LIFT: a Local IPSec-aware Freezing Protocol to improve TCP Performance in Satellite Networks

In this paper a protocol, local to the satellite link, is defined in order to boost TCP performance in mobile integrated wired-satellite Internet. It has been conceived to help to overcome the well known retransmissions competition problem that arises when a satellite reliable link layer protocol is used to face satellite link errors. This protocol, called Local IPSec-aware Freezing proTocol (LIFT), has been designed to allow the satellite gateway, even in the presence of communications secured by IPSec, to freeze the TCP sender when it perceives a possible delay due to satellite channel conditions. The effectiveness of LIFT has been evaluated, using the ns-2 tool, in terms of Web page download mean time for a satellite mobile host. Simulation results have shown that the adoption of LIFT protocol provides substantial improvements in TCP performance

Real-time vehicle monitoring and positioning using MQTT for reliable wireless connectivity

This project was aimed at developing affordable solutions to improve performances of real-time monitoring of road vehicles utilizing low-cost satellite positioning equipment and wireless cellular communication network. This study investigates the problems by measuring and benchmarking two-way communication latency, data reliability and positioning accuracy using low-cost GPS equipment and a lightweight machine-to-machine (M2M) protocol called Message Queue Transmission Telemetry (MQTT). A prototype of vehicle monitoring platform which consists of on-board-unit and central monitoring server was developed to facilitate the research study

Modellierung und Evaluierung der “Required Communication Performance” von Luft-Boden Datenverbindungen mit “Erasure Codes”.

In this work, a model to calculate the air-ground data link performance using the “Required Communication Performance” metric used in aviation is proposed. This model is applied to evaluate the performance of data links and to estimate the minimum link performance required to meet the safety requirements. The results show that it is highly unlikely that air-ground data links achieve the minimum performance. “Erasure codes” and a multiple link concept are proposed and evaluated to improve the performance of the links.Diese Arbeit beschreibt ein Modell, mit welcher die Leistung von Luft-Boden Datenverbindungen unter Verwendung der in der Luftfahrt verwendeten Metrik „Required Communication Performance“, berechnet werden. Dieses Modell wird angewendet, um die Leistung von Datenverbindungen zu bewerten und die minimale Verbindungsleistung abzuschätzen, die erforderlich ist, um die Sicherheitsanforderungen zu erfüllen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass es sehr unwahrscheinlich ist, dass Luft-Boden Datenverbindungen die Mindestleistung erreichen. Zur Verbesserung der Leistung der Links werden Konzepte basierend auf “Erasure Codes" und mehreren Links vorgeschlagen und evaluiert

Mass-Market Receiver for Static Positioning: Tests and Statistical Analyses

Nowadays, there are several low cost GPS receivers able to provide both pseudorange and carrier phase measurements in the L1band, that allow to have good realtime performances in outdoor condition. The present paper describes a set of dedicated tests in order to evaluate the positioning accuracy in static conditions. The quality of the pseudorange and the carrier phase measurements let hope for interesting results. The use of such kind of receiver could be extended to a large number of professional applications, like engineering fields: survey, georeferencing, monitoring, cadastral mapping and cadastral road. In this work, the receivers performance is verified considering a single frequency solution trying to fix the phase ambiguity, when possible. Different solutions are defined: code, float and fix solutions. In order to solve the phase ambiguities different methods are considered. Each test performed is statistically analyzed, highlighting the effects of different factors on precision and accurac

Packet Loss in Terrestrial Wireless and Hybrid Networks

The presence of both a geostationary satellite link and a terrestrial local wireless link on the same path of a given network connection is becoming increasingly common, thanks to the popularity of the IEEE 802.11 protocol. The most common situation where a hybrid network comes into play is having a Wi-Fi link at the network edge and the satellite link somewhere in the network core. Example of scenarios where this can happen are ships or airplanes where Internet connection on board is provided through a Wi-Fi access point and a satellite link with a geostationary satellite; a small office located in remote or isolated area without cabled Internet access; a rescue team using a mobile ad hoc Wi-Fi network connected to the Internet or to a command centre through a mobile gateway using a satellite link. The serialisation of terrestrial and satellite wireless links is problematic from the point of view of a number of applications, be they based on video streaming, interactive audio or TCP. The reason is the combination of high latency, caused by the geostationary satellite link, and frequent, correlated packet losses caused by the local wireless terrestrial link. In fact, GEO satellites are placed in equatorial orbit at 36,000 km altitude, which takes the radio signal about 250 ms to travel up and down. Satellite systems exhibit low packet loss most of the time, with typical project constraints of 10−8 bit error rate 99% of the time, which translates into a packet error rate of 10−4, except for a few days a year. Wi-Fi links, on the other hand, have quite different characteristics. While the delay introduced by the MAC level is in the order of the milliseconds, and is consequently too small to affect most applications, its packet loss characteristics are generally far from negligible. In fact, multipath fading, interference and collisions affect most environments, causing correlated packet losses: this means that often more than one packet at a time is lost for a single fading even

SATELLITE GAME SERVER: OVERVIEW AND ANALYSIS

Online gaming has in recent years grown as an entertainment service for many users. As the number of users who play games continues to increase, it requires a massive amount of computing resources to ensure the desired gaming experience for the users. This master's thesis presents the trends, issues and possibilities of a satellite game server. A server is designed to handle traffic and provide a place for all the events that are going on, in a game, to be wrapped up in a single package that is constantly sent over a communication network. Game development started with big companies with huge budget releasing high quality games. They employed the use of a dedicated server, this is a machine running in a building somewhere for a specific purpose, for the users playing games to connect to and it handles all the host services. This thesis revolves around the possibilities of having a game server launched in space and will focus on the basic guidelines and issues. The main aim and objective of this thesis is to provide the reader the general overview of the idea of a satellite-based game server, its advantages over existing types of game servers, what constitutes in the technology, market trends, future growth of technologies and possibly how it can be implemented. The thesis is motivated by the tremendous growth in game development in recent years and the numerous advantages of satellite communications. The satellite internet (VSAT) has already been employed as an alternative internet access for online gamers, especially for its advantage of having a global coverage to reach gamers where the IP connection is impossible. To meet an increasing demand for online game services and connectivity across the world, satellite server will play an indispensable role in the reach of online gamers globally, therefore increasing the market of online games. The thesis investigates and concludes that the construction of a working satellite game server solution is possible to achieve on a high budget and several issues yet to be resolved but will be cost effective at the long term.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Interoperability of wireless communication technologies in hybrid networks: Evaluation of end-to-end interoperability issues and quality of service requirements

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Hybrid Networks employing wireless communication technologies have nowadays brought closer the vision of communication “anywhere, any time with anyone”. Such communication technologies consist of various standards, protocols, architectures, characteristics, models, devices, modulation and coding techniques. All these different technologies naturally may share some common characteristics, but there are also many important differences. New advances in these technologies are emerging very rapidly, with the advent of new models, characteristics, protocols and architectures. This rapid evolution imposes many challenges and issues to be addressed, and of particular importance are the interoperability issues of the following wireless technologies: Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) IEEE802.11, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) IEEE 802.16, Single Channel per Carrier (SCPC), Digital Video Broadcasting of Satellite (DVB-S/DVB-S2), and Digital Video Broadcasting Return Channel through Satellite (DVB-RCS). Due to the differences amongst wireless technologies, these technologies do not generally interoperate easily with each other because of various interoperability and Quality of Service (QoS) issues. The aim of this study is to assess and investigate end-to-end interoperability issues and QoS requirements, such as bandwidth, delays, jitter, latency, packet loss, throughput, TCP performance, UDP performance, unicast and multicast services and availability, on hybrid wireless communication networks (employing both satellite broadband and terrestrial wireless technologies). The thesis provides an introduction to wireless communication technologies followed by a review of previous research studies on Hybrid Networks (both satellite and terrestrial wireless technologies, particularly Wi-Fi, WiMAX, DVB-RCS, and SCPC). Previous studies have discussed Wi-Fi, WiMAX, DVB-RCS, SCPC and 3G technologies and their standards as well as their properties and characteristics, such as operating frequency, bandwidth, data rate, basic configuration, coverage, power, interference, social issues, security problems, physical and MAC layer design and development issues. Although some previous studies provide valuable contributions to this area of research, they are limited to link layer characteristics, TCP performance, delay, bandwidth, capacity, data rate, and throughput. None of the studies cover all aspects of end-to-end interoperability issues and QoS requirements; such as bandwidth, delay, jitter, latency, packet loss, link performance, TCP and UDP performance, unicast and multicast performance, at end-to-end level, on Hybrid wireless networks. Interoperability issues are discussed in detail and a comparison of the different technologies and protocols was done using appropriate testing tools, assessing various performance measures including: bandwidth, delay, jitter, latency, packet loss, throughput and availability testing. The standards, protocol suite/ models and architectures for Wi-Fi, WiMAX, DVB-RCS, SCPC, alongside with different platforms and applications, are discussed and compared. Using a robust approach, which includes a new testing methodology and a generic test plan, the testing was conducted using various realistic test scenarios on real networks, comprising variable numbers and types of nodes. The data, traces, packets, and files were captured from various live scenarios and sites. The test results were analysed in order to measure and compare the characteristics of wireless technologies, devices, protocols and applications. The motivation of this research is to study all the end-to-end interoperability issues and Quality of Service requirements for rapidly growing Hybrid Networks in a comprehensive and systematic way. The significance of this research is that it is based on a comprehensive and systematic investigation of issues and facts, instead of hypothetical ideas/scenarios or simulations, which informed the design of a test methodology for empirical data gathering by real network testing, suitable for the measurement of hybrid network single-link or end-to-end issues using proven test tools. This systematic investigation of the issues encompasses an extensive series of tests measuring delay, jitter, packet loss, bandwidth, throughput, availability, performance of audio and video session, multicast and unicast performance, and stress testing. This testing covers most common test scenarios in hybrid networks and gives recommendations in achieving good end-to-end interoperability and QoS in hybrid networks. Contributions of study include the identification of gaps in the research, a description of interoperability issues, a comparison of most common test tools, the development of a generic test plan, a new testing process and methodology, analysis and network design recommendations for end-to-end interoperability issues and QoS requirements. This covers the complete cycle of this research. It is found that UDP is more suitable for hybrid wireless network as compared to TCP, particularly for the demanding applications considered, since TCP presents significant problems for multimedia and live traffic which requires strict QoS requirements on delay, jitter, packet loss and bandwidth. The main bottleneck for satellite communication is the delay of approximately 600 to 680 ms due to the long distance factor (and the finite speed of light) when communicating over geostationary satellites. The delay and packet loss can be controlled using various methods, such as traffic classification, traffic prioritization, congestion control, buffer management, using delay compensator, protocol compensator, developing automatic request technique, flow scheduling, and bandwidth allocation

Satellite Communications

This study is motivated by the need to give the reader a broad view of the developments, key concepts, and technologies related to information society evolution, with a focus on the wireless communications and geoinformation technologies and their role in the environment. Giving perspective, it aims at assisting people active in the industry, the public sector, and Earth science fields as well, by providing a base for their continued work and thinking

Advanced SDN-Based QoS and Security Solutions for Heterogeneous Networks

This thesis tries to study how SDN can be employed in order to support Quality of Service and how the support of this functionality is fundamental for today networks. Considering, not only the present networks, but also the next generation ones, the importance of the SDN paradigm become manifest as the use of satellite networks, which can be useful considering their broadcasting capabilities. For these reasons, this research focuses its attention on satellite - terrestrial networks and in particular on the use of SDN inside this environment. An important fact to be taken into account is that the growing of the information technologies has pave the way for new possible threats. This research study tries to cover also this problem considering how SDN can be employed for the detection of past and future malware inside networks