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Wireless network systems, such as IEEE 802.11 wireless local area networks (WLANs) and Bluetooth, are increasingly constructed in our surrounding environment. Although devices running these two wireless systems operate with different technologies, they both work in the 2.4 GHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific, and Medical) band, and therefore lead to interference. The problem of Bluetooth interfering with a WLAN is particularly serious with a Bluetooth device located in an area with more than one overlapping WLAN. Interference is not a significant problem if it only degrades data throughput. However, it is unacceptable if it causes disconnection of the Bluetooth SCO link (i.e., voice connection). This study presents mechanisms to sustain the quality of Bluetooth SCO link, under the interference, with only at a minor cost of WLAN¡¦s data throughput.

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Dans cette thèse, nous examinons les aspects essentiels des réseaux locaux sans fil IEEE 802.11 (réseaux WiFi) en mode infrastructure, et identifions les problèmes qui peuvent affecter leurs performances. Après avoir étudié l'état de l'art, nous constatons que de nombreux efforts de recherche ont proposé des solutions diverses mais présentant des limitations qui empêchent leur déploiement dans les réseaux locaux sans fil existants. En outre, les utilisateurs de ces réseaux ont des attentes toujours croissantes de disponibilité, de fiabilité, de réponse instantanée et de sécurité de la part de leurs connexions sans fil. Motivés par ces défis, nous concevons et mettons en œuvre des solutions nouvelles et concrètes aux problèmes ouverts liés à la performance des réseaux locaux sans fil IEEE 802.11. Nous adoptons une approche centrée sur le point d'accès (Access Point), qui n'introduit pas de modifications côté client. Nous nous concentrons sur les aspects suivants des réseaux locaux sans fil : la mobilité des clients, la gestion des canaux, et la qualité de service, et nous explorons trois différents scénarios pour les déploiements les plus répandus : une entreprise, une ville (zone urbaine), et une résidence personnelle (maison ou appartement). Afin de fournir une base commune pour la mise en œuvre pratique de nouvelles solutions 802.11, nous introduisons un modèle de point d'accès intelligent, inspiré des techniques d'auto-gestion. Les contributions principales de cette thèse sont les suivantes : 1. Nous développons une solution de mobilité transparente pour la Voix sur IP (VoIP) dans les réseaux sans fil d'entreprise, appelée Multichannel Virtual Access Point (mVAP), qui n'introduit aucune modification côté client et reste compatible avec les appareils actuels. Nous mettons en œuvre et évaluons mVAP en utilisant du matériel 802.11 standard, et accomplissons une mobilité transparente sans interruption ni dégradation des communications en cours. 2. Nous étudions la possibilité d'exploiter la couverture WiFi existante dans les zones urbaines pour obtenir un accès mobile à Internet, grâce à des simulations réalisées à partir de données réelles collectées par des téléphones portables. Les résultats montrent que cette couverture WiFi est large et que la connectivité offerte peut être efficacement utilisée. Nous identifions des questions ouvertes concernant le déploiement effectif d'un tel réseau WiFi à l'échelle d'une ville, et les applications qui pourraient en bénéficier. 3. Nous proposons un mécanisme dynamique de sélection de canal pour les réseaux locaux sans fil personnels (maisons et appartements), qui utilise la charge de trafic variable dans le temps pour l'estimation d'interférences. Nous mettons en œuvre cette solution en utilisant du matériel 802.11 standard, et nous l'évaluons expérimentalement : les performances d'un tel réseau sont considérablement améliorées en choisissant le canal qui présente le moins d'interférences. / In this dissertation, we examine important aspects of infrastructure IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) and identify issues that can affect their performance. Reviewing the state of the art, we observe that numerous research efforts have proposed diverse solutions with several limitations that impede their deployment in existing WLANs. Moreover, users have ever-increasing expectations of availability, reliability, instantaneous response and security from their wireless connections. Motivated by these challenges, we design and implement novel but practical solutions that address open issues affecting the performance of IEEE 802.11 WLANs. We adopt an Access Point (AP)-based approach, which does not require any modification in the clients. We focus on the following aspects of WLANs: client mobility, channel management, and quality of service, and explore three different scenarios for the most common deployments: an enterprise, a city (urban area), and a personal residence (home). To provide a common basis for practical implementation of new 802.11 solutions, we present a Smart AP model, inspired by self-management techniques. The main contributions of this thesis are: 1. We develop a seamless mobility solution for Voice over IP (VoIP) services in Enterprise WLANs, called Multichannel Virtual Access Points (mVAP), which requires no client modifications and is compatible with current devices. We implement and evaluate mVAP using commodity 802.11 hardware, and achieve transparent mobility without interruption or degradation of ongoing communications. 2. We investigate the feasibility of harnessing the existing WiFi coverage in urban areas for mobile Internet access, through trace-based simulations using real data collected by mobile phones. The results show that the WiFi coverage is large and the connectivity it offers can be effectively exploited. We identify open issues for the actual deployment of such a citywide WiFi network and the applications that could benefit from it. 3. We propose an adaptive traffic-aware channel selection mechanism for Home WLANs, that uses the time-varying traffic load for interference estimation. We implement this solution using commodity 802.11 hardware and experimentally evaluate it: the network performance is drastically improved by constantly picking the channel with the least interference.

Les xarxes WLANs possibiliten un accés de banda ampla a Internet des d'un terminal mòbil, essent una possible solució alternativa a les xarxes cel·lulars. Tanmateix, aquest tipus de tecnologia presenta certes limitacions, com és la difícil coexistència entre fluxos de tràfic rígids (VoIP) i fluxos de tràfic elàstic (TCP), degut al propi protocol d'accés al medi. En aquesta tesi es proposa la utilització d'un nou mecanisme de control d'admissió que utilitzant el nou estàndard de qualitat de servei en xarxes WLAN (EDCA). La utilització del mecanisme de control d'admissió millora notablement les prestacions que es poden obtenir de la xarxa, solucionant les diferents limitacions de la tecnologia. Per a l'avaluació i optimització del mecanisme de control d'admissió s'ha desenvolupat un conjunt d'eines matemàtiques que permeten capturar tant la dinàmica del protocol d'accés com el comportament dels diferents fluxos de tràfic multimèdia que s'han consideren (VoIP i tràfic elàstic, TCP). / WLANs provide a broadband access to Internet from a mobile terminal, which can be a possible alternative solution to cellular networks. However, this technology presents several limitations, as it is the difficult coexistence between rigid traffic flows (VoIP) and elastic traffic flows (TCP), due to the medium access protocol itself. In this thesis a new admission control mechanism is proposed. It uses the set of QoS mechanisms provided by the new EDCA standard. The use of the proposed admission control mechanism improves the overall WLAN performance, solving the different technology limitations. In order to be able to evaluate and optimize the admission control mechanism, several mathematical tools have been developed in order to capture the dynamics of both, the access protocol and of the different multimedia traffic flows that have been considered.

The current popularity of WLANs is a testament primarily to their convenience, cost efficiency and ease of integration. Even now the demand for high data rate wireless communications has increased fourfold as consumers demand better multimedia communications over the wireless medium. The next generation of high speed WLANs is expected to meet this increased demand for capacity coupled with high performance and spectral efficiency. The current generation of WLANs utilizes Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) modulation. The next generation of WLAN standards can be made possible either by developing a different modulation technique or combining legacy OFDM with Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems to create MIMO-OFDM systems. This dissertation presents two different basis technologies for the next generation of high speed WLANs: OWSS and MIMO-STC-OFDM. OWSS, or Orthogonal Wavelet Division Multiplexed - Spread Spectrum is a new class of wavelet pulses and a corresponding signaling system which has significant advantages over current signaling schemes like OFDM. In this dissertation, CSMA/CA is proposed as the protocol for full data rate multiplexing at the MAC layer for OWSS. The excellent spectral characteristics of the OWSS signal is also studied and simulations show that passband spectrum enjoys a 30-40% bandwidth advantage over OFDM. A novel pre-distortion scheme was developed to compensate for the passband PA non-linearity. Finally for OWSS, the fundamental limits of its system performance were also explored using a multi-level matrix formulation. Simulation results on a 108 Mbps OWSS WLAN system demonstrate the excellent effectiveness of this theory and prove that OWSS is capable of excellent performance and high spectral efficiency in multipath channels. This dissertation also presents a novel MIMO-STC-OFDM system which targets data rates in excess of 100 Mbps and at the same time achieve both high spectral efficiency and high performance. Simulation results validate the superior performance of the new system over multipath channels. Finally as channel equalization is critical in MIMO systems, a highly efficient time domain channel estimation formulation for this new system is also presented. In summary, both OWSS and MIMO-STC-OFDM appear to be excellent candidate technologies for next generation of high speed WLANs.

In the last decade, 802.11 wireless devices data-rates have increased by three orders of magnitude, while communications experiencing low throughput are still largely present. Such throughput loss is a fundamental problem of wireless networking that is difficult to diagnose and amend. My research addresses two key causes of throughput loss: MAC layer protocol overhead and destructive link interference. First, I design WiFi-Nano reducing the channel access overhead by an order of magnitude leveraging an innovative speculative technique to transmit preambles. This new concept is based on simultaneous preamble transmission and detection via a self-interference cancellation design, and paves the way to the realization of the collision detection paradigm in wireless networks. Next, I propose 802.11ec (Encoded Control), the first 802.11-based protocol that eliminates the overhead of control packets. Instead, 802.11ec coordinates node transmissions via a set of predefined pseudo-noise codewords, resulting in the dramatic increase of throughput and communication robustness. Finally, I design MIDAS, a model-driven network management tool that alleviates low throughput wireless links identifying key corrective actions. MIDAS' key contribution is to reveal the fundamental role of node transmission coordination in characterizing destructive interference. I implement WiFi-Nano, 802.11ec, and MIDAS using a combination of WARP FPGA-based radio boards, custom emulation platforms, and network simulators. The results obtained show that WiFi-Nano increases the network throughput by up to 100%, 802.11ec improves network access fairness by up to 90%, and MIDAS identifies corrective actions with a prediction error as low as 20%.

It is necessary to authenticate users when they want to access services in WLANs. Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is an authentication framework widely used in WLANs. Authentication mechanisms built on EAP are called EAP methods. The requirements for EAP methods in WLAN authentication have been defined in RFC 4017. Besides, low computation cost and forward secrecy, excluded in RFC 4017, are noticeable requirements in WLAN authentication. However, all EAP methods and authentication schemes designed for WLANs so far do not satisfy all of the above requirements. Therefore, we will propose an EAP method which utilizes three factors, stored secrets, passwords, and biometrics, to verify users. Our proposed method fully satisfies 1) the requirements of RFC 4017, 2) forward secrecy, and 3) lightweight computation. Moreover, the privacy of biometrics is protected against the authentication server, and the server can flexibly decide whether passwords and biometrics are verified in each round or not.

Στα ασύρµατα δίκτυα η τεχνολογία MIMO-OFDM έχει ευρέως υιοθετηθεί µε στόχο την αύξηση του ρυθµού δεδοµένων σε υπηρεσίες υψηλής ποιότητας. Στο δέκτη ενός συστήµατος MIMO-OFDM ο υπολογισµός του µητρώου συντελεστών που χρειάζεται ο εξισωτής (equalizer) είναι ένα κρίσιµο σηµείο µε υψηλή υπολογιστική πολυπλοκότητα. Η καθυστέρηση που απαιτείται για την εκτέλεση του συγκεκριµένου υπολογισµού επηρεάζει άµεσα το ρυθµό περάτωσης (throughput) και την ποιότητα υπηρεσίας (QoS). Σε συστήµατα wi-fi (για παράδειγµα στο IEEE 802.11ac) στην αρχή κάθε πακέτου µεταδίδονται προσυµφωνηµένα σύµβολα, ώστε να εκπαιδεύσουν τον εξισωτή. Η συµβατική µέθοδος περιµένει να έρθουν όλα τα σύµβολα και στη συνέχεια υπολογίζει τοµητρώο του εξισωτή. Μια πιο πρόσφατη µέθοδος που αποσκοπεί στη µείωση της παραπάνω καθυστέρησης είναι ο προοδευτικός υπολογισµός του µητρώου του εξισωτή. Στη µέθοδο αυτή, γίνονται υπολογισµοί ανά σύµβολο εκπαίδευσης χωρίς να επηρεάζεται το τελικό αποτέλεσµα. Στα πλαίσια της διπλωµατικής υλοποιήθηκαν αρχιτεκτονικές υλικού για εξισωτές που αξιοποιούν την ανωτέρω µέθοδο και απεικονίστηκαν σε αναπτυξιακό σύστηµα µε FPGA. Επίσης, διερευνήθηκε ο ρόλος της αναπαράστασης των δεδοµένων στην πολυπλοκότητα του συστήµατος και βελτιστοποιήθηκαν οι σχετικές σχεδιαστικές παράµετροι, µε έµφαση στη χρήση της λογαριθµικής αριθµητικής. / In wireless networks, the MIMO-OFDM technology has been widely adopted in order to increase the data rate at high quality of service (QoS). In the receiver, the MIMO equalizer matrix calculation is an important part with high computational complexity. The delay of the matrix calculation affects directly the system throughput and QoS. In wi-fi systems (e.g. IEEE 802.11ac), training symbols are transmitted at the beginning of every frame, in order to train the equalizer. The conventional method waits all the training symbols to arrive before starting the calculations. A recent method proposes the progressive calculation of the equalizer matrix in order to decrease the processing delay. In this method, the equalizer matrix calculation starts upon receiving the first training symbol. The object of this thesis is the development of hardware architectures for equalizers that follow the progressive method and their implementation on FPGA. Furthermore, we analyzed the impact of the data representation on the system complexity and optimized the respective design parameters, using logarithmic number system.

Authentication protocols are used for two parties to authenticate each other and build a secure channel over wired or wireless public channels. However, the present standards of authentication protocols are either insufficiently secure or inefficient for light weight devices. Therefore, we propose two authentication protocols for improving the security and user efficiency in wired and wireless environments, respectively. Traditionally, TLS/SSL is the standard of authentication and key exchange protocols in wired Internet. It is known that the security of TLS/SSL is not enough due to all sorts of client side attacks. To amend the client side security, multi-factor authentication is an effective solution. However, this solution brings about the issue of biometric privacy which raises public concern of revealing biometric data to an authentication server. Therefore, we propose a truly three factor authentication protocol, where the authentication server can verify their biometric data without the knowledge of users¡¦ templates and samples. In the major wireless technologies, extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP) is an authentication framework widely used in IEEE 802.11 WLANs. Authentication mechanisms built on EAP are called EAP methods. The requirements for EAP methods in WLANs authentication have been defined in RFC 4017. To achieve user efficiency and robust security, lightweight computation and forward secrecy, excluded in RFC 4017, are desired in WLAN authentication. However, all EAP methods and authentication protocols designed for WLANs so far do not satisfy all of the above properties. We will present a complete EAP method that utilizes stored secrets and passwords to verify users so that it can (1) meet the requirements of RFC 4017, (2) provide lightweight computation, and (3) allow for forward secrecy. In order to prove our proposed protocols completely, we apply two different models to examine their security properties: Bellare¡¦s model, a standard reduction based on computational model, that reduces the security properties to the computationally hard problems and the OFMC/AVISPA tool, a model checking approach based on formal model, that uses the concept of the search tree to systematically find the weaknesses of a protocol. Through adopting Bellare¡¦s model and OFMC/AVISPA tool, the security of our work is firmly established.