Structural health monitoring (SHM) systems is a relatively new discipline, studying the structural condition of buildings and other constructions. Current SHM systems are either wired or wireless, with a relatively high cost and low accuracy. This thesis exploits a blend of digital signal processing methodologies, for structural health monitoring (SHM) and develops a wireless SHM system in order to provide a low cost implementation yet reliable and robust. Existing technologies of wired and wireless sensor network platforms with high sensitivity accelerometers are combined, in order to create a system for monitoring the structural characteristics of buildings very economically and functionally, so that it can be easily implemented at low cost in buildings. Well-known and established statistical time series methods are applied to SHM data collected from real concrete structures subjected to earthquake excitation and their strong and weak points are investigated. The necessity to combine parametric and non-parametric approaches is justified and to this direction novel and improved digital signal processing techniques and indexes are applied to vibration data recordings, in order to eliminate noise and reveal structural properties and characteristics of the buildings under study, that deteriorate due to environmental, seismic or anthropogenic impact. A characteristic and potential harming specific case study is presented, where consequences to structures due to a strong earthquake of magnitude 6.4 M are investigated. Furthermore, is introduced a seismic influence profile of the buildings under study related to the seismic sources that exist in the broad region of study.

Progress in micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) and radio frequency (RF) technology has fostered the development of wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Different from traditional networks, WSNs are data-centric, self-configuring and self-healing. Although WSNs have been successfully applied in built environments (e.g. security and services in smart homes), their applications and benefits have not been fully explored in areas such as disaster recovery and rescuing. There are issues related to self-localisation as well as practical constraints to be taken into account. The current state-of-the art communication technologies used in disaster scenarios are challenged by various limitations (e.g. the uncertainty of RSS). Localisation in WSNs (location sensing) is a challenging problem, especially in disaster environments and there is a need for technological developments in order to cater to disaster conditions. This research seeks to design and develop novel localisation algorithms using WSNs to overcome the limitations in existing techniques. A novel probabilistic fuzzy logic based range-free localisation algorithm (PFRL) is devised to solve localisation problems for WSNs. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm performs better than other range free localisation algorithms (namely DVhop localisation, Centroid localisation and Amorphous localisation) in terms of localisation accuracy by 15-30% with various numbers of anchors and degrees of radio propagation irregularity. In disaster scenarios, for example, if WSNs are applied to sense fire hazards in building, wireless sensor nodes will be equipped on different floors. To this end, PFRL has been extended to solve sensor localisation problems in 3D space. Computational results show that the 3D localisation algorithm provides better localisation accuracy when varying the system parameters with different communication/deployment models. PFRL is further developed by applying dynamic distance measurement updates among the moving sensors in a disaster environment. Simulation results indicate that the new method scales very well.

Efficient self-organizing virtual clusterheads that supervise data collection based on their wireless connectivity, risk, and overhead costs, are an important element of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). This function is especially critical during deployment when system resources are allocated to a subsequent application. In the presented research, a model used to deploy intrusion detection capability on a Local Area Network (LAN), in the literature, was extended to develop a role-based hierarchical agent deployment algorithm for a WSN. The resulting model took into consideration the monitoring capability, risk, deployment distribution cost, and monitoring cost associated with each node. Changing the original LAN methodology approach to model a cluster-based sensor network depended on the ability to duplicate a specific parameter that represented the monitoring capability. Furthermore, other parameters derived from a LAN can elevate costs and risk of deployment, as well as jeopardize the success of an application on a WSN. A key component of the approach presented in this research was to reduce the costs when established clusterheads in the network were found to be capable of hosting additional detection agents. In addition, another cost savings component of the study addressed the reduction of vulnerabilities associated with deployment of agents to high volume nodes. The effectiveness of the presented method was validated by comparing it against a type of a power-based scheme that used each node's remaining energy as the deployment value. While available energy is directly related to the model used in the presented method, the study deliberately sought out nodes that were identified with having superior monitoring capability, cost less to create and sustain, and are at low-risk of an attack. This work investigated improving the efficiency of an intrusion detection system (IDS) by using the proposed model to deploy monitoring agents after a temperature sensing application had established the network traffic flow to the sink. The same scenario was repeated using a power-based IDS to compare it against the proposed model. To identify a clusterhead's ability to host monitoring agents after the temperature sensing application terminated, the deployed IDS utilized the communication history and other network factors in order to rank the nodes. Similarly, using the node's communication history, the deployed power-based IDS ranked nodes based on their remaining power. For each individual scenario, and after the IDS application was deployed, the temperature sensing application was run for a second time. This time, to monitor the temperature sensing agents as the data flowed towards the sink, the network traffic was rerouted through the new intrusion detection clusterheads. Consequently, if the clusterheads were shared, the re-routing step was not preformed. Experimental results in this research demonstrated the effectiveness of applying a robust deployment metric to improve upon the energy efficiency of a deployed application in a multi-application WSN. It was found that in the scenarios with the intrusion detection application that utilized the proposed model resulted in more remaining energy than in the scenarios that implemented the power-based IDS. The algorithm especially had a positive impact on the small, dense, and more homogeneous networks. This finding was reinforced by the smaller percentage of new clusterheads that was selected. Essentially, the energy cost of the route to the sink was reduced because the network traffic was rerouted through fewer new clusterheads. Additionally, it was found that the intrusion detection topology that used the proposed approach formed smaller and more connected sets of clusterheads than the power-based IDS. As a consequence, this proposed approach essentially achieved the research objective for enhancing energy use in a multi-application WSN.

The contributions of this thesis include designing and analyzing novel medium access control (MAC) protocols for two types of wireless networks: (1) duty-cycling cooperative multi-hop wireless sensor networks (MHWSNs), and (2) single-hop Terahertz networks (TeraNets). For MHWSNs, the specific contributions are two new scalable MAC protocols for alleviating the “energy-hole” problem with cooperative transmission (CT). The energy-hole is known to limit the life of battery-powered MHWSNs. The hole occurs when nodes near the Sink exhaust their energy first because their load is heavier: they must transmit packets they originate and relay packets from and to other nodes farther from the Sink. Effective techniques for extending lifetime in MHWSNs include duty cycling (DC) and, more recently introduced, cooperative transmission (CT) range extension. However, a scalable MAC protocol has not been presented that combines both. From the MAC perspective, conducting CT in an asynchronous duty-cycling network is extremely challenging. On the one hand, the source, the cooperators and the destination need to reach consensus about a wake-up period, during which CT can be performed. This dissertation develops novel MAC protocols that solve the challenge and enable CT in an asynchronous duty-cycling network. On the other hand, the question arises, “Does the energy cost of the MAC cancel out the lifetime benefits of CT range extension?” We show that CT still gives as much as 200% increase in lifetime, in spite of the MAC overhead. The second contribution of this dissertation is a comprehensive analytical framework for MHWSNs. The network performance of a MHWSN is a complex function of the traffic volume, routing protocol, MAC technique, and sensors' harvested energy if sensors are energy-harvesting (EH) enabled. The optimum performance provides a benchmark for heuristic routing and MAC protocols. However, there does not exist such an optimization framework that is able to capture all of these protocol aspects. The problems and performance metrics of non-EH networks and EH networks are different. Because the non-EH nodes depend on a battery, a suitable performance metric is the lifetime, defined as the number of packets delivered upon the first or a portion of nodes' death. Thus, the lifetime is governed by the absorbing states in a controlled dynamic system with finite decision horizon. On the other hand, the lifetime of an EH network is theoretically infinite unless the sensors are broken or destroyed. Therefore, an infinite horizon problem is formulated towards the performance of EH networks. The proposed model departs significantly from past analyses for single-hop networks that do not capture routing and past analyses for multi-hop networks that miss MAC aspects. To our knowledge, this is the first work to model the optimal performance of MHWSNs, by jointly considering MAC layer link admission, routing queuing, energy evolution, and cooperative transmission. The third contribution of this dissertation is a novel MAC protocol for Terahertz (THz) Band wireless networks, which captures the peculiarities of the THz channel and takes advantage of large antenna arrays with fast beam steering capabilities. Communication in THz Band (0.1-10THz) is envisioned as a key wireless technology in the next decade to provide Terabits-per-second links, however, the enabling technology is still in its infancy. Existing MAC protocols designed for classical wireless networks that provide Megabits-per-second to Gigabits-per-second do not scale to THz networks, because they do not capture the peculiarities of the THz Band, e.g., the very high molecular absorption loss or the very high reflection loss at THz Band frequencies. In addition, to overcome the high path loss and extend communication range, the proposed MAC design takes advantage of fast beam steering capabilities provided by the large antenna arrays, in particular, beam-switching at the pulse level.

Βασικό χαρακτηριστικό της σύγχρονης εποχής αποτελεί η ραγδαία αύξηση του Διαδικτύου τόσο σε επίπεδο χρηστών όσο και σε επίπεδο παρεχόμενων υπηρεσιών. Συνεπώς, είναι επιτακτική η ανάγκη της προστασίας των δικτυακών και υπολογιστικών συστημάτων από διάφορες απειλές οι οποίες μπορούν να τα καταστήσουν τρωτά. Για την πλήρη προστασία όμως αυτών των συστημάτων, απαιτείται πρώτα η κατανόηση του είδους, της ταυτότητας και του τρόπου διάδοσης της απειλής. Ιδιαίτερη χρήσιμη έχει αποδειχθεί η ανάπτυξη και αναζήτηση αξιόπιστων μοντέλων ικανών να περιγράψουν αρκετά αποτελεσματικά τον τρόπο διάδοσης μιας απειλής. Η αναζήτηση τέτοιων μοντέλων αποτελεί πλέον ένα σημαντικό τομέα έρευνας στην ακαδημαϊκή και όχι μόνο κοινότητα. Σκοπός της παρούσας διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι η προσομοίωση και μελέτη των βασικών επιδημιολογικών μοντέλων SI, SIR, SIS και SIRS. Τα μοντέλα αυτά είναι εμπνευσμένα από την επιστήμη της Βιολογίας, και πλέον τη σημερινή εποχή χρησιμοποιούνται ευρέως για τη μοντελοποίηση της διάδοσης αρκετών απειλών στα δίκτυα υπολογιστών, όπως πχ. οι ιοί και τα σκουλήκια (viruses and worms). Η εργασία αποτελείται από πέντε κεφάλαια. Στο πρώτο κεφάλαιο, γίνεται και η παρουσίαση των ασυρμάτων δικτύων αισθητήρων περιγράφοντας επίσης τόσο τη δομή όσο και τα βασικά χαρακτηριστικά αυτών. Στο δεύτερο κεφάλαιο γίνεται μια παρουσίαση των βασικών ειδών του κακόβουλου λογισμικού που μπορούν να πλήξουν ένα υπολογιστικό σύστημα. Γίνεται επίσης αναφορά στα χαρακτηριστικά των κακόβουλων λογισμικών τα οποία επηρεάζουν την εξάπλωσή του. Το τρίτο κεφάλαιο επιχειρεί να εισάγει την έννοια της επιδημιολογίας στα συστήματα υπολογιστών με την ανάλυση κυρίως των ιδιαιτεροτήτων οι οποίες την χαρακτηρίζουν. Επίσης αυτό το κεφάλαιο παρουσιάζει κάποια βασικά επιδημιολογικά μοντέλα κάνοντας μια αναφορά τόσο στα βασικά χαρακτηριστικά αυτών, όσο επίσης και στον τρόπο λειτουργίας τους. Το τέταρτο κεφάλαιο το οποίο είναι και το πιο σημαντικό της εργασίας αυτής, αφιερώνεται στην παρουσίαση του εργαλείου OPNET Modeler που χρησιμοποιήσαμε και στην εκτενή περιγραφή της προσομοίωσης των μοντέλων SI, SIS, SIR και SIRS που διεξήγαμε για ένα ασύρματο δίκτυο αισθητήρων. Γίνεται παρουσίαση της λειτουργίας του δικτύου με ταυτόχρονη επεξήγηση του κώδικα που αναπτύχθηκε. Επιπλέον παρουσιάζονται και αναλύονται τα αποτελέσματα της προσομοίωσης ενώ παράλληλα περιγράφονται και τα συμπεράσματα στα οποία μας οδήγησε η εν λόγω προσομοίωση. Τέλος, στο πέμπτο κεφάλαιο, γίνεται μια αναφορά σε κάποια βασικά συμπεράσματα στα οποία οδηγηθήκαμε, ενώ περιγράφονται και πεδία πάνω στη μελέτη της διάδοσης ενός κακόβουλου λογισμικού σε ένα υπολογιστικό δίκτυο, τα οποία μπορούν να μελετηθούν εκτενέστερα μελλοντικά. / A basic characteristic of contemporary days is the boom of the Internet either in terms of users or in terms of services rendered. Therefore, there is an imperative need to protect the network and computational systems from various threats which can render them vulnerable. However, for the full protection of these systems, it is required in the first place to get to know the type, the identity and the propagation mode of the threat. Of significant use has proved to be the development and the pursuit of models capable of describing quite effectively the way a threat is spread. The pursuit of such models constitutes nowadays a significant sector of research, including, but not limited to the academic community. The intention of the present diploma thesis is the simulation and study of the basic epidemic models SI, SIR, SIS and SIRS. These models are inspired from the science of Biology, and they are widely used nowadays for the modeling of the spread of various threats in computer networks such as viruses and worms. This dissertation consists of five chapters. In the first chapter, there is taking place the presentation of wireless sensor networks and there is also a description of their structure and their basic characteristics. In the second chapter there is a presentation of the basic types of malicious software that can hit a computational system. There is also reference to the characteristics of malicious software that affect their propagation. The third chapter attempts to introduce the concept on epidemiology in computer systems, analyzing mainly the particularities characterizing her. In addition, this chapter presents some basic epidemic models, referring both to their basic characteristics and their mode of operation. The fourth chapter, which is also the most significant one of the present thesis, is dedicated to the presentation of the tool OPNET Modeler that we used too in the thorough description of the simulation of the models SI, SIR, SIS and SIRS that we carried out for a wireless sensor network. It is taking place the presentation of the network’s operation mode with a simultaneous explanation of the code that was developed. Moreover, there are presented and analyzed the results of the simulation when at the same time are also described the conclusions that were derived from the present simulation. Finally, in the fifth chapter, there is a reference to some basic conclusions in which we were led, where there are also described fields concerning the study of malicious software propagation in a computational network, which can studied further in the future.

Στα αυτοοργανούμενα ασύρματα δίκτυα, αυτόνομοι κόμβοι με κάρτες ασύρματης μετάδοσης σχηματίζουν ένα δίκτυο χωρίς προυπάρχουσα δομή. Η δρομολόγηση σε ένα συμβατικό δίκτυο γίνεται από ειδικούς δρομολογητές, είτε υλοποιημένους σε υλικό ειδικά για αυτό το σκοπό, ή κατάλληλους υπολογιστές. Αντίθετα, σε ένα adhoc δίκτυο, η δρομολόγηση διεκπεραιώνεται από τους ίδιους τους κόμβους. Κάθε κόμβος έχει τη δυνατότητα να προωθεί δικτυακό φορτίο στους υπόλοιπους. Οι κόμβοι σε ένα ad hoc δίκτυο προσφέρονται να προωθήσουν την δικτυακή κίνηση εκ μέρους άλλων κόμβων. Η λειτουργικότητα του ad hoc δικτύου εξαρτάται σημαντικά από την ικανότητα προώθησης πακέτων των κόμβων του. Συνεπώς καταλαβαίνουμε ότι ο αλγόριθμος δρομολόγησης του ad-hoc δικτύου διαδραματίζει σημαντικό ρόλο στην απόδοσή του. Βασικός σκοπός αυτής της διπλωματικής εργασίας είναι να μελετήσει την απόδοση μερικών βασικών αλγορίθμων δρομολόγησης ως προς κάποιες μετρήσιμες παραμέτρους. / In ad hoc wireless networks, autonomous nodes with wireless transmission cards form a network without pre-existing structure. Routing in a conventional network is performed by special routers , either in hardware implementations specifically for this purpose, or by appropriate computers. Conversely, in an adhoc network, routing is handled by the nodes themselves. Each node has the ability to forward the other nodes' load. The nodes in an ad hoc network offer to promote the network traffic from other nodes. The functionality of the ad hoc network depends significantly on the performance of packet forwarding of the nodes. Therefore we understand that the routing algorithm of ad-hoc network plays an important role in performance. The main purpose of this thesis is to study the performance of some key routing algorithms for some measurable parameters.

Sensor nodes are deployed over sensing fields for the purpose of monitoring certain phenomena of interest. The sensor nodes perform specific measurements, process the sensed data, and send the data to a base station over a wireless channel. The base station collects data from the sensor nodes, analyses this data, and reports it to the users. Wireless sensor networks are different from traditional networks, because of the following constraints. Typically, a large number of sensor nodes need to be randomly deployed and, in most cases, they are deployed in unreachable environments; however, the sensor nodes may fail, and they are subject to power constraints. Energy is one of the most important design constraints of wireless sensor networks. Energy consumption, in a sensor node, occurs due to many factors, such as: sensing the environment, transmitting and receiving data, processing data, and communication overheads. Since the sensor nodes behave as router nodes for data propagation, of the other sensor nodes to the base station, network connectivity decreases gradually. This may result in disconnected sub networks of sensor nodes. In order to prolong the network's lifetime, energy efficient protocols should be designed for the characteristics of the wireless sensor network. Sensor nodes in different regions of the sensing field can collaborate to aggregate the data that they gathered. Data aggregation is defined as the process of aggregating the data from sensor nodes to reduce redundant transmissions. It reduces a large amount of the data traffic on the network, it requires less energy, and it avoids information overheads by not sending all of the unprocessed data throughout the sensor network. Grouping sensor nodes into clusters is useful because it reduces the energy consumption. The clustering technique can be used to perform data aggregation. The clustering procedure involves the selection of cluster heads in each of the cluster, in order to coordinate the member nodes. The cluster head is responsible for: gathering the sensed data from its cluster's nodes, aggregating the data, and then sending the aggregated data to the base station. An adaptive clustering protocol was introduced to select the heads in the wireless sensor network. The proposed clustering protocol will dynamically change the cluster heads to obtain the best possible performance, based on the remaining energy level of sensor nodes and the average energy of clusters. The OMNET simulator will be used to present the design and implementation of the adaptive clustering protocol and then to evaluate it. This research has conducted extensive simulation experiments, in order to fully study and analyse the proposed energy efficient clustering protocol. It is necessary for all of the sensor nodes to remain alive for as long as possible, since network quality decreases as soon as a set of sensor nodes die. The goal of the energy efficient clustering protocol is to increase the lifetime and stability period of the sensor network. This research also introduces a new bidirectional data gathering protocol. This protocol aims to form a bidirectional ring structure among the sensor nodes, within the cluster, in order to reduce the overall energy consumption and enhance the network's lifetime. A bidirectional data gathering protocol uses a source node to transmit data to the base station, via one or more multiple intermediate cluster heads. It sends data through energy efficient paths to ensure the total energy, needed to route the data, is kept to a minimum. Performance results reveal that the proposed protocol is better in terms of: its network lifetime, energy dissipation, and communication overheads.

published_or_final_version / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

In a domain with diverse multi-disciplinary views of what a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is, tracking progress and developing efficient WSNs is inherently a complex process. The main motivation of this work is advancing state-of-the-art WSNs by adaptively utilizing their components, and enlisting the utility of resources in network vicinity. As WSNs increase in density and expand in scale, we continue to witness an increase in overlapped deployments that serve independent applications. In most scenarios, new networks are deployed for new applications without considering previous or neighboring WSNs. This thesis presents the resource reuse (RR-WSN) paradigm. Adopting a generic framework for resource utilization, we achieve synergy between heterogeneous sensing systems. We abstract the view of a WSN in terms of functional capabilities, and offer a component-based view to boost sensor node (SN) potential and contribution to WSN operation. Thus SNs provide resources. On the other hand, we formally derive a set of functional requirements per application. The design and deployment of WSNs thus converges to an optimal assignment of functional requirements to resources. Two mainstream designs of WSNs are addressed in this thesis. The first involves WSNs with static deployments of nodes, whereby multiple applications run on networks in a given vicinity, yet the resources and applications share an owner (e.g., on a University Campus). We then present a Binary Integer Programming formulation to find the optimal assignment of resources to these functional requirements, while minimizing the energy impact of running each functional request. We further extend our scope to include WSNs that depend on transient nodes, such as smartphones, in a dynamic (DRR-WSN) paradigm, which could contribute significantly to the resource pool. Intuitively, multiple-owners are involved as resource providers and require different applications. Thus, we address the valuation of resources as they are shared across network owners. We finally present a maximal matching problem of finding the lowest cost for running each application, based on the available resource pool in the vicinity required. Extensive performance evaluation depicts the impact of RR-WSN design on WSN operation and longevity in various scenarios. / Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2013-08-27 04:44:14.556

Rapid advances in the smart grid technology are making it possible to tackle a lot of problems in the aged power systems. High-speed data acquisition system, high-voltage power electronic equipment, advanced utility and customer interaction technologies, as well as distributed renewable generation are enabling the revolution in the electric power generation, delivery and distribution. Through the implementation of ubiquitous metering and communication networks, the customers would no longer be a passive receiver of the electrical energy, but instead, an active participant in the power system and electricity market. They can not only sell their own energy to the utility, but also take part in the emergency restoration in the power grid. Nonetheless, some technical barriers are encountered during this revolution, such as difficulties in integrating home automation, smart metering, customer interaction and power system operation into the whole system. This thesis proposes a customer involved load shedding algorithm for both the power system frequency control and the micro-grid islanding. This new algorithm possesses the features of centralized load control and distributed load control, which fully utilizes the advantages of hierarchical communication networks along with the home automation. The proposed algorithm considers the reliability of the power grid as well as the comfort of the electricity users. In the power distribution system, the high-level control centre is responsible for coordinating the local load controllers, whilst the local controller takes charge of frequency monitoring and decision making. In the micro-grid, a centralized control strategy is adopted to better serve the system with the wide set of information available at the micro-grid control centre. The simulation results have demonstrated the correctness and feasibility of the proposed algorithm. Finally, the hardware implementation further tests the validity of the wireless sensor networks serving as the system’s monitoring and communication technology. / Thesis (Master, Electrical & Computer Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-24 20:01:37.098