A survey on short-range WBAN communication; technical overview of several standard wireless technologies

In a healthy environment, a WBAN system is the key component or aspect of the patient monitoring system. WBAN systems allow for easy networking with other devices and networks so that healthcare professionals can easily access critical and non-critical patient data. One of the main advantages of WBAN is the remote monitoring of patients using an Intranet or the Internet. There are two main components to the type of communication technology used in WBAN. This page shows an insight of a variety of short-range standardized wireless devices, as well as a taxonomy of short-range technologies. These are proposed as intra-BAN communication candidates for communication within and between body area network (BAN) entities. This paper also highlights the advantages and disadvantages of the WBAN perspective. Finally, a side-by-side comparison of the basic principles of using MICS frequency bands and preparatory technologies

Design, Modeling, and Analysis for MAC Protocols in Ultra-wideband Networks

Ultra-wideband (UWB) is an appealing transmission technology for short-range, bandwidth demanded wireless communications. With the data rate of several hundred megabits per second, UWB demonstrates great potential in supporting multimedia streams such as high-definition television (HDTV), voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and console gaming in office or home networks, known as the wireless personal area network (WPAN). While vast research effort has been made on the physical layer issues of UWB, the corresponding medium access control (MAC) protocols that exploit UWB technology have not been well developed. Given an extremely wide bandwidth of UWB, a fundamental problem on how to manage multiple users to efficiently utilize the bandwidth is a MAC design issue. Without explicitly considering the physical properties of UWB, existing MAC protocols are not optimized for UWB-based networks. In addition, the limited processing capability of UWB devices poses challenges to the design of low-complexity MAC protocols. In this thesis, we comprehensively investigate the MAC protocols for UWB networks. The objective is to link the physical characteristics of UWB with the MAC protocols to fully exploit its advantage. We consider two themes: centralized and distributed UWB networks. For centralized networks, the most critical issue surrounding the MAC protocol is the resource allocation with fairness and quality of service (QoS) provisioning. We address this issue by breaking down into two scenarios: homogeneous and heterogeneous network configurations. In the homogeneous case, users have the same bandwidth requirement, and the objective of resource allocation is to maximize the network throughput. In the heterogeneous case, users have different bandwidth requirements, and the objective of resource allocation is to provide differentiated services. For both design objectives, the optimal scheduling problem is NP-hard. Our contributions lie in the development of low-complexity scheduling algorithms that fully exploit the characteristics of UWB. For distributed networks, the MAC becomes node-based problems, rather than link-based problems as in centralized networks. Each node either contends for channel access or reserves transmission opportunity through negotiation. We investigate two representative protocols that have been adopted in the WiMedia specification for future UWB-based WPANs. One is a contention-based protocol called prioritized channel access (PCA), which employs the same mechanisms as the enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) in IEEE 802.11e for providing differentiated services. The other is a reservation-based protocol called distributed reservation protocol (DRP), which allows time slots to be reserved in a distributed manner. Our goal is to identify the capabilities of these two protocols in supporting multimedia applications for UWB networks. To achieve this, we develop analytical models and conduct detailed analysis for respective protocols. The proposed analytical models have several merits. They are accurate and provide close-form expressions with low computational effort. Through a cross-layer approach, our analytical models can capture the near-realistic protocol behaviors, thus useful insights into the protocol can be obtained to improve or fine-tune the protocol operations. The proposed models can also be readily extended to incorporate more sophisticated considerations, which should benefit future UWB network design

Wireless body sensor networks for health-monitoring applications

This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in Physiological Measurement. The publisher is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0967-3334/29/11/R01

Improving Multicast Communications Over Wireless Mesh Networks

In wireless mesh networks (WMNs) the traditional approach to shortest path tree based multicasting is to cater for the needs of the poorest performingnode i.e. the maximum permitted multicast line rate is limited to the lowest line rate used by the individual Child nodes on a branch. In general, this meansfixing the line rate to its minimum value and fixing the transmit power to its maximum permitted value. This simplistic approach of applying a single multicast rate for all nodes in the multicast group results in a sub-optimal trade-off between the mean network throughput and coverage area that does not allow for high bandwidth multimedia applications to be supported. By relaxing this constraint and allowing multiple line rates to be used, the mean network throughput can be improved. This thesis presents two methods that aim to increase the mean network throughput through the use of multiple line rates by the forwarding nodes. This is achieved by identifying the Child nodes responsible for reducing the multicast group rate. The first method identifies specific locations for the placement of relay nodes which allows for higher multicast branch line rates to be used. The second method uses a power control algorithm to tune the transmit power to allow for higher multicast branch line rates. The use of power control also helps to reduce the interference caused to neighbouring nodes.Through extensive computer simulation it can be shown that these two methods can lead to a four-fold gain in the mean network throughput undertypical WMN operating conditions compared with the single line rate case

An investigation into the viability of UWB as lower-layer for Bluetooth

This report presents an investigation into some merging options between an upper-layer Bluetooth (BT) protocol stack with a lower-layer ECMA-368/9 Ultra Wideband (UWB) radio connection. A Bluetooth over Ultra Wideband (BToUWB) system is implemented by channelling an existing compliant Bluetooth connection’s data over an Ultra Wideband Medium Access Control (MAC) and Physical (PHY) layer radio channel. The aim of this project is to provide a description of the methodology used to create a BToUWB link and evaluate some advantages pertaining to the merger between the two Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) technologies. Prior to channelling data over a UWB connection, a compliant Bluetooth and UWB connection were configured between two Linux enabled computers by use of Bluetooth and UWB enabled Universal Serial Bus (USB) dongles. BlueZ, the official Bluetooth stack for Linux, were used to implement a modified Bluetooth stack. By modifying the open source BlueZ files, the Host Controller Interface (HCI) commands sent to the HCI sublayer by upper layer Logical Link Control and Adaptation Protocol (L2CAP) and Synchronous Connection-Oriented (SCO) implementations were hijacked and routed to a UWB “router and convergence” implementation for transmission over the UWB subsytem. Similarly lower level HCI events were spoofed to the L2CAP and SCO layers by the UWB convergence implementation upon receiving packets from the UWB subsystem. The commercial availability of UWB hardware through Wireless USB dongles enabled the realization of a compliant UWB link between the systems, requiring special driver modifications and Intel provided firmware to establish a WiMedia Logical Link Control Protocol (WLP) network. A specially developed test program generates L2CAP, Radio Frequency Communication (RFCOMM) and SCO Bluetooth data for testing the BToUWB link. The various Bluetooth data packets are routed from the Bluetooth stack to a developed kernel space routing module, which encapsulated the packets and route them via the WLP interface over the wireless high-speed UWB network to the remote system. On the remote side, the packets propagate its way back up through the UWB hardware and software module, and to the router module via call-back functions in the WLP interface. The router module strips the headers and injects the packets back into the Bluetooth L2CAP, RFCOMM or SCO layer for further Bluetooth processing. A test program running on the remote system, receives the test data and loops it back for asynchronous analyses, or stores it for later comparison in synchronous analyses. The results obtained from the system analyses shows how a Bluetooth system can benefit from implementing UWB as lower layer wireless interface over a short range by either improved asynchronous bandwidth, or synchronous reliability. The results also show some limitations of the pilot UWB hardware and firmware available over longer distances. In general, the successful transmission of Bluetooth data over the BToUWB implemented system proves the HCI layer to be a viable mergence point between the two protocols.Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2009.Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineeringunrestricte

Flexible Wi-Fi communication among mobile robots in Indoor industrial environments

In order to speed up industrial processes and to improve logistics, mobile robots are getting important in industry. In this paper, we propose a flexible and configurable architecture for the mobile node that is able to operate in different network topology scenarios. The proposed solution is able to operate in presence of network infrastructure, in ad hoc mode only, or to use both possibilities. In case of mixed architecture, mesh capabilities will enable coverage problem detection and overcoming. The solution is based on real requirements from an automated guided vehicle producer. First, we evaluate the overhead introduced by our solution. Since the mobile robot communication relies in broadcast traffic, the broadcast scalability in mesh network is evaluated too. Finally, through experiments on a wireless testbed for a variety of scenarios, we analyze the impact of roaming, mobility and traffic separation, and demonstrate the advantage of our approach in handling coverage problems