Distributed Estimation and Control of Algebraic Connectivity over Random Graphs

In this paper we propose a distributed algorithm for the estimation and control of the connectivity of ad-hoc networks in the presence of a random topology. First, given a generic random graph, we introduce a novel stochastic power iteration method that allows each node to estimate and track the algebraic connectivity of the underlying expected graph. Using results from stochastic approximation theory, we prove that the proposed method converges almost surely (a.s.) to the desired value of connectivity even in the presence of imperfect communication scenarios. The estimation strategy is then used as a basic tool to adapt the power transmitted by each node of a wireless network, in order to maximize the network connectivity in the presence of realistic Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols or simply to drive the connectivity toward a desired target value. Numerical results corroborate our theoretical findings, thus illustrating the main features of the algorithm and its robustness to fluctuations of the network graph due to the presence of random link failures.Comment: To appear in IEEE Transactions on Signal Processin

Support infrastructures for multimedia services with guaranteed continuity and QoS

Advances in wireless networking and content delivery systems are enabling new challenging provisioning scenarios where a growing number of users access multimedia services, e.g., audio/video streaming, while moving among different points of attachment to the Internet, possibly with different connectivity technologies, e.g., Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular 3G. That calls for novel middlewares capable of dynamically personalizing service provisioning to the characteristics of client environments, in particular to discontinuities in wireless resource availability due to handoffs. This dissertation proposes a novel middleware solution, called MUM, that performs effective and context-aware handoff management to transparently avoid service interruptions during both horizontal and vertical handoffs. To achieve the goal, MUM exploits the full visibility of wireless connections available in client localities and their handoff implementations (handoff awareness), of service quality requirements and handoff-related quality degradations (QoS awareness), and of network topology and resources available in current/future localities (location awareness). The design and implementation of the all main MUM components along with extensive on the field trials of the realized middleware architecture confirmed the validity of the proposed full context-aware handoff management approach. In particular, the reported experimental results demonstrate that MUM can effectively maintain service continuity for a wide range of different multimedia services by exploiting handoff prediction mechanisms, adaptive buffering and pre-fetching techniques, and proactive re-addressing/re-binding

Distributed Detection and Estimation in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this article we consider the problems of distributed detection and estimation in wireless sensor networks. In the first part, we provide a general framework aimed to show how an efficient design of a sensor network requires a joint organization of in-network processing and communication. Then, we recall the basic features of consensus algorithm, which is a basic tool to reach globally optimal decisions through a distributed approach. The main part of the paper starts addressing the distributed estimation problem. We show first an entirely decentralized approach, where observations and estimations are performed without the intervention of a fusion center. Then, we consider the case where the estimation is performed at a fusion center, showing how to allocate quantization bits and transmit powers in the links between the nodes and the fusion center, in order to accommodate the requirement on the maximum estimation variance, under a constraint on the global transmit power. We extend the approach to the detection problem. Also in this case, we consider the distributed approach, where every node can achieve a globally optimal decision, and the case where the decision is taken at a central node. In the latter case, we show how to allocate coding bits and transmit power in order to maximize the detection probability, under constraints on the false alarm rate and the global transmit power. Then, we generalize consensus algorithms illustrating a distributed procedure that converges to the projection of the observation vector onto a signal subspace. We then address the issue of energy consumption in sensor networks, thus showing how to optimize the network topology in order to minimize the energy necessary to achieve a global consensus. Finally, we address the problem of matching the topology of the network to the graph describing the statistical dependencies among the observed variables.Comment: 92 pages, 24 figures. To appear in E-Reference Signal Processing, R. Chellapa and S. Theodoridis, Eds., Elsevier, 201

Context-awareness for ubiquitous media service delivery in next generation networks

Les récentes avancées technologiques permettent désormais la fabrication de terminaux mobiles de plus en plus compacts et dotés de plusieurs interfaces réseaux. Le nouveau modèle de consommation de médias se résume par le concept "Anytime, Anywhere, Any Device" et impose donc de nouvelles exigences en termes de déploiement de services ubiquitaires. Cependant la conception et le developpement de réseaux ubiquitaires et convergents de nouvelles générations soulèvent un certain nombre de défis techniques. Les standards actuels ainsi que les solutions commerciales pourraient être affectés par le manque de considération du contexte utilisateur. Le ressenti de l'utilisateur concernant certains services multimédia tels que la VoIP et l'IPTV dépend fortement des capacités du terminal et des conditions du réseau d'accès. Cela incite les réseaux de nouvelles générations à fournir des services ubiquitaires adaptés à l'environnement de l'utilisateur optimisant par la même occasion ses resources. L'IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) est une architecture de nouvelle génération qui centralise l'accès aux services et permet la convergence des réseaux fixe/mobile. Néanmoins, l'évolution de l'IMS est nécessaire sur les points suivants :- l'introduction de la sensibilité au contexte utilisateur et de la PQoS (Perceived QoS) : L'architecture IMS ne prend pas en compte l'environnement de l'utilisateur, ses préférences et ne dispose pas d'un méchanisme de gestion de PQOS. Pour s'assurer de la qualité fournit à l'utilisateur final, des informations sur l'environnement de l'utilisateur ainsi que ses préférences doivent transiter en cœur de réseau afin d'y être analysés. Ce traitement aboutit au lancement du service qui sera adapté et optimisé aux conditions observées. De plus pour le service d'IPTV, les caractéristiques spatio-temporelles de la vidéo influent de manière importante sur la PQoS observée côté utilisateur. L'adaptation des services multimédias en fonction de l'évolution du contexte utilisateur et de la nature de la vidéo diffusée assure une qualité d'expérience à l'utilisateur et optimise par la même occasion l'utilisation des ressources en cœur de réseau.- une solution de mobilité efficace pour les services conversationnels tels que la VoIP : Les dernières publications 3GPP fournissent deux solutions de mobilité: le LTE proposeMIP comme solution de mobilité alors que l'IMS définit une mobilité basée sur le protocoleapplicatif SIP. Ces standards définissent le système de signalisation mais ne s'avancent pas sur la gestion du flux média lors du changement d'interface réseau. La deuxième section introduit une étude comparative détaillée des solutions de mobilité dans les NGNs.Notre première contribution est la spécification de l'architecture globale de notre plateforme IMS sensible au contexte utilisateur réalisée au sein du projet Européen ADAMANTIUM. Nous détaillons tout d'abord le serveur MCMS intelligent placé dans la couche application de l'IMS. Cet élément récolte les informations de qualité de services à différents équipements réseaux et prend la décision d'une action sur l'un de ces équipements. Ensuite nous définissons un profil utilisateur permettant de décrire son environnement et de le diffuser en coeur de réseau. Une étude sur la prédiction de satisfaction utilisateur en fonction des paramètres spatio-temporels de la vidéo a été réalisée afin de connaître le débit idéal pour une PQoS désirée.Notre deuxième contribution est l'introduction d'une solution de mobilité adaptée aux services conversationnels (VoIP) tenant compte du contexte utilisateur. Notre solution s'intègre à l'architecture IMS existante de façon transparente et permet de réduire le temps de latence du handover. Notre solution duplique les paquets de VoIP sur les deux interfaces actives pendant le temps de la transition. Parallèlement, un nouvel algorithme de gestion de mémoire tampon améliore la qualité d'expérience pour le service de VoIP.The latest advances in technology have already defied Moore s law. Thanks to research and industry, hand-held devices are composed of high processing embedded systems enabling the consumption of high quality services. Furthermore, recent trends in communication drive users to consume media Anytime, Anywhere on Any Device via multiple wired and wireless network interfaces. This creates new demands for ubiquitous and high quality service provision management. However, defining and developing the next generation of ubiquitous and converged networks raise a number of challenges. Currently, telecommunication standards do not consider context-awareness aspects for network management and service provisioning. The experience felt by the end-user consuming for instance Voice over IP (VoIP) or Internet Protocol TeleVision (IPTV) services varies depending mainly on user preferences, device context and network resources. It is commonly held that Next Generation Network (NGN) should deliver personalized and effective ubiquitous services to the end user s Mobile Node (MN) while optimizing the network resources at the network operator side. IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is a standardized NGN framework that unifies service access and allows fixed/mobile network convergence. Nevertheless IMS technology still suffers from a number of confining factors that are addressed in this thesis; amongst them are two main issues :The lack of context-awareness and Perceived-QoS (PQoS):-The existing IMS infrastructure does not take into account the environment of the user ,his preferences , and does not provide any PQoS aware management mechanism within its service provisioning control system. In order to ensure that the service satisfies the consumer, this information need to be sent to the core network for analysis. In order to maximize the end-user satisfaction while optimizing network resources, the combination of a user-centric network management and adaptive services according to the user s environment and network conditions are considered. Moreover, video content dynamics are also considered as they significantly impact on the deduced perceptual quality of IPTV services. -The lack of efficient mobility mechanism for conversational services like VoIP :The latest releases of Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) provide two types of mobility solutions. Long-Term Evolution (LTE) uses Mobile IP (MIP) and IMS uses Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) mobility. These standards are focusing on signaling but none of them define how the media should be scheduled in multi-homed devices. The second section introduces a detailed study of existing mobility solutions in NGNs. Our first contribution is the specification of the global context-aware IMS architecture proposed within the European project ADAptative Management of mediA distributioN based on saTisfaction orIented User Modeling (ADAMANTIUM). We introduce the innovative Multimedia Content Management System (MCMS) located in the application layer of IMS. This server combines the collected monitoring information from different network equipments with the data of the user profile and takes adaptation actions if necessary. Then, we introduce the User Profile (UP) management within the User Equipment (UE) describing the end-user s context and facilitating the diffusion of the end-user environment towards the IMS core network. In order to optimize the network usage, a PQoS prediction mechanism gives the optimal video bit-rate according to the video content dynamics. Our second contribution in this thesis is an efficient mobility solution for VoIP service within IMS using and taking advantage of user context. Our solution uses packet duplication on both active interfaces during handover process. In order to leverage this mechanism, a new jitter buffer algorithm is proposed at MN side to improve the user s quality of experience. Furthermore, our mobility solution integrates easily to the existing IMS platform.BORDEAUX1-Bib.electronique (335229901) / SudocSudocFranceF

Cooperative control of autonomous connected vehicles from a Networked Control perspective: Theory and experimental validation

Formation control of autonomous connected vehicles is one of the typical problems addressed in the general context of networked control systems. By leveraging this paradigm, a platoon composed by multiple connected and automated vehicles is represented as one-dimensional network of dynamical agents, in which each agent only uses its neighboring information to locally control its motion, while it aims to achieve certain global coordination with all other agents. Within this theoretical framework, control algorithms are traditionally designed based on an implicit assumption of unlimited bandwidth and perfect communication environments. However, in practice, wireless communication networks, enabling the cooperative driving applications, introduce unavoidable communication impairments such as transmission delay and packet losses that strongly affect the performances of cooperative driving. Moreover, in addition to this problem, wireless communication networks can suffer different security threats. The challenge in the control field is hence to design cooperative control algorithms that are robust to communication impairments and resilient to cyber attacks. The work aim is to tackle and solve these challenges by proposing different properly designed control strategies. They are validated both in analytical, numerical and experimental ways. Obtained results confirm the effectiveness of the strategies in coping with communication impairments and security vulnerabilities

RIS-Aided Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems for 6G: Fundamentals, System Design, and Applications

An introduction of intelligent interconnectivity for people and things has posed higher demands and more challenges for sixth-generation (6G) networks, such as high spectral efficiency and energy efficiency, ultra-low latency, and ultra-high reliability. Cell-free (CF) massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) and reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS), also called intelligent reflecting surface (IRS), are two promising technologies for coping with these unprecedented demands. Given their distinct capabilities, integrating the two technologies to further enhance wireless network performances has received great research and development attention. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of research on RIS-aided CF mMIMO wireless communication systems. We first introduce system models focusing on system architecture and application scenarios, channel models, and communication protocols. Subsequently, we summarize the relevant studies on system operation and resource allocation, providing in-depth analyses and discussions. Following this, we present practical challenges faced by RIS-aided CF mMIMO systems, particularly those introduced by RIS, such as hardware impairments and electromagnetic interference. We summarize corresponding analyses and solutions to further facilitate the implementation of RIS-aided CF mMIMO systems. Furthermore, we explore an interplay between RIS-aided CF mMIMO and other emerging 6G technologies, such as next-generation multiple-access (NGMA), simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT), and millimeter wave (mmWave). Finally, we outline several research directions for future RIS-aided CF mMIMO systems.Comment: 30 pages, 15 figure