The next generation wireless networks i.e. 5G aim to provide multi-Gbps data traffic, in order to satisfy the increasing demand for high-definition video, among other high data rate services, as well as the exponential growth in mobile subscribers. To achieve this dramatic increase in data rates, current research is focused on improving the capacity of current 4G network standards, based on Long Term Evolution (LTE), before radical changes are exploited which could include acquiring additional/new spectrum. The LTE network has a reuse factor of one; hence neighbouring cells/sectors use the same spectrum, therefore making the cell edge users vulnerable to inter-cell interference. In addition, wireless transmission is commonly hindered by fading and pathloss. In this direction, this thesis focuses on improving the performance of cell edge users in LTE and LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) networks by initially implementing a new Coordinated Multi-Point (CoMP) algorithm to mitigate cell edge user interference. Subsequently Device-to-Device (D2D) communication is investigated as the enabling technology for maximising Resource Block (RB) utilisation in current 4G and emerging 5G networks. It is demonstrated that the application, as an extension to the above, of novel power control algorithms, to reduce the required D2D TX power, and multihop transmission for relaying D2D traffic, can further enhance network performance. To be able to develop the aforementioned technologies and evaluate the performance of new algorithms in emerging network scenarios, a beyond-the-state-of-the-art LTE system-level simulator (SLS) was implemented. The new simulator includes Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) antenna functionalities, comprehensive channel models (such as Wireless World initiative New Radio II i.e. WINNER II) and adaptive modulation and coding schemes to accurately emulate the LTE and LTE-A network standards. Additionally, a novel interference modelling scheme using the 'wrap around' technique was proposed and implemented that maintained the topology of flat surfaced maps, allowing for use with cell planning tools while obtaining accurate and timely results in the SLS compared to the few existing platforms. For the proposed CoMP algorithm, the adaptive beamforming technique was employed to reduce interference on the cell edge UEs by applying Coordinated Scheduling (CoSH) between cooperating cells. Simulation results show up to 2-fold improvement in terms of throughput, and also shows SINR gain for the cell edge UEs in the cooperating cells. Furthermore, D2D communication underlaying the LTE network (and future generation of wireless networks) was investigated. The technology exploits the proximity of users in a network to achieve higher data rates with maximum RB utilisation (as the technology reuses the cellular RB simultaneously), while taking some load off the Evolved Node B (eNB) i.e. by direct communication between User Equipment (UE). Simulation results show that the proximity and transmission power of D2D transmission yields high performance gains for a D2D receiver, which was demonstrated to be better than that of cellular UEs with better channel conditions or in close proximity to the eNB in the network. The impact of interference from the simultaneous transmission however impedes the achievable data rates of cellular UEs in the network, especially at the cell edge. Thus, a power control algorithm was proposed to mitigate the impact of interference in the hybrid network (network consisting of both cellular and D2D UEs). It was implemented by setting a minimum SINR threshold so that the cellular UEs achieve a minimum performance, and equally a maximum SINR threshold to establish fairness for the D2D transmission as well. Simulation results show an increase in the cell edge throughput and notable improvement in the overall SINR distribution of UEs in the hybrid network. Additionally, multihop transmission for D2D UEs was investigated in the hybrid network: traditionally, the scheme is implemented to relay cellular traffic in a homogenous network. Contrary to most current studies where D2D UEs are employed to relay cellular traffic, the use of idle nodes to relay D2D traffic was implemented uniquely in this thesis. Simulation results show improvement in D2D receiver throughput with multihop transmission, which was significantly better than that of the same UEs performance with equivalent distance between the D2D pair when using single hop transmission.

L’émergence de l’Internet des Objets révolutionne les réseaux locaux sans fil et inspirent de nombreuses applications. L’une des problématiques majeures pour les réseaux locaux sans fil est l’accès et le partage du médium radio sans fil. Plusieurs protocoles MAC mono-canal ont été proposés et abordent cette problématique avec des solutions intéressantes. Néanmoins, certains problèmes majeurs liés à l’accès au canal (nœud caché, synchronisation, propagation des RDV…) pour un contexte de transmission multi-saut, persistent encore et font toujours l’objet d’intenses études de la communauté scientifique, surtout lorsqu’il s’agit de réseaux de capteurs sans fil distribués sur des topologies étendues. Certains travaux de recherches ont proposé des protocoles MAC multi-canal, traitant souvent le cas idéal, où tous les nœuds dans le réseau sont à portée les uns des autres. Les émissions et réceptions des trames de données sont généralement précédées de trames des contrôles pour l’établissement de Rendez-vous (RDV) entre les nœuds concernés. Nous constatons que les RDV ne garantissent pas la réservation des canaux de façon déterministe sans conflit entre les nœuds dans le réseau, et peuvent rendre difficile les transmissions en multi-saut. Une solution complexe serait de propager ces RDV vers les voisins du nœud récepteur au-delà de 2 sauts. C’est face à cette complexité de gestion de RDV multi-sauts que s’inscrit notre contribution. Il s’agit pour nous de proposer une méthode d’accès multi-canal aléatoire sans RDV, en topologie multi-saut. Notre solution est implémentée sur un testbedréel constitué de nœuds WiNo mono-interface, elle est basée sur la méthode ALOHA slottée améliorée pour notre contexte multi-canal, dont nous évaluons les performances qui sont comparées au cas mono-canal. Un modèle analytique lié au contexte multi-canal sans RDV a été développé également, et comparé aux résultats de notre testbed. / The emergence of the Internet of Thingsrevolutionizeswireless local area networks and inspiringnumerous applications. One of the main issues for wirelessLANsis the access and sharing of the wireless radio medium. Several single-channel MAC protocols have been proposed and addressthis issue withinteresting solutions. However, some major problemsrelated to the channelaccess (hiddennode, synchronization, propagation of RDV) for a multi-hop transmission context, persist and are still the subject of intensive studies by the scientificcommunity, especiallywhenitcomes to a distributedwirelesssensors networks over extended topologies. Someresearch has proposed multi-channel MAC protocols, oftenaddressingthe ideal case, where all nodes in the network are within range of eachother. The transmissions and receptions of the data frames aregenerallypreceded by controls frames for the establishment of Rendez-Vous (RDV) among the nodesconcerned. Wefindthat the RDVs do not guarantee the channelsreservation in a deterministicwaywithoutconflictamong the nodes in the network, and maymakeitdifficult the multi-hop transmissions. A complex solution wouldbe to propagatetheseRDVs to the neighbors of the receivernodebeyond 2 hops. Facedwiththiscomplexity of multi-hop RDV management thatmakesour contribution. It is important for us to propose arandom multi-channelaccessmethodwithout RDV, in multi-hop topology. Our solution isimplemented on a real testbed made of multi-channel single-interface “WiNo” nodes, of whichweevaluate the performance that are compared to the single-channel case. An analytical model related to the multi-channelcontextwithout RDV wasalsodeveloped, and compared to the results of ourtestbed.

The super collision between the Internet phenomenon and the wireless communication revolution gives birth to a wealth of novel research problems, design challenges and standardization activities. Within this domain, spontaneous wireless IP networking are probably the most extreme example of new ''particles'' born from the collision. Indeed, these particles defy the laws of the Internet in many ways. The absorption of such peculiar particles in the global IP network has already started thanks to pioneering algorithmic and protocol work -- for instance OLSR -- and through the deployment of wireless mesh networks around the world, such as urban community wireless networks. With the recent revolutions in North Africa, and movements such as Occupy Wall Street, the prospect of spontaneous wireless IP networking has become even more attractive on social and political grounds. Dedicated conferences have recently been organized, and as a result, ambitious, multi-million dollar initiatives have been launched (e.g. the US Government-funded project Commotion Wireless, or the EU-funded initiative CONFINE). However, spontaneous IP wireless networks are not yet widely deployed because pioneer work such as OLSR is vastly insufficient to fully bridge the gap between the Internet and these new networks. This thesis presents work that analyzes this gap and proposes some solutions as to how to bridge it. The focus is put on three domains: a first part presents work in the domain of wireless mesh and ad hoc networks. A second part presents work on sensor networks and in the Internet of Things. And the last part presents work in the domain of delay tolerant networking and vehicular networks.

La presencia de topologías multi-salto en comunicaciones inalámbricas de todo tipo es cada vez más apreciable, esperándose además que esta tendencia se mantenga en un futuro cercano. A pesar de que inicialmente fueran concebidos para solventar la falta de infraestructura subyacente en ciertos escenarios concretos, estos despliegues han acaparado el interés de diferentes actores del ámbito de las comunicaciones (incluyendo los operadores), con lo que es razonable pensar que su relevancia irá creciendo paulatinamente. De hecho, existen diversas iniciativas en algunos foros de estandarización que de alguna manera corroboran este hecho. Hay que tener en cuenta, por otro lado, otros factores adicionales (como la eclosión que se ha producido en el campo de las redes de sensores inalámbricos) que seguramente fomentarán el uso de estas topologías.A pesar de la creciente actividad en el ámbito de los despliegues multi-salto, sigue siendo necesario establecer, de manera cuantitativa, cuáles son sus posibles beneficios, tanto para los usuarios finales de los sistemas de comunicación, como para los operadores, especialmente teniendo en cuenta el elevado grado de heterogeneidad que también caracterizará las redes inalámbricas.Por otro lado, en lo que se refiere a los algoritmos y protocolos a ser empleados sobre este tipo de topologías, y a pesar de la intensa labor de investigación que sobre ellos se ha realizado recientemente, queda aún un número relevante de aspectos a analizar. En primer lugar, el mero hecho de que sus requerimientos y retos iniciales hayan variado de manera sustancial puede, y debe, influenciar sus principios básicos. Además, es necesario acometer verificaciones de los mismos sobre plataformas reales y, así mismo, asegurar que las evaluaciones que se realicen con técnicas de simulación utilicen modelos reales que permitan reflejar de manera fidedigna las condiciones que se dan en la realidad.Esta Tesis afronta, en primer lugar, la evaluación cuantitativa de la mejora que es posible alcanzar al utilizar topologías inalámbricas multi-salto para extender despliegues de red más tradicionales. Un primer aspecto que es razonable considerar es la ampliación de la cobertura que se consigue; en este caso se ha realizado un análisis que sigue un doble enfoque, analítico y mediante técnicas de simulación, para determinar es la ganancia que se logra. Se ha partido de dos modelos de red complementarios entre sí, asumiendo en el primero de ellos una falta total de planificación previa, mientras que en el segundo se utiliza un emplazamiento óptimo de los elementos de conexión a la red. Se ha comprobado que, a pesar de sus características claramente antagónicas, los resultados obtenidos con ambos escenarios son similares entre sí. Además, se concluye que, a pesar de que la ampliación de la cobertura que se alcanza es muy relevante, es posible establecer un límite razonable para el número máximo de saltos a emplear, ya que la mejoría adicional al incrementar la longitud de la ruta deja de ser apreciable a partir del mismo. Este aspecto se podría aprovechar para influir en el diseño de las técnicas de encaminamiento a emplear sobre este tipo de topologías.Se analizan también otras mejoras adicionales, utilizando un escenario en el que predomina sobremanera la heterogeneidad de los elementos de conexión a la red, e integrando las extensiones multi-salto con un algoritmo de selección de acceso genérico, que permite modular el peso que tienen las diferentes entidades (tanto el terminal de usuario como la propia red), así como diversos parámetros y restricciones a considerar, a la hora de determinar la alternativa de conexión óptima. Se comprueba que, tanto para los usuarios, gracias a la mejora de la calidad del servicio que perciben, como para la red, que incrementa el tráfico que es capaz de cursar, el uso de comunicaciones multi-salto puede resultar altamente atractivo.En segundo lugar, también se afronta la mejora de las técnicas de encaminamiento que tradicionalmente se emplean sobre las redes multi-salto, basadas en minimizar el número de saltos entre los dos extremos de la comunicación. Para ello, y utilizando el paradigma de Cross-Layer Optimisation, se propone una versión mejorada del protocolo DSR, denominada SADSR, que emplea la información relativa a la calidad de los enlaces subyacentes para modular el algoritmo de selección de ruta. Destacar que se acomete una verificación experimental de dicha propuesta, contestando, de este modo, a una de las reivindicaciones más importantes en este campo. Los resultados obtenidos permiten inferir que las prestaciones de la propuesta realizada en el marco de esta Tesis son superiores a los de la versión original del DSR.A pesar del evidente valor que las validaciones empíricas aportan, tienen la limitación de que es complicado establecer topologías con un número elevado de nodos, o acometer experimentos con una pauta repetitiva para determinar un comportamiento promedio. Es por ello que también se acomete un análisis mediante técnicas de simulación, en el que se compara SADSR con la versión original del DSR, así como con otras propuestas que han acaparado el interés por parte de la comunidad científica. Los resultados que se derivan a raíz de la evaluación llevada a cabo no hacen sino corroborar lo que ya adelanta la verificación experimental, ya que las prestaciones del SADSR son muy superiores a las del resto de alternativas analizadas.Para llevar a cabo el análisis anterior es fundamental el uso de un modelo de canal que refleje, con el mayor grado de exactitud posible, un comportamiento realista. Para ello, en la Tesis se afronta el diseño, implementación y posterior integración en la plataforma Network Simulator de BEAR, un modelo de canal basado en filtrado auto-regresivo, que se caracteriza principalmente por emular la aparición de errores a ráfagas que se observa en entornos reales. En ese sentido, se parte de un extenso conjunto de medidas que permite corroborar el correcto funcionamiento de la propuesta. / The presence of multi-hop topologies within all types of wireless communications is becoming more and more common, and this tendency is expected to be maintained in the near future. Although they were originally conceived to compensate the lack of subjacent infrastructure in certain scenarios, these deployments have attracted the interest of different actors in the wireless communications value chain (including network operators) and thus it is logical to think that their relevance will gradually increase. In fact, there already exist some standardization initiatives which corroborate this point to some extent. Furthermore, other additional factors, such as the rapid growth which has been seen in wireless sensor technologies, also strengthen the use of these topologies..In spite of the growing activity in the multi-hop deployment field, it is still necessary to establish, in a quantitative way, their potential benefits, both for the end-users of the communication systems, as well as for the operators, considering, in addition, the high degree of heterogeneity which will characterize wireless networks in the future.On the other hand, as far as algorithms and protocols to be used over this type of topology are concerned, and despite the intense research which has been conducted into them, there is still a large number of issues to be tackled. First, the simple fact that their initial requirements and challenges have been modified can, and must, influence their basic principles. In addition, it becomes necessary to address their validation on real platforms and, on the other hand, to ensure that simulation-based evaluations of their performance make use of realistic models which accurately reflect the conditions which are observed in real scenarios.This dissertation tackles, on the one hand, the quantitative evaluation of the improvements which are achievable when using multi-hop topologies to extend legacy network deployments. One first aspect which is logical to consider is the increase in the coverage which is brought about. In this sense, a two-fold approach has been followed, employing both an analytical as well as a simulation-based analysis, to establish what the gain is. Two network models have been used, being complementary to each other; the first one assumes a complete lack of network planning for the deployment of the access elements, while the second one assumes an optimum distribution of them. Although their characteristics are completely different, the results are somehow similar for both cases. Furthermore, it can be concluded that, despite the coverage extension which can be obtained, it is indeed possible to establish a reasonable limit on the maximum number of hops to be used, since the improvement becomes less relevant for higher values. This aspect could influence the design of routing techniques to be used over this type of topology.Furthermore, other additional benefits have been also analyzed, using a network deployment in which the presence of heterogeneity (multi-access) is evident. The multi-hop extensions have been integrated within a generic access selection algorithm which enables the modification of the weights which are assigned to the different entities (both the end-user terminals and the network) as well as to the set of parameters and constraints to be considered when selecting the most appropriate access alternative. It is concluded that for both the end-users, who improve their perception of the quality of service, and the network, which is able to increase the overall amount of traffic possible to be handled, multi-hop extensions are certainly beneficial.In addition, the dissertation also tackles the improvement of the routing techniques which are traditionally employed over multi-hop networks, which are based on minimizing the number of hops between the two sides of the communication. To accomplish this, and using the Cross-Layer Optimisation paradigm, an improved version of the DSR protocol is proposed, namely SADSR. It uses information about the subjacent link qualities to modulate the route selection algorithm. It is worth highlighting that a fully empirical (on a real platform) validation has been conducted, addressing one of the most pressing demands within this field. The results obtained allow us to infer that the proposal made in the framework of this dissertation is clearly outperforming the original DSR version.Although the added value provided by empirical validations is unquestionable, they also have some limitations. First, they normally do not favour the establishment of large topologies, or to undertake repetitive experiments aimed at finding an average behaviour. In this sense, a simulation-based analysis is also used so as to compare the SADSR with the original DSR version as well as with other proposals which have recently attracted interest from the scientific community. The results obtained by the validation carried out on a real platform are confirmed, since the performance brought about by the SADSR is somewhat higher than that of the other strategies.In order to perform the previous analysis the use of a realistic channel model, able to capture with a high degree of accuracy the behaviour exhibited on real platforms, is mandatory. To fulfil this requirement, the dissertation also tackles the design, implementation, and integration within the Network Simulator platform of BEAR, a channel model based on auto-regressive filtering. It is mainly characterized by being able to emulate the bursty presence of errors which is observed over real channels. The design is based on an extensive set of measurements which is used to assess the validity of the proposal.

The atmospheric lightwave propagation is considerably influenced by the random variations in the refractive index of air pockets due to turbulence. This undesired effect significantly degrades the performance of free-space optical (FSO) communication systems. Interestingly, the severity of such random degradations is highly related to the range of atmospheric propagation. In this thesis, we introduce relay-assisted FSO communications as a very promising technique to combat the degradation effects of atmospheric turbulence. Considering different configurations of the relays, we quantify the outage behavior of the relay-assisted system and identify the optimum relaying scheme. We further optimize the performance of the relay-assisted FSO system subject to some power constraints and provide optimal power control strategies for different scenarios under consideration. Moreover, an application of FSO relaying technique in quantum communications is investigated. The results demonstrate impressive performance improvements for the proposed relay-assisted FSO systems with respect to the conventional direct transmission whether applied in a classical or a quantum communication channel.

Vehicular networking is envisioned to be a key technology area for significant growth in the coming years. Although the expectations for this emerging technology are set very high, many practical aspects remain still unsolved for a vast deployment of vehicular networks. This dissertation addresses the enabling physical layer techniques to meet the challenges in vehicular networks operating in mobile wireless environments. Considering the infrastructure-less nature of vehicular networks, we envision cooperative diversity well positioned to meet the demanding requirements of vehicular networks with their underlying distributed structure. Cooperative diversity has been proposed as a powerful means to enhance the performance of high-rate communications over wireless fading channels. It realizes spatial diversity advantages in a distributed manner where a node uses others antennas to relay its message creating a virtual antenna array. Although cooperative diversity has garnered much attention recently, it has not yet been fully explored in the context of vehicular networks considering the unique characteristics of vehicular networks, this dissertation provides an error performance analysis study of cooperative transmission schemes for various deployment and traffic scenarios. In the first part of this dissertation, we investigate the performance of a cooperative vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) system with amplify-and-forward relaying for typical traffic scenarios under city/urban settings and a highway area. We derive pairwise error probability (PEP) expressions and demonstrate the achievable diversity gains. The effect of imperfect channel state information (CSI) is also studied through an asymptotical PEP analysis. We present Monte-Carlo simulations to confirm the analytical derivations and present the error rate performance of the vehicular scheme with perfect and imperfect-CSI. In the second part, we consider road-to-vehicle (R2V) communications in which roadside access points use cooperating vehicles as relaying terminals. Under the assumption of decode-and-forward relaying, we derive PEP expressions for single-relay and multi-relay scenarios. In the third part, we consider a cooperative multi-hop V2V system in which direct transmission is not possible and investigate its performance through the PEP derivation and diversity gain analysis. Monte-Carlo simulations are further provided to con firm the analytical derivations and provide insight into the error rate performance improvement.

In this thesis, we consider optimal control problems arising in high-speed integrated communication networks with Quality of Service (QOS) constraints. Integrated networks are expected to carry a large variety of traffic sources with widely varying traffic characteristics and performance requirements. Broadly, the traffic sources fall into two categories: (a) real-time sources with specified performance criteria, like small end to end delay and loss probability (sources of this type are referred to as Type 1 sources below), and (b) sources that do not have stringent performance criteria and do not demand performance guarantees from the network - the so-called Best Effort Type sources (these are referred to as Type 2 sources below). From the network's point of view, Type 2 sources are much more "controllable" than Type 1 sources, in the sense that the Type 2 sources can be dynamically slowed down, stopped or speeded up depending on traffic congestion in the network, while for Type 1 sources, the only control action available in case of congestion is packet dropping. Carrying sources of both types in the same network concurrently while meeting the performance objectives of Type 1 sources is a challenge and raises the question of equitable sharing of resources. The objective is to carry as much Type 2 traffic as possible without sacrificing the performance requirements of Type 1 traffic. We consider simple models that capture this situation. Consider a network node through which two connections pass, one each of Types 1 and 2. One would like to maximize the throughput of the Type 2 connection while ensuring that the Type 1 connection's performance objectives are met. This can be set up as a constrained optimization problem that, however, is very hard to solve. We introduce a parameter b that represents the "cost" of buffer occupancy by Type 2 traffic. Since buffer space is limited and shared, a queued Type 2 packet means that a buffer position is not available for storing a Type 1 packet; to discourage the Type 2 connection from hogging the buffer, the cost parameter b is introduced, while a reward for each Type 2 packet coming into the buffer encourages the Type 2 connection to transmit at a high rate. Using standard on-off models for the Type 1 sources, we show how values can be assigned to the parameter b; the value depends on the characteristics of the Type 1 connection passing through the node, i.e., whether it is a Variable Bit Rate (VBR) video connection or a Continuous Bit Rate (CBR) connection etc. Our approach gives concrete networking significance to the parameter b, which has long been considered as an abstract parameter in reward-penalty formulations of flow control problems (for example, [Stidham '85]). Having seen how to assign values to b, we focus on the Type 2 connection next. Since Type 2 connections do not have strict performance requirements, it is possible to defer transmitting a Type 2 packet, if the conditions downstream so warrant. This leads to the question: what is the "best" transmission policy for Type 2 packets? Decisions to transmit or not must be based on congestion conditions downstream; however, the network state that is available at any instant gives information that is old, since feedback latency is an inherent feature of high speed networks. Thus the problem is to identify the best transmission policy under delayed feedback information. We study this problem in the framework of Markov Decision Theory. With appropriate assumptions on the arrivals, service times and scheduling discipline at a network node, we formulate our problem as a Partially Observable Controlled Markov Chain (PO-CMC). We then give an equivalent formulation of the problem in terms of a Completely Observable Controlled Markov Chain (CO-CMC) that is easier to deal with., Using Dynamic Programming and Value Iteration, we identify structural properties of an optimal transmission policy when the delay in obtaining feedback information is one time slot. For both discounted and average cost criteria, we show that the optimal policy has a two-threshold structure, with the threshold on the observed queue length depending, on whether a Type 2 packet was transmitted in the last slot or not. For an observation delay k > 2, the Value Iteration technique does not yield results. We use the structure of the problem to provide computable upper and lower bounds to the optimal value function. A study of these bounds yields information about the structure of the optimal policy for this problem. We show that for appropriate values of the parameters of the problem, depending on the number of transmissions in the last k steps, there is an "upper cut off" number which is a value such that if the observed queue length is greater than or equal to this number, the optimal action is to not transmit. Since the number of transmissions in the last k steps is between 0 and A: both inclusive, we have a stack of (k+1) upper cut off values. We conjecture that these (k + l) values axe thresholds and the optimal policy for this problem has a (k + l)-threshold structure. So far it has been assumed that the parameters of the problem are known at the transmission control point. In reality, this is usually not known and changes over time. Thus, one needs an adaptive transmission policy that keeps track of and adjusts to changing network conditions. We show that the information structure in our problem admits a simple adaptive policy that performs reasonably well in a quasi-static traffic environment. Up to this point, the models we have studied correspond to a single hop in a virtual connection. We consider the multiple hop problem next. A basic matter of interest here is whether one should have end to end or hop by hop controls. We develop a sample path approach to answer this question. It turns out that depending on the relative values of the b parameter in the transmitting node and its downstream neighbour, sometimes end to end controls are preferable while at other times hop by hop controls are preferable. Finally, we consider a routing problem in a high speed network where feedback information is delayed, as usual. As before, we formulate the problem in the framework of Markov Decision Theory and apply Value Iteration to deduce structural properties of an optimal control policy. We show that for both discounted and average cost criteria, the optimal policy for an observation delay of one slot is Join the Shortest Expected Queue (JSEQ) - a natural and intuitively satisfactory extension of the well-known Join the Shortest Queue (JSQ) policy that is optimal when there is no feedback delay (see, for example, [Weber 78]). However, for an observation delay of more than one slot, we show that the JSEQ policy is not optimal. Determining the structure of the optimal policy for a delay k>2 appears to be very difficult using the Value Iteration approach; we explore some likely policies by simulation.

We study the problem of joint congestion control, routing and MAC layer scheduling in multi-hop wireless mesh networks, where the nodes in the network are subjected to energy expenditure rate constraints. As wireless scenario does not allow all the links to be active all the time, only a subset of given links can be active simultaneously. We model the inter-link interference using the link contention graph. All the nodes in the network are power-constrained and we model this constraint using energy expenditure rate matrix. Then we formulate the problem as a network utility maximization (NUM) problem. We notice that this is a convex optimization problem with affine constraints. We apply duality theory and decompose the problem into two sub-problems namely, network layer congestion control and routing problem, and MAC layer scheduling problem. The source adjusts its rate based on the cost of the least cost path to the destination where the cost of the path includes not only the prices of the links in it but also the prices associated with the nodes on the path. The MAC layer scheduling of the links is carried out based on the prices of the links. The optimal scheduler selects that set of non-interfering links, for which the sum of link prices is maximum. We study the effects of energy expenditure rate constraints of the nodes on the maximum possible network utility. It turns out that the dominant of the two constraints namely, the link capacity constraint and the node energy expenditure rate constraint affects the network utility most. Also we notice the fact that the energy expenditure rate constraints do not affect the nature of optimal link scheduling problem. Following this fact, we study the problem of distributed link scheduling. Optimal scheduling requires selecting independent set of maximum aggregate price, but this problem is known to be NP-hard. We first show that as long as scheduling policy selects the set of non-interfering links, it can not go unboundedly away from the optimal solution of network utility maximization problem. Then we proceed and evaluate a simple greedy scheduling algorithm. Analytical bounds on performance are provided and simulations indicate that the greedy heuristic performs well in practice.

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are composed of a large number of battery-powered sensor nodes that have the ability to sense the physical environment, compute the obtained information and communicate using the radio interfaces. Because sensor nodes are generally deployed on a large and wild area, they are powered by embedded battery. And it is difficult to change or recharge the battery, thus to reduce the energy consumption when sensors and protocols are designed is very important and can extend the lifetime of WSNs. So sensor nodes transmit packets with a lower transmission power (e.g. OdBm). With this transmission power, a packet can only be transmitted dozens of meters away. Therefore, when a sensor detects an event, a packet is sent in a multi-hop, ad-hoc manner (without fixed infrastructure and each sensor is able to relay the packet) to the sink (specific node which gathers information and reacts to the network situation). In this thesis, we first give an elaborate state of the art of WSNs. Then the impacts of duty-cycle and unreliable links or the performances of routing layer are analyzed. Based on the analytical results, we then propose three new simple yet effective methods to construct virtual coordinates under unreliable links in WSNs. By further taking the duty-cycle and real-time constraints into consideration we propose two cross-layer forwarding protocols which can have a greater delivery ratio and satisfy the deadline requirements. In order to have protocols for the WSNs that have dynamic topology, we then propose a robust forwarding protocol which can adapt its parameters when the topology changes. At last, we conclude this thesis and give some perspectives.

The atmospheric lightwave propagation is considerably influenced by the random variations in the refractive index of air pockets due to turbulence. This undesired effect significantly degrades the performance of free-space optical (FSO) communication systems. Interestingly, the severity of such random degradations is highly related to the range of atmospheric propagation. In this thesis, we introduce relay-assisted FSO communications as a very promising technique to combat the degradation effects of atmospheric turbulence. Considering different configurations of the relays, we quantify the outage behavior of the relay-assisted system and identify the optimum relaying scheme. We further optimize the performance of the relay-assisted FSO system subject to some power constraints and provide optimal power control strategies for different scenarios under consideration. Moreover, an application of FSO relaying technique in quantum communications is investigated. The results demonstrate impressive performance improvements for the proposed relay-assisted FSO systems with respect to the conventional direct transmission whether applied in a classical or a quantum communication channel.