Unified clustering and communication protocol for wireless sensor networks

In this paper we present an energy-efficient cross layer protocol for providing application specific reservations in wireless senor networks called the “Unified Clustering and Communication Protocol ” (UCCP). Our modular cross layered framework satisfies three wireless sensor network requirements, namely, the QoS requirement of heterogeneous applications, energy aware clustering and data forwarding by relay sensor nodes. Our unified design approach is motivated by providing an integrated and viable solution for self organization and end-to-end communication is wireless sensor networks. Dynamic QoS based reservation guarantees are provided using a reservation-based TDMA approach. Our novel energy-efficient clustering approach employs a multi-objective optimization technique based on OR (operations research) practices. We adopt a simple hierarchy in which relay nodes forward data messages from cluster head to the sink, thus eliminating the overheads needed to maintain a routing protocol. Simulation results demonstrate that UCCP provides an energy-efficient and scalable solution to meet the application specific QoS demands in resource constrained sensor nodes. Index Terms — wireless sensor networks, unified communication, optimization, clustering and quality of service

Cross-layer design of multi-hop wireless networks

MULTI -hop wireless networks are usually defined as a collection of nodes equipped with radio transmitters, which not only have the capability to communicate each other in a multi-hop fashion, but also to route each others’ data packets. The distributed nature of such networks makes them suitable for a variety of applications where there are no assumed reliable central entities, or controllers, and may significantly improve the scalability issues of conventional single-hop wireless networks. This Ph.D. dissertation mainly investigates two aspects of the research issues related to the efficient multi-hop wireless networks design, namely: (a) network protocols and (b) network management, both in cross-layer design paradigms to ensure the notion of service quality, such as quality of service (QoS) in wireless mesh networks (WMNs) for backhaul applications and quality of information (QoI) in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for sensing tasks. Throughout the presentation of this Ph.D. dissertation, different network settings are used as illustrative examples, however the proposed algorithms, methodologies, protocols, and models are not restricted in the considered networks, but rather have wide applicability. First, this dissertation proposes a cross-layer design framework integrating a distributed proportional-fair scheduler and a QoS routing algorithm, while using WMNs as an illustrative example. The proposed approach has significant performance gain compared with other network protocols. Second, this dissertation proposes a generic admission control methodology for any packet network, wired and wireless, by modeling the network as a black box, and using a generic mathematical 0. Abstract 3 function and Taylor expansion to capture the admission impact. Third, this dissertation further enhances the previous designs by proposing a negotiation process, to bridge the applications’ service quality demands and the resource management, while using WSNs as an illustrative example. This approach allows the negotiation among different service classes and WSN resource allocations to reach the optimal operational status. Finally, the guarantees of the service quality are extended to the environment of multiple, disconnected, mobile subnetworks, where the question of how to maintain communications using dynamically controlled, unmanned data ferries is investigated

RCL : A new Method for Cross-Layer Network Modelling and Simulation

International audienceThe evolution from wired network systems to wireless environments such as Ad-hoc networks enables the emerging of cross-layer systems to improve the wireless network performance. Efficient methods, that may either produce or update cross-layer conceptual models have to be considered. Those models allow an efficient organisation of the wireless systems. In our approach, a cross-layer conceptual model is composed of : cross- layer interaction models and interactions description arrays, produced by the Reverse Cross-Layer (RCL) method that we proposed. The method has been applied to a chosen protocol stack

MobileMAN: Mobile Metropolitan Ad hoc Networks

The project aims to define and develop a metropolitan area, self-organizing and totally wireless network that we call Mobile Metropolitan Ad-hoc Network (MobileMAN). In a MobileMAN the users device are the network, no infrastructure is strictly required. A MobileMAN is finalized at providing, at a low cost and where and when is needed, the communication and interaction platform for people inside a man. It will support a kind of citizens network by which people could avoid the operators infrastructure (communication costs), thus increasing the society communication. Moreover, it has a very low cost-barrier for deploying a service on an experimental or temporary basis. This agility is especially important because it is not yet clear what services, business models and social behaviours are going to prove successful in a future pervasive computing environment

Energy-aware Cross-level Model for Wireless Sensor Networks

ISBN: 978-1-61208-744-3International audienceIn the design stage, Wireless Sensor Network developers generally need simulation tools to save both time and costs. These simulators require accurate models to precisely describe the network components and behaviours, such as energy consumption. Nevertheless, although the model has grown in complexity over last years, from layered-stack to cross-level, the energy aspects are not yet well implemented. In this paper, we suggest an energy-aware cross-level model for Wireless Sensor Networks. Our modelling approach allows for parameters that belong to different levels to interact with each other and to analyse their impact on energy consumption. To validate this approach, the energy-aware cross-level model for network radiofrequency activities is first provided. The results obtained using suggested scenarios are compared with those collected from a well-known simulator: NS2. Finally, the usefulness of our model in Wireless Sensor Network design process is demonstrated thanks to a case study aimed at comparing and selecting the most energy-efficient wireless link protocol

An Energy Aware and Secure MAC Protocol for Tackling Denial of Sleep Attacks in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks which form part of the core for the Internet of Things consist of resource constrained sensors that are usually powered by batteries. Therefore, careful energy awareness is essential when working with these devices. Indeed,the introduction of security techniques such as authentication and encryption, to ensure confidentiality and integrity of data, can place higher energy load on the sensors. However, the absence of security protection c ould give room for energy drain attacks such as denial of sleep attacks which have a higher negative impact on the life span ( of the sensors than the presence of security features. This thesis, therefore, focuses on tackling denial of sleep attacks from two perspectives A security perspective and an energy efficiency perspective. The security perspective involves evaluating and ranking a number of security based techniques to curbing denial of sleep attacks. The energy efficiency perspective, on the other hand, involves exploring duty cycling and simulating three Media Access Control ( protocols Sensor MAC, Timeout MAC andTunableMAC under different network sizes and measuring different parameters such as the Received Signal Strength RSSI) and Link Quality Indicator ( Transmit power, throughput and energy efficiency Duty cycling happens to be one of the major techniques for conserving energy in wireless sensor networks and this research aims to answer questions with regards to the effect of duty cycles on the energy efficiency as well as the throughput of three duty cycle protocols Sensor MAC ( Timeout MAC ( and TunableMAC in addition to creating a novel MAC protocol that is also more resilient to denial of sleep a ttacks than existing protocols. The main contributions to knowledge from this thesis are the developed framework used for evaluation of existing denial of sleep attack solutions and the algorithms which fuel the other contribution to knowledge a newly developed protocol tested on the Castalia Simulator on the OMNET++ platform. The new protocol has been compared with existing protocols and has been found to have significant improvement in energy efficiency and also better resilience to denial of sleep at tacks Part of this research has been published Two conference publications in IEEE Explore and one workshop paper

A one hop overlay system for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) overlays were initially proposed for use with wired networks. However, the very rapid proliferation of wireless communication technology has prompted a need for adoption of P2P systems in mobile networks too. There are many common characteristics between P2P overlay networks and Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET). Self-organization, decentralization, a dynamic nature and changing topology are the most commonly shared features. Furthermore, when used together, the two approaches complement each other. P2P overlays provide data storage/retrieval functionality and MANET provides wireless connectivity between clients without depending on any pre-existing infrastructure. P2P overlay networks can be deployed over MANET to address content discovery issues. However, previous research has shown that deploying P2P systems straight over MANET does not exhibit satisfactory performance. Bandwidth limitation, limited resources and node mobility are some of the key constraints. This thesis proposes a novel approach, OneHopOverlay4MANET, to exploit the synergies between MANET and P2P overlays through cross-layering. It combines Distributed Hash Table (DHT) based structured P2P overlays with MANET underlay routing protocols to achieve one logical hop between any pair of overlay nodes. OneHopOverlay4MANET constructs a cross-layer channel to permit direct exchange of routing information between the Application layer, where the overlay operates, and the MANET underlay layer. Consequently, underlay routing information can be shared and used by the overlay. Thus, OneHopOverlay4MANET reduces the typical management traffic when deploying traditional P2P systems over MANET. Moreover, as a result of building one hop overlay, OneHopOverlay4MANET can eliminate the mismatching issue between overlay and underlay and hence resolve key lookups in a short time, enhancing the performance of the overlay. v In this thesis, we present OneHopOverlay4MANET and evaluate its performance when combined with different underlay routing protocols. OneHopOverlay4MANET has been combined with two proactive underlays (OLSR and BATMAN) and with three reactive underlay routing protocols (DSR, AODV and DYMO). In addition, the performance of the proposed system over OLSR has been compared to two recent structured P2P over MANET systems (MA-SP2P and E-SP2P) that adopted OLSR as the routing protocol. The results show that better performance can be achieved using OneHopOverlay4MANET

Energy aware performance evaluation of WSNs

Distributed sensor networks have been discussed for more than 30 years, but the vision of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) has been brought into reality only by the rapid advancements in the areas of sensor design, information technologies, and wireless networks that have paved the way for the proliferation of WSNs. The unique characteristics of sensor networks introduce new challenges, amongst which prolonging the sensor lifetime is the most important. Energy-efficient solutions are required for each aspect of WSN design to deliver the potential advantages of the WSN phenomenon, hence in both existing and future solutions for WSNs, energy efficiency is a grand challenge. The main contribution of this thesis is to present an approach considering the collaborative nature of WSNs and its correlation characteristics, providing a tool which considers issues from physical to application layer together as entities to enable the framework which facilitates the performance evaluation of WSNs. The simulation approach considered provides a clear separation of concerns amongst software architecture of the applications, the hardware configuration and the WSN deployment unlike the existing tools for evaluation. The reuse of models across projects and organizations is also promoted while realistic WSN lifetime estimations and performance evaluations are possible in attempts of improving performance and maximizing the lifetime of the network. In this study, simulations are carried out with careful assumptions for various layers taking into account the real time characteristics of WSN. The sensitivity of WSN systems are mainly due to their fragile nature when energy consumption is considered. The case studies presented demonstrate the importance of various parameters considered in this study. Simulation-based studies are presented, taking into account the realistic settings from each layer of the protocol stack. Physical environment is considered as well. The performance of the layered protocol stack in realistic settings reveals several important interactions between different layers. These interactions are especially important for the design of WSNs in terms of maximizing the lifetime of the network