAC-layer priority and a sender's information relevance. This approach makes a trade-off between priority and fairness in vehicular message authentication. We develop a network simulator to measure the impact of our authentication schemes over a WAVE protocol stack. Also, we investigate how some of the MAC-layer weaknesses may impair the security of a VANET. Our solutions are lightweight, bandwidth friendly and compatible to the current standards of vehicular communications.

為了進一步支援無線網路上的服務品質(QoS)，IEEE 802.11e通訊協定目前正在制訂中。其提供兩種媒介存取方式，一為基礎的進階分散存取(EDCA)，另一種是建構在進階分散存取下的混合控制存取(HCCA)。802.11e中，藉由不同的訊框間隔(IFS)與競爭視窗(CW)相關參數的設定以區隔不同的存取等級(AC)。為了在802.11e網路下進一步的發展有效的服務品質管理機制，我們提出了一個數學模型以分析在進階分散存取網路下所使用的頻寬與媒體存取層所延遲的時間。在這個模型下，每個站台可以支援多個不同等級的資料流(聲音/影音與資料)。透過這個數學模型，允入控制與資源管理可以很容易實現，也可以支援不同應用程式的不同需求。 / For supporting Quality of Service (QoS) for wireless networks, the IEEE 802.11 Task Group E currently defines enhancements to the IEEE 802.11 MAC, called 802.11e. The IEEE 802.11e provides two mechanisms for the support of applications with QoS requirements, namely, Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) and HCF Controlled Channel Access (HCCA). EDCA mechanism defines four access categories (ACs) that provide support for the delivery of traffic with user priorities. Different AC uses various Inter-Frame Space (IFS) and Contention Window (CW) parameters. In order to further develop efficient QoS management for the IEEE 802.11e networks, we propose an analytical model to evaluate throughput and MAC delay of the basic access method of the IEEE 802.11e - EDCA. Our Markov chains consider the situation of different multimedia (voice/video and data) traffic flows in a mobile station. This is improved from previous work, and closer to real usage scenarios. The correctness of our analysis has been validated via simulation results. Throughout our model, call admission control (CAC) and resource management can be easily applied, and thus QoS for hybrid requirements is supported.

In order to efficiently utilize the scarce wireless resource as well as keep up with the ever-increasing demand for Quality-of-Service (QoS) of multimedia applications, wireless networks are undergoing rapid development and dramatic changes in the underlying technologies and protocols. The Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol, which coordinates the channel access and data transmission of wireless stations, plays a pivotal role in wireless networks. Performance modelling and analysis has been and continues to be of great theoretical and practical importance in the design and development of wireless networks. This research is devoted to developing efficient and cost-effective analytical tools for the performance analysis and enhancement of MAC protocols in Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) under heterogeneous multimedia traffic. To support the MAC-layer QoS in WLANs, the IEEE 802.11e Enhanced Distributed Channel Access (EDCA) protocol has proposed three QoS differentiation schemes in terms of Arbitrary Inter-Frame Space (AIFS), Contention Window (CW), and Transmission Opportunity (TXOP). This research starts with the development of new analytical models for the TXOP scheme specified in the EDCA protocol under Poisson traffic. A dynamic TXOP scheme is then proposed to adjust the TXOP limits according to the status of the transmission queue. Theoretical analysis and simulation experiments show that the proposed dynamic scheme largely improves the performance of TXOP. To evaluate the TXOP scheme in the presence of ii heterogeneous traffic, a versatile analytical model is developed to capture the traffic heterogeneity and model the features of burst transmission. The performance results highlight the importance of taking into account the heterogeneous traffic for the accurate evaluation of the TXOP scheme in wireless multimedia networks. To obtain a thorough and deep understanding of the performance attributes of the EDCA protocol, a comprehensive analytical model is then proposed to accommodate the integration of the three QoS schemes of EDCA in terms of AIFS, CW, and TXOP under Poisson traffic. The performance results show that the TXOP scheme can not only support service differentiation but also improve the network performance, whereas the AIFS and CW schemes provide QoS differentiation only. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the MAC buffer size has considerable impact on the QoS performance of EDCA under Poisson traffic. To investigate the performance of EDCA in wireless multimedia networks, an analytical model is further developed for EDCA under heterogeneous traffic. The performance results demonstrate the significant effects of heterogeneous traffic on the total delay and frame losses of EDCA with different buffer sizes. Finally, an efficient admission control scheme is presented for the IEEE 802.11e WLANs based on analytical modelling and a game-theoretical approach. The admission control scheme can maintain the system operation at an optimal point where the utility of the Access Point (AP) is maximized with the QoS constraints of various users.

近十年來，由於無線網路的普及與人們對於影像串流服務的需求愈高，導致人們迫切需要更好的服務品質。但在IEEE 802.11無線網路中，本身的設計並非針對影像串流來設計，為讓影像串流能在無線網路更有效率，我們必須重新設計適合影像串流的無線網路。本研究首先探討IEEE 802.11 MAC層DCF (Distributed Coordination Function)與802.11e EDCA (Enhanced Distributed Channel Access)機制的潛在問題。由於DCF與EDCA並未特別對影像串流做設計，會導致具有時延(delay time)限制的影像封包等待過久造成失效，卻仍繼續傳送。本研究提出幾個有效方法，改善原本IEEE 802.11無線網路對影像串流傳輸效能不彰的現象。我們將利用跨層設計使MAC層能取得影像串流封包資訊，並改善DCF與EDCA的重傳(retransmission)機制，使用time limit與retry limit混和設計節省不必要的等待時間，並使用single-video multi-level queue改善傳輸效能。最後本研究將利用網路模擬器NS-2 (Network Simulater ver. 2)與影像串流測試實驗架構myEvalvid-NT作不同效能的驗證比較並評估我們所提出方法的有效性。 / Over the past decade, wireless network access and video streaming services have become more popular than ever. People are eager to have better quality of video streaming services over wireless network. However, IEEE 802.11 DCF and IEEE 802.11e EDCA are not specifically designed for video streaming. This leads to the problem of transmitting overdue video packets and thus degrades both the network performance and video quality. In this paper, we propose a hybrid design framework to improve the quality of video streaming. This framework consists of a MAC-centric cross-layer architecture to allow MAC-layer to retrieve video streaming packet information (slice type and transmission deadline), a retransmission mechanism of hybrid retransmission deadline and retry limit to save unnecessary packet waiting time, and a single-video multi-level queue to prioritize I/P/B slice delivery. Simulations show that the proposed methodology outperforms IEEE 802.11e, IEEE 802.11e Timebase and IEEE 802.11e MultiQ in packet loss rate, invalid packet ratio, lost and invalid packet ratio, delay time, jitter, and PSNR.

La maîtrise de la QoS dans 802.11e EDCA (Enhanced Distributed Coordination Function) ne peut être assurée que par un mécanisme de contrôle d'admission qui empêche le réseau d'atteindre un état de saturation critique et par la même garantit les besoins de QoS des applications voix/vidéo.<br />Ce mécanisme de contrôle d'admission a besoin pour sa prise de décision de prédire les métriques de performances si un nouveau flux est admis. Dans le but de rendre les décisions efficaces, nous choisissons d'utiliser une méthode de prédiction basée sur un modèle analytique. Ce dernier doit remplir deux conditions : 1) fournir une bonne précision de prédiction et 2) avoir une complexité numérique faible et un temps de réponse limité. Vu que la majorité des modèles analytiques de la littérature ne satisfont pas à ces deux conditions, nous développons un nouveau modèle analytique pour EDCA qui est capable de prédire le débit et le délai d'accès des différentes Access Category (AC) d'EDCA.<br />Ainsi, après la modélisation analytique du temps de transmission des ACs en prenant en compte le paramètre de différentiation TXOPLimit, nous développons un modèle analytique pour EDCA sous la forme d'une chaîne de Markov à quatre dimensions. Celui-ci est développé d'abord dans les conditions de saturation puis étendu aux conditions générales de trafic.<br />Pour finir, nous proposons un algorithme de contrôle d'admission à implémenter au sein du point d'accès et qui utilise le modèle analytique proposé. Nous proposons un abaque de solution d'optimisation des paramètres d'accès d'EDCA. Le but étant d'améliorer les performances du mécanisme de contrôle d'admission par l'utilisation optimale des ressources du réseau.

Les réseaux ad hoc de véhicules accueillent une multitude d’applications intéressantes. Parmi celles-ci, les applications d’info-divertissement visent à améliorer l’expérience des passagers. Ces applications ont des exigences rigides en termes de délai de livraison et de débit. De nombreuses approches ont été proposées pour assurer la qualité du service des dites applications. Elles sont réparties en deux couches : réseau et contrôle d’accès. Toutefois, ces méthodes présentent plusieurs lacunes. Cette thèse a trois volets. Le premier aborde la question du routage dans le milieu urbain. A cet égard, un nouveau protocole, appelé SCRP, a été proposé. Il exploite l’information sur la circulation des véhicules en temps réel pour créer des épines dorsales sur les routes et les connecter aux intersections à l’aide des nœuds de pont. Ces derniers collectent des informations concernant la connectivité et le délai, utilisées pour choisir les chemins de routage ayant un délai de bout-en-bout faible. Le deuxième s’attaque au problème d’affectation des canaux de services afin d’augmenter le débit. A cet effet, un nouveau mécanisme, appelé ASSCH, a été conçu. ASSCH collecte des informations sur les canaux en temps réel et les donne à un modèle stochastique afin de prédire leurs états dans l’avenir. Les canaux les moins encombrés sont sélectionnés pour être utilisés. Le dernier volet vise à proposer un modèle analytique pour examiner la performance du mécanisme EDCA de la norme IEEE 802.11p. Ce modèle tient en compte plusieurs facteurs, dont l’opportunité de transmission, non exploitée dans IEEE 802.11p. / The fact that vehicular ad hoc network accommodates two types of communications, Vehicle-to-Vehicle and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure, has opened the door for a plethora of interesting applications to thrive. Some of these applications, known as infotainment applications, focus on enhancing the passengers' experience. They have rigid requirements in terms of delivery delay and throughput. Numerous approaches have been proposed, at medium access control and routing layers, to enhance the quality of service of such applications. However, existing schemes have several shortcomings. Subsequently, the design of new and efficient approaches is vital for the proper functioning of infotainment applications. This work proposes three schemes. The first is a novel routing protocol, labeled SCRP. It leverages real-time vehicular traffic information to create backbones over road segments and connect them at intersections using bridge nodes. These nodes are responsible for collecting connectivity and delay information, which are used to select routing paths with low end-to-end delay. The second is an altruistic service channel selection scheme, labeled ASSCH. It first collects real-time service channels information and feeds it to a stochastic model that predicts the state of these channels in the near future. The least congested channels are then selected to be used. The third is an analytical model for the performance of the IEEE 802.11p Enhanced Distributed Channel Access mechanism that considers various factors, including the transmission opportunity (TXOP), unexploited by IEEE 802.11p.