Dans le cadre de cette thèse, on se proposait de développer de nouveaux mécanismes de radiolocalisation, permettant de positionner les nœuds de réseaux corporels sans-fil (WBAN) mobiles, en exploitant de manière opportuniste des liens radio coopératifs bas débit à l'échelle d'un même corps (i.e. coopération intra-WBAN), entre réseaux distincts (i.e. coopération inter-WBAN), et/ou vis-à-vis de l'infrastructure environnante. Ces nouvelles fonctions coopératives présentent un intérêt pour des applications telles que la navigation de groupe ou la capture de mouvement à large échelle. Ce sujet d'étude, par essence multidisciplinaire, a permis d'aborder des questions de recherche variées, humine-biomécanique et de ayant trait à la modélisation physique (e.g. modélisation spatio-temporelle des métriques de radiolocalisation en situation de mobilité, modélisation de la mobilité groupe...), au développement d'algorithmes adaptés aux observables disponibles (e.g. algorithmes de positionnement coopératifs et distribués, sélection et ordonnancement des liens/mesures entre les nœuds...), aux mécanismes d'accès et de mise en réseau (i.e. en support aux mesures coopératives et au positionnement itératif). Les bénéfices et les limites de certaines de ces fonctions ont été en partie éprouvés expérimentalement, au moyen de plateformes radio réelles. Les différents développements réalisés tenaient compte, autant que possible, des contraintes liées aux standards de communication WBAN émergeants (e.g. Impulse Radio - Ultra Wideband (IR-UWB) IEEE 802.15.6), par exemple en termes de bande fréquentielle ou de taux d'erreur.

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.

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.

Αντικείμενο της διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η μελέτη της συμπεριφοράς των WBAN (Wireless Body Area Networks) σαν μέρος του συστήματος παρακολούθησης υγείας ασύρματης τηλεϊατρικής. Αρχικά γίνεται σύντομη αναφορά στον τρόπο χρήσης των WBAN για την πραγματοποίηση της ιδέας της mHealth (mobile health) καθώς και σε ενδεικτικά ερευνητικά προγράμματα της Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης που περιλαμβάνουν χρήση της τεχνολογίας WBAN και της τεχνολογίας ασύρματων εμφυτεύσιμων αισθητήρων για εφαρμογές ιατρικής περίθαλψης, ενώ στη συνέχεια γίνεται περιγραφή της αρχιτεκτονικής του συστήματος ασύρματης τηλεϊατρικής. Έπειτα, περιγράφεται η αρχιτεκτονική των δύο βασικότερων πρωτοκόλλων επικοινωνίας για ασύρματους κόμβους αισθητήρων, Bluetooth Low Energy και ZigBee/IEEE 801.15.4 και αναλύεται το επίπεδο εφαρμογής του πρωτοκόλλου ZigBee. Τέλος, περιγράφεται η αρχιτεκτονική του ασύρματου κόμβου αισθητήρων και παρουσιάζονται και περιγράφονται οι τυπικές συσκευές που χρησιμοποιούνται σε ένα WBAN ιατρικής περίθαλψης. / The purpose of my diploma thesis was the study of WBAN (Wireless Body Area Networks) as part of the wireless telemedicine health-monitoring system. I focused on the architecture of the integrated telemedicine system, the architecture of the two main communication protocols used in WBANs, Bluetooth LE and ZigBee/IEEE 801.15.4, and the specification of the ZigBee Application Layer. Finally, I described the typical architecture of the wireless sensor node and the typical devices that are used in a health WBAN.

The trend towards personalized ubiquitous computing has led to the advent of a new generation of wireless technologies, namely wireless body area networks (WBANs), which connect the wearable devices into the Internet-of-Things. This thesis considers the problems of relay selection and power control in fading WBANs with energy-efficiency and security considerations. The main body of the thesis is formed by two papers. Ideas from probability theory are used, in the first paper, to construct a performance measure signifying the energy efficiency of transmission, while in the second paper, information-theoretic principles are leveraged to characterize the transmission secrecy at the wireless physical layer (PHY). The hypothesis is that exploiting spatial diversity through multi-hop relaying is an effective strategy in a WBAN to combat fading and enhance communication throughput. In order to analytically explore the problems of optimal relay selection and power control, proper tools from game theory are employed. In particular, non-cooperative game-theoretic frameworks are developed to model and analyze the strategic interactions among sensor nodes in a WBAN when seeking to optimize their transmissions in the uplink. Quality-of-service requirements are also incorporated into the game frameworks, in terms of upper bounds on the end-to-end delay and jitter incurred by multi-hop transmission, by borrowing relevant tools from queuing theory. The proposed game frameworks are proved to admit Nash equilibria, and distributed algorithms are devised that converge to stable Nash solutions. The frameworks are then evaluated using numerical simulations in conditions approximating actual deployment of WBANs. Performance behavior trade-offs are investigated in an IEEE 802.15.6-based ultra wideband WBAN considering various scenarios. The frameworks show remarkable promise in improving the energy efficiency and PHY secrecy of transmission, at the expense of an admissible increase in the end-to-end latency.

L’amélioration de la qualité et de l’efficacité en santé est un réel enjeu sociétal. Elle implique la surveillance continue des paramètres vitaux ou de l’état mental du sujet. Les champs d’applications sont vastes : l’application la plus importante est la surveillance des patients à distance. Les avancées en micro-électronique, capteurs et réseaux sans-fil permettent aujourd’hui le développement de systèmes ambulatoires performants pour le monitoring de paramètres physiologiques, capables de prendre en compte d’importantes contraintes techniques : forte intégration pour la réduction de la taille et faible consommation pour une plus grande autonomie [1]. Cependant, la conception de ce type de réseaux de capteurs médicaux WBANs (Wireles Body Area Networks) se heurte à un certain nombre de difficultés techniques, provenant des contraintes imposées par les capacités réduites des capteurs individuels : basse puissance, énergie limitée et faible capacité de stockage. Ces difficultés requièrent des solutions différentes, encore très embryonnaires, selon l’application visée (monitoring à but médical). La forte mobilité et le changement rapide de la topologie du réseau dévoilent un verrou scientifique et social. En outre, l’interférence de différents capteurs constituant le WBAN augmente la difficulté de la mise en place de ce type de réseaux. De nombreuses solutions dans la littérature ont été étudiées, comme nous allons illustrer dans ce manuscrit, néanmoins elles restent limitées. Nous nous intéresserons tout particulièrement à la gestion des interférences Intra- et Inter-WBAN, leur impacte sur la fiabilité des transmissions (des liens) et la durée de vie de ce type de réseaux. Plus précisément, nous abordons ces problématiques en se basant sur des modélisations théoriques et analytiques et avec une conception pratique des solutions proposées. Afin d’atteindre les objectifs cités ci-dessous, nous abordons quatre solutions : • Une gestion des interférences intra-WBAN • Une gestion coopérative des interférences Inter-WBAN • Une gestion non coopérative des interférences, Inter-WBAN • Une gestion des interférences WBAN dans un contexte IoT Dans la première partie de cette thèse et afin de répondre en partie aux problèmes de gestion des interférences Intra-WBAN. Nous présentons deux mécanismes pour le WBAN : (a) CFTIM qui alloue dynamiquement des slots et des canaux dit- stables (avec un taux d’interférences le bas possible dans le temps) pour réduire les interférences intra-WBAN. (b) IAA ajuste dynamiquement la taille du superframe et limite le nombre de canaux à 2 pour abaisser les interférences Intra-WBAN et ainsi économiser l’énergie. Une validation avec un model probabiliste est proposé afin de valider théoriquement l’efficacité de notre solution. Les résultats de la simulation démontrent l’efficacité du CFTIM et de l’IAA en termes de réduction de la probabilité d’interférence, l’extension de la durée de vie du réseau et l’amélioration du débit et de la fiabilité des transmissions. Notre seconde contribution, propose une gestion coopératives des interférences Inter-WBAN en utilisant des codes orthogonaux. Motivé par un approvisionnement temporel distribué basé sur la norme [2] IEEE 802.15.6, nous proposons deux solutions. (a) DTRC qui fournit à chaque WBAN les connaissances sur les superframes qui se chevauchent. Le second, (b) OCAIM qui attribue des codes orthogonaux aux capteurs appartenant à deux listes de groupe de capteur en interférences de deux WBAN différents (SIL). Les résultats démontrent qu’OCAIM diminue les interférences, améliore le débit et préserve la ressources énergétiques. La troisième partie nous a permis d’aborder la gestion des interférences, mais cette fois ci d’une manière non-coopérative en se basant sur l’affectation couple Slot/Canal. Plus précisément, nous proposons deux schémas basés sur les carrés latins. (...) / A Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) is a short-range network that consists of a coordinator (Crd) and a collection of low-power sensors that can be implanted in or attached to the human body. Basically, WBANs can provide real-time patient monitoring and serve in various applications such as ubiquitous health-care, consumer electronics, military, sports, etc. [1]. As the license-free 2.4 GHz ISM band is widely used among WBANs and across other wireless technologies, the fundamental problem is to mitigate the resulting co-channel interference. Other serious problems are to extend the network lifetime and to ensure reliable transmission within WBANs, which is an urgent requirement for health-care applications. Therefore, in this thesis, we conduct a systematic research on a few number of research problems related to radio co-channel interference, energy consumption, and network reliability. Specifically, we address the following problems ranging from theoretical modeling and analysis to practical protocol design: • Intra-WBAN interference mitigation and avoidance • Cooperative inter-WBAN interference mitigation and avoidance • Non-cooperative inter-WBAN interference mitigation and avoidance • Interference mitigation and avoidance in WBANs with IoT Firstly, to mitigate the intra-WBAN interference, we present two mechanisms for a WBAN. The first is called CSMA to Flexible TDMA combination for Interference Mitigation, namely, CFTIM, which dynamically allocates time-slots and stable channels to lower the intra-WBAN interference. The second is called Interference Avoidance Algorithm, namely IAA that dynamically adjusts the superframe length and limits the number of channels to 2 to lower the intra-WBAN interference and save energy. Theoretically, we derive a probabilistic model that proves the SINR outage probability is lowered. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness and the efficiency of CFTIM and IAA in terms of lowering the probability of interference, extending network lifetime, improving throughput and reliability. Secondly, we address the problem of interference among cooperative WBANs through using orthogonal codes. Motivated by distributed time provisioning supported in IEEE 802.15.6 standard [2], we propose two schemes. The first is called Distributed Time Correlation Reference, namely, DTRC that provides each WBAN with the knowledge about which superframes overlap with each other. The second is called Orthogonal Code Allocation Algorithm for Interference Mitigation, namely, OCAIM, that allocates orthogonal codes to interfering sensors belonging to sensor interference lists (SILs), which are generated based on the exchange of power-based information among WBANs. Mathematically, we derive the successful and collision probabilities of frames transmissions. Extensive simulations are conducted and the results demonstrate that OCAIM can diminish the interference, improve the throughput and save the power resource. Thirdly, we address the problem of co-channel interference among non-cooperative WBANs through time-slot and channel hopping. Specifically, we propose two schemes that are based on Latin rectangles. The first is called Distributed Algorithm for Interference mitigation using Latin rectangles, namely, DAIL that allocates a single channel to a timeslot combination to each sensor to diminish inter-WBAN interference and to yield better schedules of the medium access within each WBAN. The second is called Channel Hopping for Interference Mitigation, namely, CHIM, which generates a predictable interference free transmission schedule for all sensors within a WBAN. CHIM applies the channel switching only when a sensor experiences interference to save the power resource. Furthermore, we present an analytical model that derives bounds on collision probability and throughput for sensors transmissions. (...)

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Les réseaux corporels (WBAN) se réfère aux réseaux de capteurs (WSN) "portables" utilisés pour collecter des données personnelles, telles que la fréquence cardiaque ou l'activité humaine. Cette thèse a pour objectif de proposer des algorithmes coopératifs (PHY/MAC) pour effectuer des applications de localisation, tels que la capture de mouvement et la navigation de groupe. Pour cela, nous exploitons les avantages du WBAN avec différentes topologies et différents types de liens: on-body à l'échelle du corps, body-to-body entre les utilisateurs et off-body par rapport à l'infrastructure. La transmission repose sur une radio impulsionnelle (IR-UWB), afin d'obtenir des mesures de distance précises, basées sur l’estimation du temps d'arrivée (TOA). Ainsi, on s’intéresse au problème du positionnement à travers de la conception de stratégies coopératives et en considérant la mobilité du corps et les variations canal. Notre première contribution consiste en la création d'une base de données obtenue avec de scénarios réalistes pour la modélisation de la mobilité et du canal. Ensuite, nous introduisons un simulateur capable d'exploiter nos mesures pour la conception de protocoles. Grâce à ces outils, nous étudions d’abord l'impact de la mobilité et des variations de canal sur l'estimation de la distance avec le protocole "three way-ranging" (3-WR). Ainsi, nous quantifions et comparons l'erreur avec des modèles statistiques. Dans un second temps, nous analysons différentes algorithmes de gestion de ressources pour réduire l'impact de la mobilité sur l'estimation de position. Ensuite, nous proposons une optimisation avec un filtre de Kalman étendu (EKF) pour réduire l'erreur. Enfin, nous proposons un algorithme coopératif basé sur l'analyse d’estimateurs de qualité de lien (LQEs) pour améliorer la fiabilité. Pour cela, nous évaluons le taux de succès de positionnement en utilisant trois modèles de canaux (empirique, simulé et expérimental) avec un algorithme (basé sur la théorie des jeux) pour le choix des ancres virtuelles. / Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) refers to the family of “wearable” wireless sensor networks (WSN) used to collect personal data, such as human activity, heart rate, sleep sequences or geographical position. This thesis aims at proposing cooperative algorithms and cross-layer mechanisms with WBAN to perform large-scale individual motion capture and coordinated group navigation applications. For this purpose, we exploit the advantages of jointly cooperative and heterogeneous WBAN under full/half-mesh topologies for localization purposes, from on-body links at the body scale, body-to-body links between mobile users of a group and off-body links with respect to the environment and the infrastructure. The wireless transmission relies on an impulse radio Ultra-Wideband (IR-UWB) radio (based on the IEEE 802.15.6 standard), in order to obtain accurate peer-to-peer ranging measurements based on Time of Arrival (ToA) estimates. Thus, we address the problem of positioning and ranging estimation through the design of cross-layer strategies by considering realistic body mobility and channel variations. Our first contribution consists in the creation of an unprecedented WBAN measurement database obtained with real experimental scenarios for mobility and channel modelling. Then, we introduce a discrete-event (WSNet) and deterministic (PyLayers) co-simulator tool able to exploit our measurement database to help us on the design and validation of cooperative algorithms. Using these tools, we investigate the impact of nodes mobility and channel variations on the ranging estimation. In particular, we study the “three-way ranging” (3-WR) protocol and we observed that the delays of 3-WR packets have an impact on the distances estimated in function of the speed of nodes. Then, we quantify and compare the error with statistical models and we show that the error generated by the channel is bigger than the mobility error. In a second time, we extend our study for the position estimation. Thus, we analyze different strategies at MAC layer through scheduling and slot allocation algorithms to reduce the impact of mobility. Then, we propose to optimize our positioning algorithm with an extended Kalman filter (EKF), by using our scheduling strategies and the statistical models of mobility and channel errors. Finally, we propose a distributed-cooperative algorithm based on the analysis of long-term and short-term link quality estimators (LQEs) to improve the reliability of positioning. To do so, we evaluate the positioning success rate under three different channel models (empirical, simulated and experimental) along with a conditional algorithm (based on game theory) for virtual anchor choice. We show that our algorithm improve the number of positions estimated for the nodes with the worst localization performance.

The use of autonomous robots in our society is increasing every day and a robot is no longer seen as a tool but as a team member. The robots are now working side by side with us and provide assistance during dangerous operations where humans otherwise are at risk. This development has in turn increased the need of robots with more human-awareness. Therefore, this master thesis aims at contributing to the enhancement of human-aware robotics. Specifically, we are investigating the possibilities of equipping autonomous robots with the capability of assessing and detecting activities in human teams. This capability could, for instance, be used in the robot's reasoning and planning components to create better plans that ultimately would result in improved human-robot teamwork performance. we propose to improve existing teamwork activity recognizers by adding intangible features, such as stress, motivation and focus, originating from human behavior models. Hidden markov models have earlier been proven very efficient for activity recognition and have therefore been utilized in this work as a method for classification of behaviors. In order for a robot to provide effective assistance to a human team it must not only consider spatio-temporal parameters for team members but also the psychological.To assess psychological parameters this master thesis suggests to use the body signals of team members. Body signals such as heart rate and skin conductance. Combined with the body signals we investigate the possibility of using System Dynamics models to interpret the current psychological states of the human team members, thus enhancing the human-awareness of a robot. / Användningen av autonoma robotar i vårt samhälle ökar varje dag och en robot ses inte längre som ett verktyg utan som en gruppmedlem. Robotarna arbetar nu sida vid sida med oss och ger oss stöd under farliga arbeten där människor annars är utsatta för risker. Denna utveckling har i sin tur ökat behovet av robotar med mer människo-medvetenhet. Därför är målet med detta examensarbete att bidra till en stärkt människo-medvetenhet hos robotar. Specifikt undersöker vi möjligheterna att utrusta autonoma robotar med förmågan att bedöma och upptäcka olika beteenden hos mänskliga lag. Denna förmåga skulle till exempel kunna användas i robotens resonemang och planering för att ta beslut och i sin tur förbättra samarbetet mellan människa och robot. Vi föreslår att förbättra befintliga aktivitetsidentifierare genom att tillföra förmågan att tolka immateriella beteenden hos människan, såsom stress, motivation och fokus. Att kunna urskilja lagaktiviteter inom ett mänskligt lag är grundläggande för en robot som ska vara till stöd för laget. Dolda markovmodeller har tidigare visat sig vara mycket effektiva för just aktivitetsidentifiering och har därför använts i detta arbete. För att en robot ska kunna ha möjlighet att ge ett effektivt stöd till ett mänskligtlag måste den inte bara ta hänsyn till rumsliga parametrar hos lagmedlemmarna utan även de psykologiska. För att tyda psykologiska parametrar hos människor förespråkar denna masteravhandling utnyttjandet av mänskliga kroppssignaler. Signaler så som hjärtfrekvens och hudkonduktans. Kombinerat med kroppenssignalerar påvisar vi möjligheten att använda systemdynamiksmodeller för att tolka immateriella beteenden, vilket i sin tur kan stärka människo-medvetenheten hos en robot. / <p>The thesis work was conducted in Stockholm, Kista at the department of Informatics and Aero System at Swedish Defence Research Agency.</p>