Collaborative beamforming schemes for wireless sensor networks with energy harvesting capabilities

In recent years, wireless sensor networks have attracted considerable attention in the research community. Their development, induced by technological advances in microelectronics, wireless networking and battery fabrication, is mainly motivated by a large number of possible applications such as environmental monitoring, industrial process control, goods tracking, healthcare applications, to name a few. Due to the unattended nature of wireless sensor networks, battery replacement can be either too costly or simply not feasible. In order to cope with this problem and prolong the network lifetime, energy efficient data transmission protocols have to be designed. Motivated by this ultimate goal, this PhD dissertation focuses on the design of collaborative beamforming schemes for wireless sensor networks with energy harvesting capabilities. On the one hand, by resorting to collaborative beamforming, sensors are able to convey a common message to a distant base station, in an energy efficient fashion. On the other, sensor nodes with energy harvesting capabilities promise virtually infinite network lifetime. Nevertheless, in order to realize collaborative beamforming, it is necessary that sensors align their transmitted signals so that they are coherently combined at the destination. Moreover, sensor nodes have to adapt their transmissions according to the amounts of harvested energy over time. First, this dissertation addresses the scenario where two sensor nodes (one of them capable of harvesting ambient energy) collaboratively transmit a common message to a distant base station. In this setting, we show that the optimal power allocation policy at the energy harvesting sensor can be computed independently (i.e., without the knowledge of the optimal policy at the battery operated one). Furthermore, we propose an iterative algorithm that allows us to compute the optimal policy at the battery operated sensor, as well. The insights gained by the aforementioned scenario allow us to generalize the analysis to a system with multiple energy harvesting sensors. In particular, we develop an iterative algorithm which sequentially optimizes the policies for all the sensors until some convergence criterion is satisfied. For the previous scenarios, this PhD dissertation evaluates the impact of total energy harvested, number of sensors and limited energy storage capacity on the system performance. Finally, we consider some practical schemes for carrier synchronization, required in order to implement collaborative beamforming in wireless sensor networks. To that end, we analyze two algorithms for decentralized phase synchronization: (i) the one bit of feedback algorithm previously proposed in the literature; and (ii) a decentralized phase synchronization algorithm that we propose. As for the former, we analyze the impact of additive noise on the beamforming gain and algorithm’s convergence properties, and, subsequently, we propose a variation that performs sidelobe control. As for the latter, the sensors are allowed to choose their respective training timeslots randomly, relieving the base station of the burden associated with centralized coordination. In this context, this PhD dissertation addresses the impact of number of timeslots and additive noise on the achieved received signal strength and throughputEn los últimos años, las redes de sensores inalámbricas han atraído considerable atención en la comunidad investigadora. Su desarrollo, impulsado por recientes avances tecnológicos en microelectrónica y radio comunicaciones, está motivado principalmente por un gran abanico de aplicaciones, tales como: Monitorización ambiental, control de procesos industriales, seguimiento de mercancías, telemedicina, entre otras. En las redes de sensores inalámbricas, es primordial el diseño de protocolos de transmisión energéticamente eficientes ya que no se contempla el reemplazo de baterías debido a su coste y/o complejidad. Motivados por esta problemática, esta tesis doctoral se centra en el diseño de esquemas de conformación de haz distribuidos para redes de sensores, en el que los nodos son capaces de almacenar energía del entorno, lo que en inglés se denomina energy harvesting. En primer lugar, esta tesis doctoral aborda el escenario en el que dos sensores (uno de ellos capaz de almacenar energía del ambiente) transmiten conjuntamente un mensaje a una estación base. En este contexto, se demuestra que la política de asignación de potencia óptima en el sensor con energy harvesting puede ser calculada de forma independiente (es decir, sin el conocimiento de la política óptima del otro sensor). A continuación, se propone un algoritmo iterativo que permite calcular la política óptima en el sensor que funciona con baterías. Este esquema es posteriormente generalizado para el caso de múltiples sensores. En particular, se desarrolla un algoritmo iterativo que optimiza las políticas de todos los sensores secuencialmente. Para los escenarios anteriormente mencionados, esta tesis evalúa el impacto de la energía total cosechada, número de sensores y la capacidad de la batería. Por último, se aborda el problema de sincronización de fase en los sensores con el fin de poder realizar la conformación de haz de forma distribuida. Para ello, se analizan dos algoritmos para la sincronización de fase descentralizados: (i) el algoritmo "one bit of feedback" previamente propuesto en la literatura, y (ii) un algoritmo de sincronización de fase descentralizado que se propone en esta tesis. En el primer caso, se analiza el impacto del ruido aditivo en la ganancia y la convergencia del algoritmo. Además, se propone una variación que realiza el control de lóbulos secundarios. En el segundo esquema, los sensores eligen intervalos de tiempo de forma aleatoria para transmitir y posteriormente reciben información de la estación base para ajustar sus osciladores. En este escenario, esta tesis doctoral aborda el impacto del número de intervalos de tiempo y el ruido aditivo sobre la ganancia de conformación

Enhancing Secrecy with Multi-Antenna Transmission in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

We study physical-layer security in wireless ad hoc networks and investigate two types of multi-antenna transmission schemes for providing secrecy enhancements. To establish secure transmission against malicious eavesdroppers, we consider the generation of artificial noise with either sectoring or beamforming. For both approaches, we provide a statistical characterization and tradeoff analysis of the outage performance of the legitimate communication and the eavesdropping links. We then investigate the networkwide secrecy throughput performance of both schemes in terms of the secrecy transmission capacity, and study the optimal power allocation between the information signal and the artificial noise. Our analysis indicates that, under transmit power optimization, the beamforming scheme outperforms the sectoring scheme, except for the case where the number of transmit antennas are sufficiently large. Our study also reveals some interesting differences between the optimal power allocation for the sectoring and beamforming schemes.Comment: to appear in IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Securit

Byzantine Attack and Defense in Cognitive Radio Networks: A Survey

The Byzantine attack in cooperative spectrum sensing (CSS), also known as the spectrum sensing data falsification (SSDF) attack in the literature, is one of the key adversaries to the success of cognitive radio networks (CRNs). In the past couple of years, the research on the Byzantine attack and defense strategies has gained worldwide increasing attention. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey and tutorial on the recent advances in the Byzantine attack and defense for CSS in CRNs. Specifically, we first briefly present the preliminaries of CSS for general readers, including signal detection techniques, hypothesis testing, and data fusion. Second, we analyze the spear and shield relation between Byzantine attack and defense from three aspects: the vulnerability of CSS to attack, the obstacles in CSS to defense, and the games between attack and defense. Then, we propose a taxonomy of the existing Byzantine attack behaviors and elaborate on the corresponding attack parameters, which determine where, who, how, and when to launch attacks. Next, from the perspectives of homogeneous or heterogeneous scenarios, we classify the existing defense algorithms, and provide an in-depth tutorial on the state-of-the-art Byzantine defense schemes, commonly known as robust or secure CSS in the literature. Furthermore, we highlight the unsolved research challenges and depict the future research directions.Comment: Accepted by IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutoiral

Resource allocation in future green wireless networks : applications and challenges

Over the past few years, green radio communication has been an emerging topic since the footprint from the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is predicted to increase 7.3% annually and then exceed 14% of the global footprint by 2040. Moreover, the explosive progress of ICT, e.g., the fifth generation (5G) networks, has resulted in expectations of achieving 10-fold longer device battery lifetime, and 1000-fold higher global mobile data traffic over the fourth generation (4G) networks. Therefore, the demands for increasing the data rate and the lifetime while reducing the footprint in the next-generation wireless networks call for more efficient utilization of energy and other resources. To overcome this challenge, the concepts of small-cell, energy harvesting, and wireless information and power transfer networks can be evaluated as promising solutions for re-greening the world. In this dissertation, the technical contributions in terms of saving economical cost, protecting the environment, and guaranteeing human health are provided. More specifically, novel communication scenarios are proposed to minimize energy consumption and hence save economic costs. Further, energy harvesting (EH) techniques are applied to exploit available green resources in order to reduce carbon footprint and then protect the environment. In locations where implemented user devices might not harvest energy directly from natural resources, base stations could harvest-and-store green energy and then use such energy to power the devices wirelessly. However, wireless power transfer (WPT) techniques should be used in a wise manner to avoid electromagnetic pollution and then guarantee human health. To achieve all these aspects simultaneously, this thesis proposes promising schemes to optimally manage and allocate resources in future networks. Given this direction, in the first part, Chapter 2 mainly studies a transmission power minimization scheme for a two-tier heterogeneous network (HetNet) over frequency selective fading channels. In addition, the HetNet backhaul connection is unable to support a sufficient throughput for signaling an information exchange between two tiers. A novel idea is introduced in which the time reversal (TR) beamforming technique is used at a femtocell while zero-forcing-based beamforming is deployed at a macrocell. Thus, a downlink power minimizationscheme is proposed, and optimal closed-form solutions are provided. In the second part, Chapters 3, 4, and 5 concentrate on EH and wireless information and power transfer (WIPT) using RF signals. More specifically, Chapter 3 presents an overview of the recent progress in green radio communications and discusses potential technologies for some emerging topics on the platforms of EH and WPT. Chapter 4 develops a new integrated information and energy receiver architecture based on the direct use of alternating current (AC) for computation. It is shown that the proposed approach enhances not only the computational ability but also the energy efficiency over the conventional one. Furthermore, Chapter 5 proposes a novel resource allocation scheme in simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) networks where three crucial issues: power-efficient improvement, user-fairness guarantee, and non-ideal channel reciprocity effect mitigation, are jointly addressed. Hence, novel methods to derive optimal and suboptimal solutions are provided. In the third part, Chapters 6, 7, and 8 focus on simultaneous lightwave information and power transfer (SLIPT) for indoor applications, as a complementary technology to RF SWIPT. In this research, Chapter 6 investigates a hybrid RF/visible light communication (VLC) ultrasmall cell network where optical transmitters deliver information and power using the visible light, whereas an RF access point works as a complementary power transfer system. Thus, a novel resource allocation scheme exploiting RF and visible light for power transfer is devised. Chapter 7 proposes the use of lightwave power transfer to enable future sustainable Federated Learning (FL)-based wireless networks. FL is a new data privacy protection technique for training shared machine learning models in a distributed approach. However, the involvement of energy-constrained mobile devices in the construction of the shared learning models may significantly reduce their lifetime. The proposed approach can support the FL-based wireless network to overcome the issue of limited energy at mobile devices. Chapter 8 introduces a novel framework for collaborative RF and lightwave power transfer for wireless communication networks. The constraints on the transmission power set by safety regulations result in significant challenges to enhance the power transfer performance. Thus, the study of technologies complementary to conventional RF SWIPT is essential. To cope with this isue, this chapter proposes a novel collaborative RF and lightwave power transfer technology for next-generation wireless networks

Principles of Physical Layer Security in Multiuser Wireless Networks: A Survey

This paper provides a comprehensive review of the domain of physical layer security in multiuser wireless networks. The essential premise of physical-layer security is to enable the exchange of confidential messages over a wireless medium in the presence of unauthorized eavesdroppers without relying on higher-layer encryption. This can be achieved primarily in two ways: without the need for a secret key by intelligently designing transmit coding strategies, or by exploiting the wireless communication medium to develop secret keys over public channels. The survey begins with an overview of the foundations dating back to the pioneering work of Shannon and Wyner on information-theoretic security. We then describe the evolution of secure transmission strategies from point-to-point channels to multiple-antenna systems, followed by generalizations to multiuser broadcast, multiple-access, interference, and relay networks. Secret-key generation and establishment protocols based on physical layer mechanisms are subsequently covered. Approaches for secrecy based on channel coding design are then examined, along with a description of inter-disciplinary approaches based on game theory and stochastic geometry. The associated problem of physical-layer message authentication is also introduced briefly. The survey concludes with observations on potential research directions in this area.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 303 refs. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1303.1609 by other authors. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials, 201

Optimisation of Mobile Communication Networks - OMCO NET

The mini conference “Optimisation of Mobile Communication Networks” focuses on advanced methods for search and optimisation applied to wireless communication networks. It is sponsored by Research & Enterprise Fund Southampton Solent University. The conference strives to widen knowledge on advanced search methods capable of optimisation of wireless communications networks. The aim is to provide a forum for exchange of recent knowledge, new ideas and trends in this progressive and challenging area. The conference will popularise new successful approaches on resolving hard tasks such as minimisation of transmit power, cooperative and optimal routing