Approximation Algorithms for Wireless Link Scheduling with SINR-based Interference

In this paper, we consider the classical problem of link scheduling in wireless networks under an accurate interference model, in which correct packet reception at a receiver node depends on the signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR). While most previous work on wireless networks has addressed the scheduling problem using simplistic graph-based or distancebased interference models, a few recent papers have investigated scheduling with SINR-based interference models. However, these papers have either used approximations to the SINR model or have ignored important aspects of the problem. We study the problem of wireless link scheduling under the exact SINR model, and present the first known true approximation algorithms for transmission scheduling under the exact model.We also introduce an algorithm with a proven approximation bound with respect to the length of the optimal schedule under primary interference. As an aside, our study identifies a class of "difficult to schedule" links, which hinder the derivation of tighter approximation bounds. Furthermore, we characterize conditions under which scheduling under SINR-based interference is within a constant factor from optimal under primary interference, which implies that secondary interference only degrades performance by a constant factor in these situations

SNR-based evaluation of coexistence in wireless system of hospital

Abstract. The wireless system (IEEE Std. 802.11) of North Karelian Central Hospital (NKCH) has been studied in the newly opened J2 building of the hospital. The measurements have been carried out using Ekahau Sidekick spectrum analyser and Ekahau Pro software. Signal propagation has been modelled in the control ward of the Emergency department because many coexisting systems are used with critical requirements of data communication over there. The analytical models have been developed to understand the radio-frequency (RF) signal propagation in the entire building. Measurements have also been carried out on the entire first floor, in the Department of the Abdominal Diseases on the ground floor and in the Children’s wards on the third floor. The multi-slope path-loss propagation models with shadowing have been generated based on the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) measurements for typical hospital environment at the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band. The measurements have been carried out within the two predefined routes. The models have also been compared to the empirically derived path-loss models. The probability of signal outage has been calculated for both measured routes. The aggregate interference has been measured within the routes that cover the area where remarkable signal variations and the high level of interference has been indicated based on the heatmaps of Ekahau. The use of Ekahau Sidekick and Ekahau Pro software in the coexistence study has been described. The noise floor has been determined based on the averaged values of the six measurement campaigns. The local changes in signal strength of the desired signal and aggregated power of interference have been studied. The Signal-to-Interference Ratio (SIR) models have been generated within the measured routes. The rapid decreases of Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) have been indicated on all measured floors of building J2. They have been studied and their effect on the network performance has been evaluated. The evaluation has been done by comparing the measured values of RSSI, SNR and SIR to the requirements of the respective Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS). The link margins have been calculated based on the chosen bit error probability and the given SNR requirement of the respective MCS. The comparison between the measured RSSI readings and the required threshold of the respective MCS has been done using the defined shadowing as a link margin. It has been shown that the measured difference between the signal strength of the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands has been caused by the reduced transmit power at the 2.4 GHz band. Based on the SIR measurements, it has been shown that the access points of the neighbouring building have contributed locally to the measured aggregate interference in the Control ward. However, the primary reason for the decrease of SIR at the 2.4 GHz band has been the decrease of desired signal power that has been contributed by the above mentioned reduced transmit power. The strong SNR drops have been indicated on every measured floor before the roaming has occurred.Sairaalan langattoman järjestelmän arviointi signaali-kohina-suhteen avulla. Tiivistelmä. Tässä diplomityössä on tutkittu Pohjois-Karjalan keskussairaalan (PKKS) langatonta verkkoa (IEEE Std. 802.11) äskettäin avatussa sairaalan laajennusosassa (J2-rakennus). Mittaukset on toteutettu käyttäen Ekahau Sidekick spektrianalysaattoria ja Ekahau Pro -ohjelmaa. Päivystyksen valvontaosasto on valittu tutkimuskohteeksi, koska siellä käytetään paljon eri teknologioihin perustuvia järjestelmiä, joiden välinen tiedonsiirto on luonteeltaan kriittistä. Luotujen mallien avulla rakennuksen langatonta toimintaympäristöä tutkitaan RF-järjestelmän (Radio-Frequency) näkökulmasta myös muissa mittausten kohteina olleissa tiloissa. Mittauksia on tehty myös valvontaosaston ulkopuolella 1. kerroksessa sekä 3. kerroksen lastenosastoilla ja Vatsakeskuksen tiloissa pohjakerroksessa. RSSI-mittausten perusteella on luotu radiotiehäviöihin perustuvat etenemismallit molemmilla käytössä olevilla ISM-taajuuskaistoilla (Industrial, Scientific and Medical bands). Varjostuminen ja etenemishäviökertoimen muutokset on otettu huomioon etenemismalleissa. Mittaukset on suoritettu ennalta määritellyillä reiteillä. Luotuja malleja on verrattu myös tutkimuskirjallisuudessa esitettyihin, empiirisesti johdettuihin etenemishäviömalleihin. Signaalikatkoksen todennäköisyys on laskettu molemmille reiteille 2.4 GHz:n taajuuskaistalla. Vastaanotetun häiriötehon summa on mitattu koko mallinnettavan tilan alueelle ulottuvien mittausreittien pohjalta. Mittausreitit on määritelty Ekahau Pron tuottamien kuuluvuus- ja häiriökarttojen avulla ottaen huomioon havaitut signaalitason vaihtelut. Ekahau Sidekick -spektrianalysaattorin ja Ekahau Pro -ohjelman käyttöä on kuvattu tämän tutkimuksen kontekstissa. Kohinataso on määritelty kaikissa kuudessa mittauskampanjassa mitattujen kohina-tehoarvojen keskiarvona. Paikallisten hyötysignaalinvoimakkuus- ja häiriötehovaihteluiden vaikutusta verkon suorituskykyyn on tutkittu ja molemmat mittausreitit kattavat SIR-mallit (Signal-to-Interference Ratio) on luotu. Kaikissa tutkituissa kerroksissa havaittuja äkillisiä signaali-kohinasuhteen vaihteluita on tutkittu ja niiden vaikutusta järjestelmän suorituskykyyn on arvioitu. Mitattujen hyöty- ja häiriösignaalivaihteluiden arviointi on toteutettu vertaamalla mittaamalla saatuja SNR- (Signal-to-Noise ratio), SIR- ja RSSI-arvoja (Received Signal Strength Indicator) eri tiedonsiirtonopeuksia käyttävien MCS-indeksien vaatimiin signaalinvoimakkuus- ja signaali-kohina-suhteen arvoihin. Kynnysarvoille on laskettu linkkimarginaalit käyttäen mitoitusvaatimuksena valittua bittivirhetodennäköisyyden arvoa. Mitattuja RSSI-arvoja on verrattu käyttäen linkkimarginaalina etenemismallinnuksessa määritettyjä varjostumisvaikutuksen arvoja. 2.4 ja 5 GHz:n taajuusalueiden välillä mitatun signaalinvoimakkuuseron on tutkimuksessa saatujen tulosten perusteella osoitettu olevan seurausta alennetusta lähetystehosta 2.4 GHz:n kaistalla. SIR-mittausten perusteella on todettu viereisen rakennuksen tukiasemien kasvattaneen vastaanotettua häiriötehosummaa valvontaosastolla paikallisesti. Ensisijainen syy mitattuihin SIR-arvojen vaihteluihin ovat kuitenkin alhainen signaalinvoimakkuus 2.4 GHz:n kaistalla, mikä osittain johtuu edellä kuvatusta alennetusta lähetystehosta. Voimakkaita SNR-vaihteluita on mitattu kaikissa kerroksissa ennen kuin päätelaite kytkeytyy uuteen tukiasemaan

Performances of LTE networks

Poussé par la demande croissante de services à haut débit sans fil, Long Term Evolution (LTE) a émergé comme une solution prometteuse pour les communications mobiles. Dans plusieurs pays à travers le monde, la mise en oeuvre de LTE est en train de se développer. LTE offre une architecture tout-IP qui fournit des débits élevés et permet une prise en charge efficace des applications de type multimédia. LTE est spécifié par le 3GPP ; cette technologie fournit une architecture capable de mettre en place des mécanismes pour traiter des classes de trafic hétérogènes comme la voix, la vidéo, les transferts de fichier, les courriers électroniques, etc. Ces classes de flux hétérogènes peuvent être gérées en fonction de la qualité de service requise mais aussi de la qualité des canaux et des conditions environnementales qui peuvent varier considérablement sur une courte échelle de temps. Les standards du 3GPP ne spécifient pas l’algorithmique de l’allocation des ressources du réseau d’accès, dont l’importance est grande pour garantir performance et qualité de service (QoS). Dans cette thèse, nous nous focalisons plus spécifiquement sur la QoS de LTE sur la voie descendante. Nous nous concentrons alors sur la gestion des ressources et l’ordonnancement sur l’interface radio des réseaux d’accès. Dans une première partie, nous nous sommes intéressés à des contextes de macro-cellules. Le premier mécanisme proposé pour l’allocation des ressources combine une méthode de jetons virtuels et des ordonnanceurs opportunistes. Les performances obtenues sont très bonnes mais n’assurent pas une très bonne équité. Notre seconde proposition repose sur la théorie des jeux, et plus spécifiquement sur la valeur de Shapley, pour atteindre un haut niveau d’équité entre les différentes classes de services au détriment de la qualité de service. Cela nous a poussé, dans un troisième mécanisme, à combiner les deux schémas. La deuxième partie de la thèse est consacrée aux femto-cellules (ou femtocells) qui offrent des compléments de couverture appréciables. La difficulté consiste alors à étudier et à minimiser les interférences. Notre premier mécanisme d’atténuation des interférences est fondé sur le contrôle de la puissance de transmission. Il fonctionne en utilisant la théorie des jeux non coopératifs. On effectue une négociation constante entre le débit et les interférences pour trouver un niveau optimal de puissance d’émission. Le second mécanisme est centralisé et utilise une approche de division de la bande passante afin d’obliger les femtocells à ne pas utiliser les mêmes sous-bandes évitant ainsi les interférences. Le partage de bande passante et l’allocation sont effectués en utilisant sur la théorie des jeux (valeur de Shapley) et en tenant compte du type d’application. Ce schéma réduit les interférences considérablement. Tous les mécanismes proposés ont été testés et évalués dans un environnement de simulation en utilisant l’outil LTE-Sim au développement duquel nous avons contribué. ABSTRACT : Driven by the growing demand for high-speed broadband wireless services, Long term Evolution (LTE) technology has emerged as a competitive alternative to mobile communications solution. In several countries around the world, the implementation of LTE has started. LTE offers an IP-based framework that provides high data rates for multimedia applications. Moreover, based on the 3GPP specifications, the technology provides a set of built in mechanisms to support heterogeneous classes of traffic including data, voice and video, etc. Supporting heterogeneous classes of services means that the traffic is highly diverse and has distinct QoS parameters, channel and environmental conditions may vary dramatically on a short time scale. The 3GPP specifications leave unstandardized the resource management and scheduling mechanisms which are crucial components to guarantee the QoS performance for the services. In this thesis, we evaluate the performance and QoS in LTE technology. Moreover, our research addresses the resource management and scheduling issues on the wireless interface. In fact, after surveying, classifying and comparing different scheduling mechanisms, we propose three QoS mechanisms for resource allocation in macrocell scenarios focused on real time services and two mechanisms for interference mitigation in femtocell scenarios taking into account the QoS of real time services. Our first proposed mechanism for resource allocation in macrocell scenarios combines the well known virtual token (or token buckets) method with opportunistic schedulers, our second scheme utilizes game theory, specifically the Shapley value in order to achieve a higher fairness level among classes of services and our third mechanism combines the first and the second proposed schemes. Our first mechanism for interference mitigation in femtocell scenarios is power control based and works by using non cooperative games. It performs a constant bargain between throughput and SINR to find out the optimal transmit power level. The second mechanism is centralised, it uses a bandwidth division approach in order to not use the same subbands to avoid interference. The bandwidth division and assignation is performed based on game theory (Shapley value) taking into account the application bitrate . This scheme reduces interference considerably and shows an improvement compared to other bandwidth division schemes. All proposed mechanism are performed in a LTE simulation environment. several constraints such as throughput, Packet Loss Ratio, delay, fairness index, SINR are used to evaluate the efficiency of our scheme

Performances des Réseaux LTE

Poussé par la demande croissante de services à haut débit sans fil, Long Term Evolution (LTE) a émergé comme une solution prometteuse pour les communications mobiles. Dans plusieurs pays à travers le monde, la mise en oeuvre de LTE est en train de se développer. LTE offre une architecture tout-IP qui fournit des débits élevés et permet une prise en charge efficace des applications de type multimédia. LTE est spécifié par le 3GPP ; cette technologie fournit une architecture capable de mettre en place des mécanismes pour traiter des classes de trafic hétérogènes comme la voix, la vidéo, les transferts de fichier, les courriers électroniques, etc. Ces classes de flux hétérogènes peuvent être gérées en fonction de la qualité de service requise mais aussi de la qualité des canaux et des conditions environnementales qui peuvent varier considérablement sur une courte échelle de temps. Les standards du 3GPP ne spécifient pas l algorithmique de l allocation des ressources du réseau d accès, dont l importance est grande pour garantir performance et qualité de service (QoS). Dans cette thèse, nous nous focalisons plus spécifiquement sur la QoS de LTE sur la voie descendante. Nous nous concentrons alors sur la gestion des ressources et l ordonnancement sur l interface radio des réseaux d accès. Dans une première partie, nous nous sommes intéressés à des contextes de macro-cellules. Le premier mécanisme proposé pour l allocation des ressources combine une méthode de jetons virtuels et des ordonnanceurs opportunistes. Les performances obtenues sont très bonnes mais n assurent pas une très bonne équité. Notre seconde proposition repose sur la théorie des jeux, et plus spécifiquement sur la valeur de Shapley, pour atteindre un haut niveau d équité entre les différentes classes de services au détriment de la qualité de service. Cela nous a poussé, dans un troisième mécanisme, à combiner les deux schémas. La deuxième partie de la thèse est consacrée aux femto-cellules (ou femtocells) qui offrent des compléments de couverture appréciables. La difficulté consiste alors à étudier et à minimiser les interférences. Notre premier mécanisme d atténuation des interférences est fondé sur le contrôle de la puissance de transmission. Il fonctionne en utilisant la théorie des jeux non coopératifs. On effectue une négociation constante entre le débit et les interférences pour trouver un niveau optimal de puissance d émission. Le second mécanisme est centralisé et utilise une approche de division de la bande passante afin d obliger les femtocells à ne pas utiliser les mêmes sous-bandes évitant ainsi les interférences. Le partage de bande passante et l allocation sont effectués en utilisant sur la théorie des jeux (valeur de Shapley) et en tenant compte du type d application. Ce schéma réduit les interférences considérablement. Tous les mécanismes proposés ont été testés et évalués dans un environnement de simulation en utilisant l outil LTE-Sim au développement duquel nous avons contribué.Driven by the growing demand for high-speed broadband wireless services, Long term Evolution (LTE) technology has emerged as a competitive alternative to mobile communications solution. In several countries around the world, the implementation of LTE has started. LTE offers an IP-based framework that provides high data rates for multimedia applications. Moreover, based on the 3GPP specifications, the technology provides a set of built in mechanisms to support heterogeneous classes of traffic including data, voice and video, etc. Supporting heterogeneous classes of services means that the traffic is highly diverse and has distinct QoS parameters, channel and environmental conditions may vary dramatically on a short time scale. The 3GPP specifications leave unstandardized the resource management and scheduling mechanisms which are crucial components to guarantee the QoS performance for the services. In this thesis, we evaluate the performance and QoS in LTE technology. Moreover, our research addresses the resource management and scheduling issues on the wireless interface. In fact, after surveying, classifying and comparing different scheduling mechanisms, we propose three QoS mechanisms for resource allocation in macrocell scenarios focused on real time services and two mechanisms for interference mitigation in femtocell scenarios taking into account the QoS of real time services. Our first proposed mechanism for resource allocation in macrocell scenarios combines the well known virtual token (or token buckets) method with opportunistic schedulers, our second scheme utilizes game theory, specifically the Shapley value in order to achieve a higher fairness level among classes of services and our third mechanism combines the first and the second proposed schemes. Our first mechanism for interference mitigation in femtocell scenarios is power control based and works by using non cooperative games. It performs a constant bargain between throughput and SINR to find out the optimal transmit power level. The second mechanism is centralised, it uses a bandwidth division approach in order to not use the same subbands to avoid interference. The bandwidth division and assignation is performed based on game theory (Shapley value) taking into account the application bitrate . This scheme reduces interference considerably and shows an improvement compared to other bandwidth division schemes. All proposed mechanism are performed in a LTE simulation environment. several constraints such as throughput, Packet Loss Ratio, delay, fairness index, SINR are used to evaluate the efficiency of our schemesTOULOUSE-INP (315552154) / SudocSudocFranceF

Network Topology and Protocol Design for Efficient Consensus in Sensor Networks

Doktorgradsavhandling ved Fakultet for teknologi og naturvitenskap, Universitetet i Agder, 2016In the new era of Internet of Things, complex sensor networks are becoming crucial to link the physical world to the Internet. These sensor networks, composed by hundreds or thousands of nodes, provide many important services to promote a heightened level of awareness about the area of interest such as in predictive maintenance, intelligent buildings, enhanced security systems, etc. In order to make these services possible, several signal processing tasks are needed to support their operation, some widely used examples of these tasks are parameter estimation, signal detection and target tracking. These tasks allow to improve the services by inferring missing data, reducing samples noise, etc., at the cost of some collaboration of the network nodes that implies their repeated communication over time. Most of these solutions are consensus-based strategies, which have recently attracted a great deal of research work because of its simplicity. These are in-network algorithms, where each node only exchanges information with its immediate neighbors and these are able to obtain global information as a function of some sensed data. A relevant example is the average consensus algorithm, which its goal is to obtain, in a distributed way, the average of the initial data. These algorithms avoid the need of performing all the computations at one or more sink nodes, thus, reducing congestion around them and incrementing the robustness of the network. In this dissertation, we focus on improving consensus algorithms in terms of different parameters and under different types of communications and network configurations. Each setting considered requires its own assumptions and methodologies, since the convergence conditions for each of them are related but different in general. In particular, in this work, all of the methodologies proposed are based on designing how the underlying communications are performed. In static networks, where the asymptotic convergence to the average value is easily ensured, a topology optimization can be a priori performed in terms of several relevant parameters. In particular, we optimize the network topology to make consensus algorithms fast and energy efficient. In this setting and for continuous systems, we derive a general framework to minimize several energy related functions under different network and nodes constraints To solve it, we propose a fractional convex-concave optimization problem with different constraints that leads to obtain the optimal topology in terms of the energy function considered. As a significant variation of the previous results, we also optimize the network topology in discrete systems. The discretization of the system introduces a weight matrix and certain step-size (related to the discrete increments of time) in the process. We show that if this step-size is small enough, the energy related problems stated before can be still casted as convex-concave fractional problems with the weight matrix as a unique optimization variable. As the step-size of the process increases in size, a discrete system requires a different approach. To solve it, we aim to find another formulation based on adding a constraint on the connectivity and solving the problem several times (for different values of the step-size). In addition, two low-complex methodologies with different computational requirements are proposed to a posteriori redesign an existing topology by the collaboration of the network nodes. On the contrary, in time-varying (random) networks, it is needed to guarantee a minimum accuracy of the algorithm, while maximizing the number of simultaneous exchanges of data to ensure fast convergence. Regarding random and asymmetric communications, we propose a novel gossip algorithm, which is based on the residual information that is generated when an asymmetric communication is performed. We exploit this information to preserve the summation of the process and accelerate it. Moreover, our proposal is useful in the case of having both unicast and broadcast communications, presenting faster convergence in both schemes than existing approaches in the related literature. When the problem of wireless interferences constraining the communications is additionally taken into account, we propose a novel and computationally efficient link scheduling protocol that correctly operates in the presence of secondary interference. Our protocol is easily implementable and does not require global knowledge of the network. The main objective of this new protocol is to be suitable for a cross-layer scheme in which the execution of the average consensus algorithm is favoured, ensuring necessary conditions for its convergence with certain accuracy. Additionally, the number of simultaneous links is additionally considered in order to make the convergence of the consensus process as fast as possible