Thesis (Ph.D.) - Carleton University, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 156-164). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Australia, 2008.

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Carleton University, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Ad-Hoc mesh networks offer great promise. Low-cost ad-hoc mesh networks can be built using popular IEEE 802.11 equipment, but such networks are unable to guarantee each node a fair share of bandwidth. Furthermore, hidden node problems cause collisions which can cripple the throughput of a network. This research proposes a novel mechanism which is able to overcome hidden node problems and provide fair bandwidth sharing among nodes on ad-hoc 802.11 networks, and can be implemented on existing network devices. The scheme uses TDM (time division multiplexing) with slot reservation. A distributed beacon packet latency measurement mechanism is used to achieve node synchronisation. The distributed nature of the mechanism makes it applicable to ad-hoc 802.11 networks, which can either grow or fragment dynamically.

Under det senaste decenniet har inomhuspositionering fått en ökad popularitet och stått i fokus för forskning och utveckling, eftersom det ger praktiska möjligheter till att spåra och navigera objekt och människor i inomhusmiljöer. Det finns ingen global lösning för inomhuspositionering baserat på en enstaka teknologi såsom det gör för utomhuspositionering med sin satellitbaserade globala positioneringssystem. Många inomhusteknologier står inför många utmaningar såsom låg positioneringsnoggrannhet samt dyr och stor hårdvara. Den här uppsatsen beskriver hur en simpel och kostnadseffektiv lösning, som addresserar problemen med noggrannheten och hårdvarukostnaden, genom en iterativ forskningsmetod, utvecklades. Vår lösning är ett ultraljudsbaserat passivt sändare-mottagare system som kombinerar multilateration som positioneringsteknik och tidsskillnad av ankomst (TDOA) som mätprincip för att beräkna en 3D-position inuti en 4x2x2 m testyta med en övergripande noggrannhet på 16 cm inom ett 95% konfidensintervall. Vi registrerade noggranna TDOA-värden med en komparatorkrets som fungerade som en amplitud-trigger. Det här tillvägagångssättet var mycket enklare än vad andra relaterade arbeten använde sig av, vilket var sampling för att bearbeta inkommande signaler från sändarna. / During the past decade, indoor positioning has gained more popularity and has become a focus of research and development as it provides practical possibilities to track and navigate objects and people in indoor environments. There is no overall solution for indoor positioning based on a single technology like the solution for outdoor positioning with its satellite-based global positioning system. Many indoor positioning technologies today face many challenges such as low positioning accuracy, expensive and large hardware. This thesis describes how a simple and cost-effective solution, that addresses the problem of accuracy and space cost with regards to hardware being used, was developed through an iterative research methodology. Our solution is an ultrasound-based passive receiver-transmitter system that combines multilateration as a positioning technique and time difference of arrival (TDOA) as a measuring principle. This combination is used to calculate a 3D position within a 4x2x2 m test area with an overall accuracy of 16 cm within a 95% confidence interval. We registered accurate TDOA values with a comparator circuit that acts as an amplitude trigger. This approach was much more simple than that of other related works which used sampling to process incoming signals from the transmitters.

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) facilitates efficient and cost-effective e-health care and well-being applications. The WBAN has unique challenges and features compared to other Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). In addition to battery power consumption, the vulnerability and the unpredicted channel behavior of the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer make channel access a serious problem. MAC protocols based on Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) can improve the reliability and efficiency of WBAN. However, conventional static TDMA techniques adopted by IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.15.6 do not sufficiently consider the channel status or the buffer requirements of the nodes within heterogeneous contexts. Although there are some solutions that have been proposed to alleviate the effect of the deep fade in WBAN channel by adopting dynamic slot allocation, these solutions still suffer from some reliability and energy efficiency issues and they do not avoid channel deep fading. This thesis presents novel and generic TDMA based techniques to improve WBAN reliability and energy efficiency. The proposed techniques synchronise nodes adaptively whilst tackling their channel and buffer status in normal and emergency contexts. Extensive simulation experiments using various traffic rates and time slot lengths demonstrate that the proposed techniques improve the reliability and the energy efficiency compared to the de-facto standards of WBAN, i.e. the IEEE 802.15.4 and the IEEE 802.15.6. In normal situations, the proposed techniques reduce packet loss up to 61% and 68% compared to the IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.15.6 respectively. They also reduce energy consumption up to 7.3%. In emergencies, however, the proposed techniques reduce packets loss up to 63.4% and 90% with respect to their counterparts in IEEE 802.15.4 and 802.15.6. The achieved results confirm the significant enhancements made by the developed scheduling techniques to promote the reliability and energy efficiency of WBAN, opening up promising doors towards new horizons and applications.

Tese de mestrado. Mestrado integrado em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 2012

Thesis (M.App.Sc.) - Carleton University, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-63). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Neste trabalho propomos e analisamos algoritmos de alocação dinâmica de banda para rede óptica passiva (PON) de acesso padrão GPON (Gigabit PON). Estes algoritmos utilizam dados oriundos de SLA (service level agreement) para gerenciar a alocação de banda e classificar em 4 contêineres de tráfego (T-CONT) o tráfego gerado em 16 ONUs (optical network unit). Na transmissão upstream é utilizada a técnica de multiplexação por divisão de tempo (TDM) para gerenciar o acesso ao meio, evitando colisões. O primeiro algoritmo proposto aloca banda garantida para as ONUs e distribui a banda não utilizada de acordo com critério baseado em três SLAs. A taxa de bit upstream é 1,25 Gbps e o desempenho do algoritmo é analisado com base na variação do atraso de pacotes em função do tráfego gerado nas ONUs. O segundo algoritmo proposto utiliza ponderação de tráfego. Neste, analisamos o comportamento dos atrasos e a quantidade de banda solicitada e atendida por ONU quando as bandas garantida e extra são alteradas. Por fim, acrescentamos em nossa implementação um intervalo para o processamento do algoritmo de alocação dinâmica de banda (DBA) e resposta do hardware relacionado ao ciclo de interrogação. Então, analisamos o atraso de pacotes quando variamos o intervalo de processamento do DBA. Ao final, propomos uma solução preliminar para minimizar estes atrasos. Os resultados obtidos por meio de simulação computacional mostram a versatilidade dos algoritmos. / In this work we propose and analyze the performance of dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithms for optical passive networks (PON) in GPON standard (Gigabit PON). These algorithms use data from SLA (service level agreement) to manage bandwidth allocation and classify in 4 traffic containers (T-CONT) the traffic generated by 16 ONUs (optical network unit). In the upstream transmission the time division multiplexing (TDM) technique is used to manage the medium access, avoiding collisions. The first proposed algorithm allocates guaranteed bandwidth for the ONUs and distributes the bandwidth not used according to the criteria based on three SLAs. The upstream bit rate is 1.25 Gbps and the algorithm performance is analyzed based on the packets delay variation versus the traffic generated by ONUs. The second proposed algorithm uses weighted traffic. In this, we analyze the delay performance and the required bandwidth for each ONU and how much it is served when the guaranteed and extra bandwidth are changed. Finally, we added in our implementation an interval for the processing of the dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithm (DBA) and response of the hardware related to the interrogation cycle. In the end, we propose a preliminary solution to minimize these delays. The results obtained by means of computational simulation show the versatility of the algorithms.

Road accidents represent a serious social problem and are one of the leading causes of human death and disability on a global scale. To reduce the risk and severity of a road accident, a variety of new safety applications can be realized through wireless communications among vehicles driving nearby each other, or among vehicles and especially deployed road side units (RSUs), a technology known as a vehicular ad hoc network (VANET). Most of the VANET-enabled safety applications are based on broadcasting of safety messages by vehicles or RSUs, either periodically or in case of an unexpected event, such as a hard brake or dangerous road condition detection. Each broadcast safety message should be successfully delivered to the surrounding vehicles and RSUs without any excess delay, which is one of the main functions of a medium access control (MAC) protocol proposed for VANETs. This thesis presents VeMAC, a new multichannel time division multiple access (TDMA) protocol specifically designed to support the high priority safety applications in a VANET scenario. The ability of the VeMAC protocol to deliver periodic and event-driven safety messages in VANETs is demonstrated by a detailed delivery delay analysis, including queueing and service delays, for both types of safety messages. As well, computer simulations are conducted by using MATLAB, the network simulator ns-2, and the microscopic vehicle traffic simulator VISSIM, in order to evaluate the performance of the VeMAC protocol, in comparison with the IEEE 802.11p standard and the ADHOC MAC protocol (another TDMA protocol proposed for ad hoc networks). A real city scenario is simulated and different performance metrics are evaluated, including the network goodput, protocol overhead, channel utilization, protocol fairness, probability of a transmission collision, and safety message delivery delay. It is shown that the VeMAC protocol considerably outperforms the existing MAC schemes, which have significant limitations in supporting VANET safety applications. In addition to enhancing road safety, in-vehicle Internet access is one of the main applications of VANETs, which aims at providing the vehicle passengers with a low-cost access to the Internet via on-road gateways. This thesis presents a new strategy for deploying Internet gateways on the roads, in order to minimize the total cost of gateway deployment, while ensuring that a vehicle can connect to an Internet gateway (using multihop communications) with a probability greater than a specified threshold. This cost minimization problem is formulated by using binary integer programming, and applied for optimal gateway placement in a real city scenario. To the best of our knowledge, no previous strategy for gateway deployment has considered the probability of multihop connectivity among the vehicles and the deployed gateways. In order to allow a vehicle to discover the existence of an Internet gateway and to communicate with the gateway via multihops, a novel data packet routing scheme is proposed based on the VeMAC protocol. The performance of this cross-layer design is evaluated for a multichannel VANET in a highway scenario, mainly in terms of the end-to-end packet delivery delay. The packet queueing at each relay vehicle is considered in the end-to-end delay analysis, and numerical results are presented to study the effect of various parameters, such as the vehicle density and the packet arrival rate, on the performance metrics. The proposed VeMAC protocol is a promising candidate for MAC in VANETs, which can realize many advanced safety applications to enhance the public safety standards and improve the safety level of drivers/passengers and pedestrians on roads. On the other hand, the proposed gateway placement strategy and packet routing scheme represent a strong step toward providing reliable and ubiquitous in-vehicle Internet connectivity.