EMMON - EMbedded MONitoring

Despite the steady increase in experimental deployments, most of research work on WSNs has focused only on communication protocols and algorithms, with a clear lack of effective, feasible and usable system architectures, integrated in a modular platform able to address both functional and non–functional requirements. In this paper, we outline EMMON [1], a full WSN-based system architecture for large–scale, dense and real–time embedded monitoring [3] applications. EMMON provides a hierarchical communication architecture together with integrated middleware and command and control software. Then, EM-Set, the EMMON engineering toolset will be presented. EM-Set includes a network deployment planning, worst–case analysis and dimensioning, protocol simulation and automatic remote programming and hardware testing tools. This toolset was crucial for the development of EMMON which was designed to use standard commercially available technologies, while maintaining as much flexibility as possible to meet specific applications requirements. Finally, the EMMON architecture has been validated through extensive simulation and experimental evaluation, including a 300+ nodes testbed

Ethernet - a survey on its fields of application

During the last decades, Ethernet progressively became the most widely used local area networking (LAN) technology. Apart from LAN installations, Ethernet became also attractive for many other fields of application, ranging from industry to avionics, telecommunication, and multimedia. The expanded application of this technology is mainly due to its significant assets like reduced cost, backward-compatibility, flexibility, and expandability. However, this new trend raises some problems concerning the services of the protocol and the requirements for each application. Therefore, specific adaptations prove essential to integrate this communication technology in each field of application. Our primary objective is to show how Ethernet has been enhanced to comply with the specific requirements of several application fields, particularly in transport, embedded and multimedia contexts. The paper first describes the common Ethernet LAN technology and highlights its main features. It reviews the most important specific Ethernet versions with respect to each application field’s requirements. Finally, we compare these different fields of application and we particularly focus on the fundamental concepts and the quality of service capabilities of each proposal

Planning and dynamic spectrum management in heterogeneous mobile networks with QoE optimization

The radio and network planning and optimisation are continuous processes that do not end after the network has been launched. To achieve the best trade-offs, especially between quality and costs, operators make use of several coverage and capacity enhancement methods. The research from this thesis proposes methods such as the implementation of cell zooming and Relay Stations (RSs) with dynamic sleep modes and Carrier Aggregation (CA) for coverage and capacity enhancements. Initially, a survey is presented on ubiquitous mesh networks implementation scenarios and an updated characterization of requirements for services and applications is proposed. The performance targets for the key parameters, delay, delay variation, information loss and throughput have been addressed for all types of services. Furthermore, with the increased competition, mobile operator’s success does not only depend on how good the offered Quality of Service (QoS) is, but also if it meets the end user’s expectations, i.e., Quality of Experience (QoE). In this context, a model for the mapping between QoS parameters and QoE has been proposed for multimedia traffic. The planning and optimization of fixed Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) networks with RSs in conjunction with cell zooming has been addressed. The challenging case of a propagation measurement-based scenario in the hilly region of Covilhã has been considered. A cost/revenue function has been developed by taking into account the cost of building and maintaining the infrastructure with the use of RSs. This part of the work also investigates the energy efficiency and economic implications of the use of power saving modes for RSs in conjunction with cell zooming. Assuming that the RSs can be switched-off or zoomed out to zero in periods when the traffic exchange is low, such as nights and weekends, it has been shown that energy consumption may be reduced whereas cellular coverage and capacity, as well as economic performance may be improved. An integrated Common Radio Resource Management (iCRRM) entity is proposed that implements inter-band CA by performing scheduling between two Long Term Evolution – Advanced (LTE-A) Component Carriers (CCs). Considering the bandwidths available in Portugal, the 800 MHz and 2.6 GHz CCs have been considered whilst mobile video traffic is addressed. Through extensive simulations it has been found that the proposed multi-band schedulers overcome the capacity of LTE systems without CA. Result shown a clear improvement of the QoS, QoE and economic trade-off with CA

Dimensioning mobile WiMAX in the access and core network : a case study

Existing broadband wireless technologies such as evolving 3G and WiFi have enjoyed widespread adoption but are far from offering the flexibility in deployment and high data rates. Mobile WiMAX, an emerging broadband wireless technology promises to bring a new experience to mobile broadband services by offering users high data rates and efficient network access techniques. This thesis work provides a technical description of mobile WiMAX and compares its technical capabilities with the existing technologies such as WiFi and 3G. The work continues further on dimensioning mobile WiMAX in the access and core network. In the access network, we determine the number of base stations required to cover a given metropolitan area, explore their configurations, and perform frequency selection. In the core network we dimension the interfaces, and nodes involved. From the study we will show that WiMAX provides the operator with the antenna configurations options of high capacities, large cell coverage area, and a wide selection of QoS classes. The study will also show that the data density requirements of customers, resulting from the capacity analysis are fulfilled by properly dimensioning the elements in the access and core network

A GMPLS/OBS network architecture enabling QoS-aware end-to-end burst transport

This paper introduces a Generalized Multi-Protocol Label Switching (GMPLS)-enabled Optical Burst Switched (OBS) network architecture featuring end-to-end QoS-aware burst transport services. This is achieved by setting up burst Label Switched Paths (LSPs) properly dimensioned to match specific burst drop probability requirements. These burst LSPs are used for specific guaranteed QoS levels, whereas the remaining network capacity can be left for best-effort burst support. Aiming to ensure the requested burst drop probability figures even under bursty traffic patterns, burst LSPs’ performance is continuously monitored. Therefore, GMPLS-driven capacity reconfigurations can be dynamically triggered whether unfavorable network conditions are detected. Through the paper, the GMPLS/OBS architecture is firstly detailed, followed by the presentation of the optimized methods used for the initial burst LSP dimensioning. The successful network performance is finally illustrated by simulations on several network scenarios.Preprin

Virtual topology design in OBS networks

The problem of burst losses in OBS networks has an impact on the service quality perceived by end users. In order to guarantee certain level of Service Quality (QoS) in terms of burst losses, wavelength resources have to be dimensioned properly. In this paper, we address the problem of the Virtual Topology (VT) design that concerns the establishment of explicit routing paths and the allocation of wavelengths in network links to support connections with QoS guarantees in the OBS network. We consider the GMPLS control plane as an overlying technology which facilitates the establishment of VT on top of physical network topology.Postprint (published version