<p>This thesis presents research on transport layer behavior in wireless networks. As the Internet is expanding its reach to include mobile devices, it has become apparent that some of the original design assumptions for the dominant transport protocol, TCP, are approaching their limits. A key feature of TCP is the congestion control algorithm, constructed with the assumption that packet loss is normally very low, and that packet loss therefore is a sign of network congestion. This holds true for wired networks, but for mobile wireless networks non-congestion related packet loss may appear. The varying signal power inherent with mobility and handover between base-stations are two example causes of such packet loss. This thesis provides an overview of the challenges for TCP in wireless networks together with a compilation of a number of suggested TCP optimizations for these environments. A TCP modification called TCP-L is proposed. It allows an application to increase its performance, in environments where residual bit errors normally give a degraded throughput, by making a reliability tradeoff. The performance of TCP-L is experimentally evaluated with an implementation in the Linux kernel. The transport layer performance in a 4G scenario is also experimentally investigated, focusing on the impact of the link layer design and its parameterization. Further, for emulation-based protocol evaluations, controlled packet loss and bit error generation is shown to be an important aspect.</p>

The tremendous popularity of wireless technologies during the last decade has created a considerable expansion of wireless networks both in size and use. This fact, together with a great variety of mobile devices and numerous di®erent services that are becoming increasingly resourcedemanding, have attracted the attention of many researchers into the area of radio resource planning and optimization. Due to network complexity, these tasks require intelligent, automated approaches that are able to deal with many factors in order to enable design of high capacity networks with a high service quality at the lowest possible cost. This is a perfect application of optimization theory. In this thesis, mathematical optimization is considered as the main approach to designing and improving the performance of wireless networks such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) and ad hoc networks. Due to different underlying access technologies, the optimization goals, design parameters and system limitations vary by network type. Therefore, the goals of the presented work are to identify a relevant optimization problem for each type of network, to model the problem and to apply the optimization approach in order to facilitate wireless network planning and improve radio resource utilization. The optimization problems addressed in this thesis, in the context of UMTS networks, focus on minimizing the total amount of pilot power which, from the modeling point of view, is not just an amount of power consumed by a certain type of control signal, but also an indicator of the interference level in the network and means of controlling cell coverage. The presented models and algorithms enable °exible coverage planning and optimization of pilot power and radio base station antenna confiration in large networks. For WLANs, in the First part of the study, the access point placement and the channel assignment problems are considered jointly to maximize net user throughput and minimize co- and adjacent channel interference and contention. The second part of the study addresses the contention issue and involves, among the other decisions, optimization of access point transmit power. Due to the dynamic and infrastructureless nature of ad hoc networks, static resource planning is less suitable for this type of network. Two algorithmic frameworks which enable dynamic topology control for power-efficient broadcasting in stationary and mobile networks are presented. In both frameworks, the performance of the presented algorithms is studied by simulations.

From providing only voice communications, wireless networks aim to provide a wide range of services in which soft real-time, high priority critical data, and best effort connections seamlessly integrate. Some of these applications and services have firm resource requirements in order to function properly (e.g. videoconferences), others are flexible enough to adapt to whatever is available (e.g. FTP). Providing differentiation and resource assurance is often referred to as providing quality of service (QoS). In this thesis we study how novel resource allocation algorithms can improve the offered QoS of dynamic, unpredictable, and resource constrained distributed systems, such as a wireless network, during periods of overload. We propose and evaluate several bandwidth allocation schemes in the context of cellular, hybrid and pure ad hoc networks. Acceptable quality levels for a connection are specified using resource-utility functions, and our allocation aims to maximise accumulated systemwide utility. To keep allocation optimal in this changing environment, we need to periodically reallocate resources. The novelty of our approach is that we have augmented the utility function model by identifying and classifying the way reallocations affect the utility of different application classes. We modify the initial utility functions at runtime, such that connections become comparable regardless of their flexibility to reallocations or age-related importance. Another contribution is a combined utility/price-based bandwidth allocation and routing scheme for ad hoc networks. First we cast the problem of utility maximisation in a linear programming form. Then we propose a novel distributed allocation algorithm, where every flow bids for resources on the end-to-end path depending on the resource ``shadow price'', and the flow's ``utility efficiency''. Our periodic (re)allocation algorithms represent an iterative process that both adapts to changes in the network, and recalculates and improves the estimation of resource shadow prices. Finally, problems connected to allocation optimisation, such as modelling non-critical resources as costs, or using feedback to adapt to uncertainties in resource usage and availability, are addressed.

The use of wireless communication techniques and network centric topologies for portable communication networks and platforms makes it important to investigate new distributed beamforming techniques. Platforms such as micro air vehicles (MAVs), unattended ground sensors (UGSs), and unpiloted aerial vehicles (UAVs) can all benefit from advances in this area by enabling advantages in stealth, enhanced survivability, and maximum maneuverability. Collaborative beamforming is an example of a new technique to utilize these systems which uses a randomly distributed antenna array with a fitting phase coefficient for the elements. In this example, the radiated signal power of each element is coherently added in the far-field region of a specified target direction with net destructive interference occurring in all other regions to suppress sidelobe behavior. A wide variety of topologies can be used to confine geometrically these mobile random arrays for analysis. The distribution function for these topologies must be able to generalize the randomness within the geometry. Gaussian and Uniform distributions are investigated in this analysis, since they provide a way to calculate the statistically averaged beampattern for linear, planar (square and circular), and volumetric (cubical, cylindrical, and spherical) geometries. They are also of practical interest since the impact of array topology on the beampattern can typically be described in closed form. A rigorous analysis is presented first for disc-shaped topologies to motivate the discussion on random array properties and provide several new insights into their behavior. The analyses of volumetric geometries which are of interest to this work are drawn from this planar topology to provide a tractable and coherent discussion on the properties of more complex geometries. This analysis considers Normal and Gaussian distributed array element populations to derive the average beampattern, sidelobe behavior, beamwidth, and directivity. The beampattern is also examined in a similar manor for circular and spherical arrays with a truncated Gaussian distribution. A summary of the random array analysis and its results concludes this thesis.

We consider the problem of allocating resources in large wireless net- works in which multiple information flows must be accommodated. In particular, we seek a method for selecting schedules, routes, and power allocations for networks with terminals capable of user-cooperation at the signal level. To that end, we adopt a general information-theoretic communications model, in which the datarate of a wireless link is purely a function of transmission power, pathloss and interference. We begin by studying the case of resource allocation when only point-to-point links are available. The problem is NP-hard in this case, requiring an exponentially-complex exhaustive search to guarantee an optimal solution. This is prohibitively difficult for anything but the smallest of networks, leading us to approximate the problem using a decomposition approach. We construct the solution iteratively, developing polynomial-time algorithms to optimally allocate resources on a per-frame basis. We then update the network graph to reflect the resources consumed by the allocated frame. To manage this decomposition, we present a novel tool, termed the Network-Flow Interaction Chart. By representing the network in both space and time, our techniques trade off interference with throughput for each frame, offering considerable performance gains over schemes of similar complexity. Recognizing that our approach requires a large amount of overhead, we go on to develop a method in which it may be decentralized. We find that while the overhead is considerably lower, the limited solution space results in suboptimal solutions in a throughput sense. We conclude with a generalization of the Network-Flow Interaction Chart to address cooperative resource allocation. We represent cooperative links using "metanodes," which are made available to the allocation algorithms alongside point-to-point links and will be selected only if they offer higher throughput. The data-carrying capability of the cooperative links is modeled using Decode-and-Forward achievable rates, which are functions of transmit power and interference, and so may be incorporated directly into our framework. We demonstrate that allocations incorporating cooperation results in significant performance gains as compared to using point-to-point links alone.

A fundamental aspect in performance engineering of wireless networks is optimizing the set of links that can be concurrently activated to meet given signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) thresholds. The solution of this combinatorial problem is the key element in scheduling and cross-layer resource management. In this paper, we assume multiuser decoding receivers, which can cancel strongly interfering signals. As a result, in contrast to classical spatial reuse, links being close to each other are more likely to be active concurrently. Our focus is to gauge the gain of successive interference cancellation (SIC), as well as the simpler, yet instructive, case of parallel interference cancellation (PIC), in the context of optimal link activation. We show that both problems are NP-hard and develop compact integer linear programming formulations that enable to approach global optimality. We provide an extensive numerical performance evaluation, indicating that for low to medium SINR thresholds the improvement is quite substantial, especially with SIC, whereas for high SINR thresholds the improvement diminishes and both schemes perform equally well.

Ad-Hoc Wireless routing has become an important area of research in the last few years due to the massive increase in wireless devices. Computational Geometry is relevant in attempts to build stable, low power routing schemes. It is only recently, however, that models have been expanded to consider devices with a non-uniform broadcast range, and few properties are known. In particular, we find, via both theoretical and experimental methods, extremal properties for the Localized Delaunay Triangulation over the Mutual Inclusion Graph. We also provide a distributed, sub-quadratic algorithm for the generation of the structure.

We present a covert side channel that uses the 802.11 MAC rate switching protocol. The covert channel provides a general method to hide communications in an 802.11 LAN. The technique uses a one-time password algorithm to ensure high-entropy randomness of the covert messages. We investigate how the covert side channel affects node throughput in mobile and non-mobile scenarios. We also investigate the covertness of the covert side channel using standardized entropy. The results show that the performance impact is minimal and increases slightly as the covert channel bandwidth increases. We further show that the channel has 100% accuracy with minimal impact on rate switching entropy. Finally, we present two applications for the covert channel: covert authentication and covert WiFi botnets.

Location techniques that satisfy the requirements of advanced Location-Based Services (LBS) in environments where GPS fails are needed, therefore accurate indoor positioning is becoming increasingly important. This PhD Thesis is devoted to the research on location of mobile devices employing WLAN (IEEE 802.11). The use of this kind of wireless networks infrastructures for positioning enables a powerful synergy between communications and location and allows solutions with good performances at moderated costs. However the adopted WLAN location methods suffer from important limitations that prevents from applying them to some fields that need more flexible and robust solutions. The main objective of this PhD is exploring precise WLAN location methods that allow overcoming these limitations. The researched methods here are based on measuring the Time Of Arrival (TOA), which is the time that takes the signal propagating from the transmitter to the receiver. TOA-based location works in two stages: ranging and positioning. The ranging consists of estimating the distances between the targeted terminal and several WLAN access points, each distance obtained measuring the TOA and then multiplying it by the speed of the WLAN signal. After that, the positioning takes as inputs the estimated distances and the known coordinates of the involved access points and calculates the position of the terminal by means of a trilateration or tracking algorithm. The key problem is that the characteristics of the IEEE 802.11 protocols difficult to perform accurate TOA measurements. The main challenge that faces the research work reported here is demonstrating the feasibility of achieving this while keeping the modifications over standard WLAN consumer equipment at minimum. The objective of this work can be understood as exploring the current limits of TOA-based methods over WLAN, making contributions that form a complete TOA-based location method that goes a step forward with respect to the other existing proposals. First, research on TOA-based ranging -the key component of TOA-based location methods- is reported. The general adopted approach consists of performing Round Trip Time (RTT) measurements employing IEEE 802.11 MAC frames, taking the maximum advantage of the combination of IEEE 802.11 protocol and WLAN consumer devices mechanisms. After that, the performed research on trilateration/tracking -the second stage of TOA-based location methods- is explained. Finally some performed studies about the achieved location method are presented. Lloc i data Signatura / Actualment existeix la necessitat de disposar de tècniques de localització que satisfacin els requeriments de serveis avançats basats en localització en entorns on GPS no està disponible, de manera que el posicionament precís en interiors d’edificis és cada vegada més important. Aquesta tesi doctoral està dedicada a la investigació sobre la localització de dispositius mòbils que utilitzen WLAN (IEEE 802.11). L'ús d'aquest tipus de xarxes sense fils per al posicionament permet una profitosa sinèrgia entre les comunicacions i la localització i permet solucions amb un bon rendiment a un cost moderat. No obstant això, els mètodes basats WLAN proposats fins el moment pateixen de limitacions importants que impedeix la seva aplicació a alguns camps que requereixen solucions més flexibles i robustes. L'objectiu principal d'aquesta tesi és explorar mètodes de localització precisa WLAN que permetin superar aquestes limitacions. Els mètodes que s’han investigat durant la tesi es basen en la mesura del time of arrival (TOA), que és el temps que tarda el senyal en propagar-se des del transmissor fins al receptor. En les tècniques de posicionament basades en TOA s’hi poden diferenciar dues fases: ranging i posicionament. El ranging consisteix en l’estimació de distàncies entre el terminal a localitzar i diversos punts d'accés WLAN; cada estimació de distància s’obté mesurant el TOA i multiplicant-lo després per la velocitat de propagació del senyal IEEE 802.11. Un cop fet això, el posicionament pren com a inputs les distàncies estimades per a, conegudes les coordenades dels punts d'accés involucrats, calcular la posició del terminal per mitjà d'un algoritme de tracking o trilateració. El problema clau és que les característiques dels protocols IEEE 802.11 a dia d’avui fan difícil la realització de mesures precises de TOA d’una manera senzilla. El principal repte que afronta el present treball de recerca és demostrar la viabilitat d’això darrer, minimitzant en la major mesura possible les modificacions sobre els equips WLAN comercials. L'objectiu d'aquest treball pot ser entesa com l'exploració dels límits actuals dels mètodes de posicionament basats en TOA sobre WLAN, realitzant contribucions que conformen un mètode complet de localització basat en TOA que pretén anar un pas endavant respecte a les propostes existents. En primer lloc, la investigació sobre ranging basat en TOA -el component clau dels mètode de localització TOA- és explicada en detall. El mètode general adoptat per a calcular el TOA consisteix en la mesura del temps d'anada i tornada del senyal, round trip time (RTT), utilitzant trames MAC IEEE 802.11 per tal de treure el màxim profit de la combinació del protocol IEEE 802.11 i els mecanismes dels dispositius WLAN comercials. Després d'això, es detalla la investigació realitzada sobre trilateració i tracking, la segona etapa dels mètodes de localització basats en TOA. Finalment es descriuen alguns estudis realitzats sobre les prestacions, possibles millores i encaix en futurs estàndars del mètode de localització explorat.

This dissertation studies interference in wireless networks. Interference results from multiple simultaneous attempts to communicate, often between unassociated sources and receivers, preventing extensive coordination. Moreover, in practical wireless networks, learning network state is inherently expensive, and nodes often have incomplete and mismatched views of the network. The fundamental communication limits of a network with such views is unknown. To address this, we present a local view model which captures asymmetries in node knowledge. Our local view model does not rely on accurate knowledge of an underlying probability distribution governing network state. Therefore, we can make robust statements about the fundamental limits of communication when the channel is quasi-static or the actual distribution of state is unknown: commonly faced scenarios in modern commercial networks. For each local view, channel state parameters are either perfectly known or completely unknown. While we propose no mechanism for network learning, a local view represents the result of some such mechanism. We apply the local view model to study the two-user Gaussian interference channel: the smallest building block of any interference network. All seven possible local views are studied, and we find that for five of the seven, there exists no policy or protocol that universally outperforms time-division multiplexing (TDM), justifying the orthogonalized approach of many deployed systems. For two of the seven views, TDM-beating performance is possible with use of opportunistic schemes where opportunities are revealed by the local view. We then study how message cooperation --- either at transmitters or receivers --- increases capacity in the local view two-user Gaussian interference channel. The cooperative setup is particularly appropriate for modeling next-generation cellular networks, where costs to share message data among base stations is low relative to costs to learn channel coefficients. For the cooperative setting, we find: (1) opportunistic approaches are still needed to outperform TDM, but (2) opportunities are more abundant and revealed by more local views. For all cases studied, we characterize the capacity region to within some known gap, enabling computation of the generalized degrees of freedom region, a visualization of spatial channel resource usage efficiency.