Performance issues in cellular wireless mesh networks

This thesis proposes a potential solution for future ubiquitous broadband wireless access networks, called a cellular wireless mesh network (CMESH), and investigates a number of its performance issues. A CMESH is organized in multi-radio, multi-channel, multi-rate and multi-hop radio cells. It can operate on abundant high radio frequencies, such as 5-50 GHz, and thus may satisfy the bandwidth requirements of future ubiquitous wireless applications. Each CMESH cell has a single Internet-connected gateway and serves up to hundreds of mesh nodes within its coverage area. This thesis studies performance issues in a CMESH, focusing on cell capacity, expressed in terms of the max-min throughput. In addition to introducing the concept of a CMESH, this thesis makes the following contributions. The first contribution is a new method for analyzing theoretical cell capacity. This new method is based on a new concept called Channel Transport Capacity (CTC), and derives new analytic expressions for capacity bounds for carrier-sense-based CMESH cells. The second contribution is a new algorithm called the Maximum Channel Collision Time (MCCT) algorithm and an expression for the nominal capacity of CMESH cells. This thesis proves that the nominal cell capacity is achievable and is the exact cell capacity for small cells within the abstract models. Finally, based on the MCCT algorithm, this thesis proposes a series of greedy algorithms for channel assignment and routing in CMESH cells. Simulation results show that these greedy algorithms can significantly improve the capacity of CMESH cells, compared with algorithms proposed by other researchers

Architecture and Remote Interaction Techniques for Digital Media Exchange across 3G Mobile Devices

For users away from the office or home, there is an increasing demand for mobile solutions that offer effective collaborative facilities on the move. The mobile cellular device, or “smart phone”, can offer a ubiquitous platform to deliver such services, provided that its many physical and technological constraints can be overcome. In an effort to better support mobile collaboration, this thesis presents a contributing Mobile Exchange Architecture (MEA) designed to improve upon the capabilities provided by mobile devices to enable synchronous exchange of digital media during a phone conversation using wireless networks and cellular devices. This research includes the design and development of one such MEA in the form of a fully functional Photo-conferencing service, supporting shared remote interaction techniques, simultaneous voice communication and seamless digital media exchange between remote and collocated mobile users. Furthermore, through systematic design, experimental evaluations and field studies we evaluate the effects of different shared remote interaction techniques – 'pointing', 'scaling', 'mixed' and 'hybrid' – assessing the task effort required by users when interacting around shared images across resource constrained mobile devices. This thesis presents a direction for the future development of technologies and methods to enable a new era of scalable always-to-hand mobile collaborative environments.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Development of a Drone-Mounted Wireless Attack Platform

The commercial drone market has grown rapidly due to the increasing utility and capabilities of drones. This new found popularity has made it possible for inexpensive drones capable of impressive carry capacities and flight times to reach the consumer market. These new features also offer an invaluable resource to wireless hackers. Capitalizing on their mobility, a wireless hacker can equip a drone with hacking tools to surpass physical security (e.g. fences) with relative ease and reach wireless networks. This research seeks to experimentally evaluate the ability of a drone-mounted wireless attack platform equipped with a directional antenna to conduct wireless attacks effectively at distances greater than 800 meters. To test this hypothesis, the “skypie v2” prototype conducts computer network attacks against a target network and captured data is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the platform. Results showed that capture of a WPA2 handshake was possible at a RSSI of -72 dBm or 2400 meters from a network located in a open field. Additionally, nmap scans were conducted with a RSSI value of -74 dBm or nearly 3000 meters from the target network

Biologically inspired, self organizing communication networks.

PhDThe problem of energy-efficient, reliable, accurate and self-organized target tracking in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is considered for sensor nodes with limited physical resources and abrupt manoeuvring mobile targets. A biologically inspired, adaptive multi-sensor scheme is proposed for collaborative Single Target Tracking (STT) and Multi-Target Tracking (MTT). Behavioural data obtained while tracking the targets including the targets’ previous locations is recorded as metadata to compute the target sampling interval, target importance and local monitoring interval so that tracking continuity and energy-efficiency are improved. The subsequent sensor groups that track the targets are selected proactively according to the information associated with the predicted target location probability such that the overall tracking performance is optimized or nearly-optimized. One sensor node from each of the selected groups is elected as a main node for management operations so that energy efficiency and load balancing are improved. A decision algorithm is proposed to allow the “conflict” nodes that are located in the sensing areas of more than one target at the same time to decide their preferred target according to the target importance and the distance to the target. A tracking recovery mechanism is developed to provide the tracking reliability in the event of target loss. The problem of task mapping and scheduling in WSNs is also considered. A Biological Independent Task Allocation (BITA) algorithm and a Biological Task Mapping and Scheduling (BTMS) algorithm are developed to execute an application using a group of sensor nodes. BITA, BTMS and the functional specialization of the sensor groups in target tracking are all inspired from biological behaviours of differentiation in zygote formation. Simulation results show that compared with other well-known schemes, the proposed tracking, task mapping and scheduling schemes can provide a significant improvement in energy-efficiency and computational time, whilst maintaining acceptable accuracy and seamless tracking, even with abrupt manoeuvring targets.Queen Mary university of London full Scholarshi

Cooperative Communications inWireless Local Area Networks: MAC Protocol Design and Multi-layer Solutions

This dissertation addresses cooperative communications and proposes multi-layer solu- tions for wireless local area networks, focusing on cooperative MAC design. The coop- erative MAC design starts from CSMA/CA based wireless networks. Three key issues of cooperation from the MAC layer are dealt with: i.e., when to cooperate (opportunistic cooperation), whom to cooperate with (relay selection), and how to protect cooperative transmissions (message procedure design). In addition, a cooperative MAC protocol that addresses these three issues is proposed. The relay selection scheme is further optimized in a clustered network to solve the problem of high collision probability in a dense network. The performance of the proposed schemes is evaluated in terms of through- put, packet delivery rate and energy efficiency. Furthermore, the proposed protocol is verified through formal model checking using SPIN. Moreover, a cooperative code allo- cation scheme is proposed targeting at a clustered network where multiple relay nodes can transmit simultaneously. The cooperative communication design is then extended to the routing layer through cross layer routing metrics. Another part of the work aims at enabling concurrent transmissions using cooperative carrier sensing to improve the per- formance in a WLAN network with multiple access points sharing the same channel

Interface Selection in 5G vehicular networks

ITA Negli ultimi anni, la quantità di dati condivisa nel mondo è aumentata esponenzialmente grazie alle applicazioni innovative che riguardano la sicurezza (e.g. domotica, smart cities, controllo del traffico stradale, veicoli autonomi) e i servizi di intrattenimento (e.g. audio e video streaming, ricerche web, videogiochi online di massa). Per supportare questo trend, le principali compagnie nell’industria delle telecomunicazioni stanno sviluppando nuovi standard che saranno disponibili agli utenti finali nei prossimi anni e che saranno presentati come la Quinta Generazione di Reti Cellulari (5G). Questi standard prevedono miglioramenti ai precedenti standard 4G (e.g. LTE, WiMax, DSRC) e tecnologie completamente nuove (e.g. onde millimetriche, comunicazione con luce visibile) per permettere la diffusione di nuovi servizi che richiedono un throughput estremamente alto e una latency bassa. Nella maggior parte dei casi, queste tecnologie dovranno cooperare per assicurare una rete affidabile e accessibile in ogni situazione. Una delle applicazioni più promettenti di questa nuova generazione di tecnologie sono le reti veicolari, un insieme di servizi che includono la comunicazione con le infrastrutture, come il download di un film da Internet o la ricezione di informazioni riguardanti l’ambiente circostante (e.g. un semaforo manda un messaggio a un veicolo in avvicinamento per farlo fermare), o la comunicazione direttamente tra veicoli, in questo caso il datarate è tipicamente più basso dato che l’uso più tipico sarà, per esempio, mandare informazioni riguardanti le macchine più vicine per fare in modo di diminuore il numero di incidenti stradali o gestire il traffico. Questa tesi è focalizzata sulle applicazioni per reti veicolari, l’obiettivo è di analizzare le prestazioni del protocollo IEEE 802.11p a diversi datarate in un tipico scenario V2V, e di confrontare LTE e mmWaves usando una comunicazione V2I in diverse circostanze, per mostrare come ogni tecnologia offra vantaggi per determinate applicazioni mentre non è adatta per altre. ENG In the last years, the amount of data shared among the world is increased exponentially thanks to the novel applications for security (e.g. home automation, smart cities, traffic control, autonomous vehicles) and infotainment (e.g. audio and video streaming, web browsing, massive online videogames). To support this trend, the major companies in the telecommunication industry are developing new standards that will be available to the final users in the next years and that will be presented as the Fifth Generation of Cellular Networks (5G). These standards provide improvements to the 4G standards (e.g. LTE, WiMax, DSRC) and brand new technologies (e.g. mmWaves, Visible Light Communication) to enable new services that demand extremely high throughput and low latency. In most cases these technologies will cooperate to ensure a reliable and accessible network in every situation. One of the most promising applications of these new generation technologies is vehicular networks, a set of services that includes the communication with infrastructures, such as the download of a film from the Internet or the reception of information about the surrounding environment (e.g. a traffic light sends a message to an incoming vehicle to make it stop), or the communication between vehicles, in this case the datarate is tipically lower since the typical use will be, for example, to send information about the closest cars in order to decrease the number of accidents or to manage the traffic. This thesis is focalized on the vehicular networks applications, it aims to analyze the performance of IEEE 802.11p protocol at different datarates in a typical V2V scenario, and to compare LTE and mmWaves using a V2I communication in different circumstances to show how each technology offers advantages for some applications while is not suitable for others

Recent Advances in Cellular D2D Communications

Device-to-device (D2D) communications have attracted a great deal of attention from researchers in recent years. It is a promising technique for offloading local traffic from cellular base stations by allowing local devices, in physical proximity, to communicate directly with each other. Furthermore, through relaying, D2D is also a promising approach to enhancing service coverage at cell edges or in black spots. However, there are many challenges to realizing the full benefits of D2D. For one, minimizing the interference between legacy cellular and D2D users operating in underlay mode is still an active research issue. With the 5th generation (5G) communication systems expected to be the main data carrier for the Internet-of-Things (IoT) paradigm, the potential role of D2D and its scalability to support massive IoT devices and their machine-centric (as opposed to human-centric) communications need to be investigated. New challenges have also arisen from new enabling technologies for D2D communications, such as non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) and blockchain technologies, which call for new solutions to be proposed. This edited book presents a collection of ten chapters, including one review and nine original research works on addressing many of the aforementioned challenges and beyond

Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks

Being infrastructure-less and without central administration control, wireless ad-hoc networking is playing a more and more important role in extending the coverage of traditional wireless infrastructure (cellular networks, wireless LAN, etc). This book includes state-of the-art techniques and solutions for wireless ad-hoc networks. It focuses on the following topics in ad-hoc networks: vehicular ad-hoc networks, security and caching, TCP in ad-hoc networks and emerging applications. It is targeted to provide network engineers and researchers with design guidelines for large scale wireless ad hoc networks