Packet voice/data in local broadcast networks

A local area network that can support both voice and data packets offers economic advantages due to the use of only a single network for both types of traffic, greater flexibility to changing user demands, and it also enables efficient use to be made of the transmission capacity. The latter aspect is very important in local broadcast networks where the capacity is a scarce resource, for example mobile radio. This research has examined two types of local broadcast network, these being the Ethernet-type bus local area network and a mobile radio network with a central base station. With such contention networks, medium access control (MAC) protocols are required to gain access to the channel. MAC protocols must provide efficient scheduling on the channel between the distributed population of stations who want to transmit. No access scheme can exceed the performance of a single server queue, due to the spatial distribution of the stations. Stations cannot in general form a queue without using part of the channel capacity to exchange protocol information. In this research, several medium access protocols have been examined and developed in order to increase the channel throughput compared to existing protocols. However, the established performance measures of average packet time delay and throughput cannot adequately characterise protocol performance for packet voice. Rather, the percentage of bits delivered within a given time bound becomes the relevant performance measure. Performance evaluation of the protocols has been examined using discrete event simulation and in some cases also by mathematical modelling. All the protocols use either implicit or explicit reservation schemes, with their efficiency dependent on the fact that many voice packets are generated periodically within a talkspurt. Two of the protocols are based on the existing 'Reservation Virtual Time CSMA/CD' protocol, which forms a distributed queue through implicit reservations. This protocol has been improved firstly by utilising two channels, a packet transmission channel and a packet contention channel. Packet contention is then performed in parallel with a packet transmission to increase throughput. The second protocol uses variable length packets to reduce the contention time between transmissions on a single channel. A third protocol developed, is based on contention for explicit reservations. Once a station has achieved a reservation, it maintains this effective queue position for the remainder of the talkspurt and transmits after it has sensed the transmission from the preceeding station within the queue. In the mobile radio environment, adaptions to the protocols were necessary in order that their operation was robust to signal fading. This was achieved through centralised control at a base station, unlike the local area network versions where the control was distributed at the stations. The results show an improvement in throughput compared to some previous protocols. Further work includes subjective testing to validate the protocols' effectiveness

Analysis and evaluation of decentralized multiaccess Mac for ad-hoc networks

In mobile ad-hoc radio networks, terminals are mobile and heterogeneous, the architecture of the network is continuously changing, communication links are packet oriented and radio resources are scarce. Therefore, mechanisms on how to access the radio channel are extremely important in order to improve network efficiency and, when needed, to guarantee QoS. However, due to these network harsh conditions, decentralized Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols designed specifically for ad hoc networks are scarce. In this paper we present a novel decentralized multiaccess MAC protocol for Ad Hoc networks. This MAC protocol is an hybrid CDMATDMA in which a cross layer approach has been followed in order to maximize network throughput. A theoretical analysis of the system is presented ending up with closed expressions for the throughput and delay of the network and some simulations are presented to evaluate the performance of the system.Postprint (published version

A Channel-Access Framework for Scheduling Transmission Assignments in Ad Hoc Networks with Rate Adaptive Radios

In mobile ad hoc networks transmission-scheduling channel-access protocols are of interest because they can ensure collision free transmissions and provide fair access to the channel. The time taken to gain access to the channel is deterministic and hence these types of protocols can also guarantee a certain quality of service. However, these protocols suffer from two major drawbacks. The first issue is poor utilization of the channel due to fixed slot assignments. Once the slot assignments are decided they are held constant for a period of time. As a result the node to which a slot is assigned may not always have a packet to transmit in its assigned slot. This results in wasted slots and leads to poor utilization of the channel. The second issue is that there is no support for networks with rate adaptive radios. In this work a combined solution to both of these shortcomings is presented. In order to make transmission-scheduling channel-access protocols support networks with rate adaptive radios, a process called slot-packing is developed. The design of slot-packing ensures that it works with any transmission-scheduling channel-access protocol. Using slot-packing, we design and investigate a new protocol called adaptive recovering mini-slot transmission scheduling (RMTS-a) that tackles both the shortcomings and improves the performance of the network significantly. A key feature of our RMTS-a protocol is that if a radio assigned to a transmission opportunity is unable to utilize all of the time slot, other radios in the local neighborhood are given the opportunity to transmit in the remaining time. Additionally, because multiple radios within communication range of a transmitter are likely to be able to decode the payload, packets to multiple neighbors can be packed within a single transmission

Energy-efficient wireless communication

In this chapter we present an energy-efficient highly adaptive network interface architecture and a novel data link layer protocol for wireless networks that provides Quality of Service (QoS) support for diverse traffic types. Due to the dynamic nature of wireless networks, adaptations in bandwidth scheduling and error control are necessary to achieve energy efficiency and an acceptable quality of service. In our approach we apply adaptability through all layers of the protocol stack, and provide feedback to the applications. In this way the applications can adapt the data streams, and the network protocols can adapt the communication parameters

Resilient networking in wireless sensor networks

This report deals with security in wireless sensor networks (WSNs), especially in network layer. Multiple secure routing protocols have been proposed in the literature. However, they often use the cryptography to secure routing functionalities. The cryptography alone is not enough to defend against multiple attacks due to the node compromise. Therefore, we need more algorithmic solutions. In this report, we focus on the behavior of routing protocols to determine which properties make them more resilient to attacks. Our aim is to find some answers to the following questions. Are there any existing protocols, not designed initially for security, but which already contain some inherently resilient properties against attacks under which some portion of the network nodes is compromised? If yes, which specific behaviors are making these protocols more resilient? We propose in this report an overview of security strategies for WSNs in general, including existing attacks and defensive measures. In this report we focus at the network layer in particular, and an analysis of the behavior of four particular routing protocols is provided to determine their inherent resiliency to insider attacks. The protocols considered are: Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), Gradient-Based Routing (GBR), Greedy Forwarding (GF) and Random Walk Routing (RWR)

LPDQ: a self-scheduled TDMA MAC protocol for one-hop dynamic lowpower wireless networks

Current Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for data collection scenarios with a large number of nodes that generate bursty traffic are based on Low-Power Listening (LPL) for network synchronization and Frame Slotted ALOHA (FSA) as the channel access mechanism. However, FSA has an efficiency bounded to 36.8% due to contention effects, which reduces packet throughput and increases energy consumption. In this paper, we target such scenarios by presenting Low-Power Distributed Queuing (LPDQ), a highly efficient and low-power MAC protocol. LPDQ is able to self-schedule data transmissions, acting as a FSA MAC under light traffic and seamlessly converging to a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) MAC under congestion. The paper presents the design principles and the implementation details of LPDQ using low-power commercial radio transceivers. Experiments demonstrate an efficiency close to 99% that is independent of the number of nodes and is fair in terms of resource allocation.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft