published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Wireless ad hoc networks are expected to play an important role in civilian and military settings where wireless access to wired backbone is either ineffective or impossible. Wireless sensor networks are effective in remote data acquisition. Congestion control and power consumption in wireless ad hoc networks have received a lot of attention in recent research. Several algorithms have been proposed to reduce congestion and power consumption in wireless ad hoc and sensor networks. In this thesis, we focus upon two schemes, which deal with congestion control and power consumption issues. This thesis consists of two parts. In the first part, we describe a randomization scheme for congestion control in dynamic source routing protocol, which we refer to as RDSR. We also study a randomization scheme for GDSR protocol, a GPS optimized variant of DSR. We discuss RDSR and RGDSR implementations and present extensive simulation experiments to study their performance. Our results indicate that both RGDSR and RDSR protocols outperform their non-randomized counterparts by decreasing the number of route query packets. Furthermore, a probabilistic congestion control scheme based on local tuning of routing protocol parameters is shown to be feasible. In the second part we present a simulation based performance study of energy aware data centric routing protocol, EAD, proposed by X. Cheng and A. Boukerche. EAD reduces power consumption by requiring only a small percentage of the network to stay awake. Our experiments show that EAD outperforms the well-known LEACH scheme.

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / As the need to send larger amounts of information increases, the military is looking into viable solutions to push this information throughout the battle space. IEEE 802.11a wireless LAN network presents an attractive high-speed solution by providing data rates up to 54 Mbps. At the same time, wireless LAN introduces increased security risk due to its vulnerability to exploitation of the wireless LAN physical layer. This research will develop a prototype system using low cost hardware and software solution to detect and process wireless IEEE 802.11a signals. Using the prototype, performance data will be collected to determine whether IEEE 802.11a is a feasible option as a high-speed information network for military use. Additionally, the performance data collected will provide a good basis for predicting the expected performance in an operational scenario and provide valuable information for proper deployment planning. / Major, Republic of Singapore Air Force

A Research Report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Witwatersrand, in the partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering Johannesburg, 2015. / Due to the enormous demand for multimedia services which relies hugely on the availability of spectrum, service providers and technologist are devising a means or method which is able to fully satisfy these growing demands. The availability of spectrum to meet these demands has been a lingering issue for the past couple of years. Many would have it tagged as spectrum scarcity but really the main problem is not how scarce the spectrum is but how efficiently allocated to use is the spectrum. Once such inefficiency is tackled effectively, then we are a step closer in meeting the enormous demands for uninterrupted services. However, to do so, there are techniques or methodologies being developed to aid in the efficient management of spectrum. In this research project, two methodologies were considered and the efficiency of these methodologies in the areas of spectrum management. The Geo-location Spectrum Database (GLSD) which is the most adopted technique and the Cognitive radio spectrum sensing technique are currently the available techniques in place. The TV whitespaces (TVWS) was explored using both techniques and certain comparison based on performances; implementation, practicability, cost and flexibility were used as an evaluation parameter in arriving at a conclusion. After accessing both methodologies, conclusions were deduced on the preferred methodology and how its use would efficiently solve the issues encountered in spectrum management

Dynamic optimal fragmentation with rate adaptation (DORA) is an algorithm to achieve maximum goodput in wireless mobile networks. With the analytical model that incorporates number of users, contentions, packet lengths, and bit error rates in the network, DORA computes a fragmentation threshold and transmits optimal sized packets with maximum rates. To estimate the SNR in the model, an adaptive on-demand UDP estimator is designed to reduce overheads. Test-beds to execute experiments for channel estimation, WLANs, Ad Hoc networks, and Vehicle-to-Vehicle networks are developed to evaluate the performance of DORA. DORA is an energy-efficient generic CSMA/CA MAC protocol for wireless mobile computing applications, and enhances system goodput in WLANs, Ad Hoc networks, and Vehicle-to-Vehicle networks without modification of the protocols.

Multi-hop wireless transmission, where radios forward the message of other radios, is becoming popular both in cellular as well as sensor networks. This research is concerned with the statistical modeling of multi-hop wireless networks that do cooperative transmission (CT). CT is a physical layer wireless communication scheme in which spatially separated wireless nodes collaborate to form a virtual array antenna for the purpose of increased reliability. The dissertation has two major parts. The first part addresses a special form of CT known as the Opportunistic Large Array (OLA). The second part addresses the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimation for the purpose of recruiting nodes for CT. In an OLA transmission, the nodes from one level transmit the message signal concurrently without any coordination with each other, thereby producing transmit diversity. The receiving layer of nodes receives the message signal and repeats the process using the decode-and-forward cooperative protocol. The key contribution of this research is to model the transmissions that hop from one layer of nodes to another under the effects of channel variations, carrier frequency offsets, and path loss. It has been shown for a one-dimensional network that the successive transmission process can be modeled as a quasi-stationary Markov chain in discrete time. By studying various properties of the Markov chain, the system parameters, for instance, the transmit power of relays and distance between them can be optimized. This optimization is used to improve the performance of the system in terms of maximum throughput, range extensions, and minimum delays while delivering the data to the destination node using the multi-hop wireless communication system. A major problem for network sustainability, especially in battery-assisted networks, is that the batteries are drained pretty quickly during the operation of the network. However, in dense sensor networks, this problem can be alleviated by using a subset of nodes which take part in CT, thereby saving the network energy. SNR is an important parameter in determining which nodes to participate in CT. The more distant nodes from the source having least SNR are most suitable to transmit the message to next level. However, practical real-time SNR estimators are required to do this job. Therefore, another key contribution of this research is the design of optimal SNR estimators for synchronized as well as non-synchronized receivers, which can work with both the symbol-by-symbol Rayleigh fading channels as well as slow flat fading channels in a wireless medium.

Advances in wireless technologies in the last ten years have created considerable opportunities as well as challenges for wireless body medical systems. The foremost challenge is how to build a reliable system connecting heterogeneous body sensors and actuators in an open system environment. In this dissertation, we present our work towards this goal. The system addresses four design issues: the underlying network architecture, the network scheduling disciplines, the location determination and tracking methods, and the embedded application execution architecture. We first present the design of an adaptive wireless protocol (MBStarPlus) to provide the basic wireless platform WBAN (Wireless Body Area Network). MBStarPlus is a real-time, secure, robust and flexible wireless network architecture. It is designed to utilize any low-power wireless radio as its physical layer. The TDMA mechanism is adopted for realtime data delivery. The time-slot length is adjustable for flexibility. Multiple technologies are utilized to provide reliability and security. We next investigate how to coordinate the body sensors/actuators that can optimally select from a range (maximum and minimum) of data rates. Two bandwidth scheduling algorithms are proposed. One is a greedy algorithm that works for sensors with limited computational capability. The other is the UMinMax scheduling algorithm that has better scalability and power-saving performance but is more computationally intensive. The third issue addressed in this proposal is how to achieve location determination and tracking by a mix of high-precision but expensive and lower-precision but cost-effective sensors. This is achieved by a novel collaborative location determination scheme ColLoc that can integrate different types of distance measurements into a location estimation algorithm by weighing them according to their precision levels. Through this, a localization service can be both cost-effective and sufficiently accurate. Fourth, in order to minimize the effects of long network latency when the body network scales up, we propose ControlInGateway, an architectural feature that allows a control application to be executed inside the network gateway without the host's involvement. With ControlInGateway, a wireless system could achieve the same control quality as a wired system. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 243-251) Also available in print.

Thesis (MTech (Information Technology))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2015. / Recently, the deployment and availability of wireless technology have led to the development of location and positioning services. These Location Based Services (LBSs) are attracting the attention of researchers and mobile service providers. With the importance of ubiquitous computing, the main challenge seen in the LBS is in the mobile positioning or localization within reasonable and certain accuracy. The Global Positioning System (GPS), as a widely known and used navigation system, is only appropriate for use in outdoor environments, due to the lack of line-of-sight (LOS) in satellite signals that they cannot be used accurately inside buildings and premises. Apart from GPS, Wi-Fi is among others, a widely used technology as it is an already existing infrastructure in most places. This work proposes and presents an indoor positioning system. As opposed to an Ad-hoc Positioning System (APS), it uses a Wireless Mesh Network (WMN). The system makes use of an already existing Wi-Fi infrastructure. Moreover, the approach tests the positioning of a node with its neighbours in a mesh network using multi-hopping functionality. The positioning measurements used were the ICMP echo requests, RSSI and RTS/CTS requests and responses. The positioning method used was the trilateral technique, in combination with the idea of the fingerprinting method. Through research and experimentation, this study developed a system which shows potential as a positioning system with an error of about 2 m – 3 m. The hybridization of the methods proves an enhancement in the system though improvements are still required

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