Continuing advances in wireless communications and MEMS (Micro-Electro Mechan- ical Systems) technologies have fostered the construction of a wide variety of sensor and ad hoc networks. These networks have broad applications spanning wide ar- eas, such as environmental monitoring, infrastructure maintenance, traffic manage- ment, energy management, disaster mitigation, personal medical monitoring, smart building, as well as military and defence. While these applications require high per- formance from the network, they suffer from resource constraints (such as limited battery power, processing capability, buffer space, etc.) that do not appear in tra- ditional wired networks. The inherent infrastructure-less characteristic of the sensor and ad hoc networks creates significant challenges. This dissertation addresses these challenges with two protocol designs. The main contributions of this dissertation are the design and evaluation of CS- MAC (stands for CDMA Sensor MAC), a novel multi-channel media access control (MAC) protocol for direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) wire- less sensor networks. Our protocol design uses combination of DS-CDMA and fre- quency division to reduce the channel interference and consequently improves system capacity and network throughput. We provide theoretical characterisation of the mean multiple access interference (MAI) at a given node in relation to the number of frequency channels. We show that by using only a small number of frequency chan- nels, the mean MAI can be reduced significantly. Through discrete event simulation (using UC Berkerly NS-2 simulator), we provide comparison of our proposed system to a pure DS-CDMA system as well as a contention based system. Simulation results reveal that our proposed system can achieve significant improvement in system efi ciency (measured in packet/second/channel) of a contention based system. When the same number of packets are transmitted in the network, our system consumes much less communication energy compared to the contention based system. A distributed channel allocation protocol is also proposed for the network forma- tion phase. We prove that our algorithm converges with correct channel assignments. Simulation results reveal that a much smaller number of channels is required than theoretical value when nodes are uniformly randomly deployed. The second contribution of this dissertation involves the design and evaluation of two location-aware select optimal neighbour (SON) algorithms for CSMA/CA based MAC protocol for wireless ad hoc networks. Both algorithms concentrate on the improvement of energy eficiency of the whole network through the optimisation of the number of neighbours of each node. Our algorithms not only consider radio electronic energy consumption (e.g., coding, decoding) and radio transmission energy consumption (e.g., power amplifier), but also the electronic energy consumption at those irrelevant receivers (those who are not addressed by the transmission) that are located within the transmission range. Through simulations, we show that our algorithms can achieve signi??cant energy savings compared to the standard IEEE 802.11.

Continuing advances in wireless communications and MEMS (Micro-Electro Mechan- ical Systems) technologies have fostered the construction of a wide variety of sensor and ad hoc networks. These networks have broad applications spanning wide ar- eas, such as environmental monitoring, infrastructure maintenance, traffic manage- ment, energy management, disaster mitigation, personal medical monitoring, smart building, as well as military and defence. While these applications require high per- formance from the network, they suffer from resource constraints (such as limited battery power, processing capability, buffer space, etc.) that do not appear in tra- ditional wired networks. The inherent infrastructure-less characteristic of the sensor and ad hoc networks creates significant challenges. This dissertation addresses these challenges with two protocol designs. The main contributions of this dissertation are the design and evaluation of CS- MAC (stands for CDMA Sensor MAC), a novel multi-channel media access control (MAC) protocol for direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) wire- less sensor networks. Our protocol design uses combination of DS-CDMA and fre- quency division to reduce the channel interference and consequently improves system capacity and network throughput. We provide theoretical characterisation of the mean multiple access interference (MAI) at a given node in relation to the number of frequency channels. We show that by using only a small number of frequency chan- nels, the mean MAI can be reduced significantly. Through discrete event simulation (using UC Berkerly NS-2 simulator), we provide comparison of our proposed system to a pure DS-CDMA system as well as a contention based system. Simulation results reveal that our proposed system can achieve significant improvement in system efi ciency (measured in packet/second/channel) of a contention based system. When the same number of packets are transmitted in the network, our system consumes much less communication energy compared to the contention based system. A distributed channel allocation protocol is also proposed for the network forma- tion phase. We prove that our algorithm converges with correct channel assignments. Simulation results reveal that a much smaller number of channels is required than theoretical value when nodes are uniformly randomly deployed. The second contribution of this dissertation involves the design and evaluation of two location-aware select optimal neighbour (SON) algorithms for CSMA/CA based MAC protocol for wireless ad hoc networks. Both algorithms concentrate on the improvement of energy eficiency of the whole network through the optimisation of the number of neighbours of each node. Our algorithms not only consider radio electronic energy consumption (e.g., coding, decoding) and radio transmission energy consumption (e.g., power amplifier), but also the electronic energy consumption at those irrelevant receivers (those who are not addressed by the transmission) that are located within the transmission range. Through simulations, we show that our algorithms can achieve signi??cant energy savings compared to the standard IEEE 802.11.

Continuing advances in wireless communications and MEMS (Micro-Electro Mechan- ical Systems) technologies have fostered the construction of a wide variety of sensor and ad hoc networks. These networks have broad applications spanning wide ar- eas, such as environmental monitoring, infrastructure maintenance, traffic manage- ment, energy management, disaster mitigation, personal medical monitoring, smart building, as well as military and defence. While these applications require high per- formance from the network, they suffer from resource constraints (such as limited battery power, processing capability, buffer space, etc.) that do not appear in tra- ditional wired networks. The inherent infrastructure-less characteristic of the sensor and ad hoc networks creates significant challenges. This dissertation addresses these challenges with two protocol designs. The main contributions of this dissertation are the design and evaluation of CS- MAC (stands for CDMA Sensor MAC), a novel multi-channel media access control (MAC) protocol for direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) wire- less sensor networks. Our protocol design uses combination of DS-CDMA and fre- quency division to reduce the channel interference and consequently improves system capacity and network throughput. We provide theoretical characterisation of the mean multiple access interference (MAI) at a given node in relation to the number of frequency channels. We show that by using only a small number of frequency chan- nels, the mean MAI can be reduced significantly. Through discrete event simulation (using UC Berkerly NS-2 simulator), we provide comparison of our proposed system to a pure DS-CDMA system as well as a contention based system. Simulation results reveal that our proposed system can achieve significant improvement in system efi ciency (measured in packet/second/channel) of a contention based system. When the same number of packets are transmitted in the network, our system consumes much less communication energy compared to the contention based system. A distributed channel allocation protocol is also proposed for the network forma- tion phase. We prove that our algorithm converges with correct channel assignments. Simulation results reveal that a much smaller number of channels is required than theoretical value when nodes are uniformly randomly deployed. The second contribution of this dissertation involves the design and evaluation of two location-aware select optimal neighbour (SON) algorithms for CSMA/CA based MAC protocol for wireless ad hoc networks. Both algorithms concentrate on the improvement of energy eficiency of the whole network through the optimisation of the number of neighbours of each node. Our algorithms not only consider radio electronic energy consumption (e.g., coding, decoding) and radio transmission energy consumption (e.g., power amplifier), but also the electronic energy consumption at those irrelevant receivers (those who are not addressed by the transmission) that are located within the transmission range. Through simulations, we show that our algorithms can achieve signi??cant energy savings compared to the standard IEEE 802.11.

The meteoric rise and prevalent usage of wireless networking technologies for mobile communication applications have captured the attention of media and imagination of public in the recent decade. One such proliferation is experienced in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), where multimedia enabled elements are fused with integrated sensors to empower tightly coupled interaction with the physical world. As a promising alternative to antiquated wired systems and traditional WSNs in a multitude of novel application scenarios, the newly renovated WSNs have inspired a wide range of research among which investigation on data acquisition techniques is a fundamental one. In this dissertation, we address the problem of data acquisition in next generation WSNs. As wireless sensors are powered with limited energy resources while they are expected to work in an unattended manner for a long duration, energy conservation stands as the primal concern. Also, to enable in-situ sensing in different rate-constrained applications, routing decisions should care about the medium access feasibility of achievable end-to-end data rates. Driven by the fact, we first design cross-layer medium contention aware routing schemes for rate-constrained traffic in single-channel WSNs that maximize network lifetime. Three sufficient conditions on rate feasibility, referred to as rate-based, degree-based, and mixed constraints, are incorporated into the routing formulations to guarantee the practical viability of the routing solutions. Next, with the aim to mitigate interference and hence to enhance network capacity, we extend our work by proposing energy and cross-layer aware routing schemes for multichannel access WSNs that account for radio, MAC contention, and network constraints. In that context, we first derive three new sets of sufficient conditions that ensure feasibility of data rates in multichannel access WSNs. Then, utilizing these sets, we devise three different MAC-aware routing optimization schemes, each aiming to maximize the network lifetime while meeting data rate requirements of end-to-end flows. Finally, we perform extensive simulation studies to evaluate and compare the performance of the proposed routing approaches under various network conditions. So far works are done in milieu of WSNs with both fixed access node and sensor nodes. In the subsequent part of the dissertation, we present the continuation of our work focusing on reliable data acquisition in Mobile WSNs for a promising application namely free-ranging animal tracking/monitoring. To accomplish that goal, we concentrate on providing sufficient conditions on access-point density that limit the likelihood of buffer overflow. We first derive sufficient access-point density conditions that ensure that the data loss rates are statistically guaranteed to remain below a given threshold. Then, we evaluate and validate the derived theoretical results with both synthetic and real-world data. / Graduation date: 2012

Many applications of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) require the sensor nodes of a network to belong to different priority classes where the nodes of a higher priority class enjoy higher data rates than nodes of a lower priority class. Practical design of such networks, however, faces challenges in satisfying the following basic design requirements: a) the need to rely on the medium access control mechanisms provided by the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for low-rate wireless personal area networks, b) the need to solve certain types of class size optimization problems to ensure adequate sensing coverage, and c) the need to achieve good utilization of the available channels. Unfortunately, the current version of the IEEE 802.15.4 does not provide adequate support for rate differentiation. Hence, many proposed solutions to the problem in the literature consider adding extensions to the standard. In this thesis, we introduce some class size optimization problems as examples of coverage problems that may arise in designing a WSN. We then consider a method proposed in the literature for handling the rate differentiation problem. The method relies on modifying the CSMA-CA channel access mechanism of the IEEE standard. We use simulation to examine its performance and its applicability to solve some class size optimization problems. We next investigate the use of Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) protocols in providing service differentiation among different classes of sensors. We show simple sufficient conditions for the existence of TDMA-based solutions to a class size feasibility problem. Lastly, we consider the use of Guaranteed Time Slots (GTS) of the IEEE 802.15.4 standard in constructing TDMA schedules. We present a new algorithm that uses the GTS service to construct such schedules. The desired algorithm contains some optimization features. The obtained simulation results show the performance gain achieved by the algorithm.

Recent years have seen a tremendous growth in the development of small sensing devices capable of data processing and wireless communication through their embed- ded processors and radios. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are ad hoc networks consisting of such devices gaining importance due to their emerging applications. For a meaningful processing of the information sensed by WSN nodes, the clocks of these individual nodes need to be matched through some well de¯ned procedures. This dissertation focuses on deriving e±cient estimators for the clock parameters of the network nodes for synchronization with the reference node and the estimators variance thresholds are obtained to lower bound the maximum achievable performance. For any general time synchronization protocol involving a two way message ex- change mechanism, the BLUE-OS and the MVUE of the clock o®set between them is derived assuming both symmetric and asymmetric exponential network delays. Next, with the inclusion of clock skew in the model, the joint MLE of clock o®set and skew under both the Gaussian and the exponential delay model and the corresponding al- gorithms for ¯nding these estimates are presented. Also, for applications where even clock skew correction cannot maintain long-term clock synchronization, a closed-form expression for the joint MLE for a quadratic model is obtained. Although the derived MLEs are not computationally very complex, two compu- tationally e±cient algorithms have been proposed to estimate the clock o®set and skew regardless of the distribution of the delays. Afterwards, extending the idea of having inactive nodes in a WSN overhear the two-way timing message communication between two active (master and slave) nodes, the MLE, the BLUE-OS, the MVUE and the MMSE estimators for the clock o®sets of the inactive nodes located within the communication range of the active nodes are derived, hence synchronizing with the reference node at a reduced cost. Finally, focusing on the the one-way timing exchange mechanism, the joint MLE for clock phase o®set and skew under exponential noise model and the Gibbs Sampler for a receiver-receiver protocol is formulated and found via a direct algorithm. Lower and upper bounds for the MSE of JMLE and Gibbs Sampler are introduced in terms of the MSEs of the MVUE and the conventional BLUE, respectively.

A large-scale distributed wireless sensor network is composed of a large collection of small low-power, unattended sensing devices equipped with limited memory, processors, and short-range wireless communication. The network is capable of controlling and monitoring ambient conditions, such as temperature, movement, sound, light and others, and thus enable smart environments. Energy efficient data dissemination is one of the fundamental services in large-scale wireless sensor networks. Based on the study of the data dissemination problem, we propose two efficient data dissemination schemes for two categories of applications in large-scale wireless sensor networks. In addition, our schemes provide spatial-based multi-resolution data dissemination for some applications to achieve further energy efficiency. Analysis and simulation results are given to show the performance of our schemes in comparison with current techniques.

In this thesis, we consider a distributed detection problem in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) using ultrawide bandwidth (UWB) communications. Due to the severe restrictions on power consumption, energy efficiency becomes a critical design issue in WSNs. UWB technology has low-power transceivers, low-complexity and low-cost circuitry which are well suited to the physical layer requirements for WSNs. In a typical parallel fusion network, local decisions are made by local sensors and transmitted through a wireless channel to a fusion center, where the final decision is made. In this thesis, we control the number of UWB pulses to achieve the energy efficient distributed detection. We first theoretically characterize the performance of distributed detection using UWB communications. Both AWGN and fading channels are considered. Based on the analysis, we then obtain the minimum number of the pulses per detection to meet the required performance. To achieve a near-optimal design, we further propose a multiple access technique based on the random number of UWB pulses. Finally, the performance evaluation is provided to demonstrate the advantage of our design.

<p>Wireless sensor networks are emerging from the mobile ad hoc network concept and as such they share many similarities. However, it is not the similarities that differentiates sensor networks from their ad hoc counterparts, it is the differences. One of the most important difference is that they should operate unattended for long periods of time. This is especially important since they usually rely on a finite energy source to function. To get this into a perspective, a sensor network constitutes of a sensor field where a number of sensor nodes are deployed. The sensor nodes relay the gathered information to a base station from which the data are forwarded either through a network or directly to the enduser. The communication between sensor nodes are conducted in an ad hoc manner, which means that paths toward the base station are dynamically constructed based on current network conditions. The network conditions changes and examples of this includes node failure, deactivated nodes, variations in the radio channel characteristics, etc.</p><p>As mentioned above, the sensor nodes are energy constrained and one of the more important design criteria is the life time of a sensor node or network. To be able to evaluate this criteria an energy dissipation model is needed. Most of the energy dissipation models developed for wireless sensor networks are not based on the basic sensor node architecture and as such they where not accurate enough for our needs. Thus, an energy dissipation model was developed. This model utilises the basic sensor node architecture to obtain the operation states available and their corresponding state transitions.</p><p>Communication is the most energy consuming task a sensor node can undertake. As such, the contributed energy dissipation model is used to evaluate this aspect of the proposed controlled flooding protocols. Generally, the controlled flooding protocols tries to minimise the number of forwarding nodes and by doing this they lower the energy consumed in the network. Along with this, the communication overhead of a protocol also needs to be taken into account. Our idea is to utilise the received signal strength directly to make forwarding decisions based on a cost function. This idea has a number of key features, which are: no additional overhead in the message, no neighbour knowledge and no location information are needed. The results from the proposed flooding protocols are promising as they have a lower number of forwarding nodes and a longer lifetime than the</p><p>others.</p> / Report code: LIU-TEK-LIC-2007:43.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Florida, 2005. / Title from title page of source document. Document formatted into pages; contains 91 pages. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references.