3,833 research outputs found
Performance Modelling and Optimisation of Multi-hop Networks
A major challenge in the design of large-scale networks is to predict and optimise the
total time and energy consumption required to deliver a packet from a source node to a
destination node. Examples of such complex networks include wireless ad hoc and sensor
networks which need to deal with the effects of node mobility, routing inaccuracies, higher
packet loss rates, limited or time-varying effective bandwidth, energy constraints, and the
computational limitations of the nodes. They also include more reliable communication
environments, such as wired networks, that are susceptible to random failures, security
threats and malicious behaviours which compromise their quality of service (QoS) guarantees.
In such networks, packets traverse a number of hops that cannot be determined
in advance and encounter non-homogeneous network conditions that have been largely
ignored in the literature. This thesis examines analytical properties of packet travel in
large networks and investigates the implications of some packet coding techniques on both
QoS and resource utilisation.
Specifically, we use a mixed jump and diffusion model to represent packet traversal
through large networks. The model accounts for network non-homogeneity regarding
routing and the loss rate that a packet experiences as it passes successive segments of a
source to destination route. A mixed analytical-numerical method is developed to compute
the average packet travel time and the energy it consumes. The model is able to capture
the effects of increased loss rate in areas remote from the source and destination, variable
rate of advancement towards destination over the route, as well as of defending against
malicious packets within a certain distance from the destination. We then consider sending
multiple coded packets that follow independent paths to the destination node so as to
mitigate the effects of losses and routing inaccuracies. We study a homogeneous medium
and obtain the time-dependent properties of the packet’s travel process, allowing us to
compare the merits and limitations of coding, both in terms of delivery times and energy
efficiency. Finally, we propose models that can assist in the analysis and optimisation
of the performance of inter-flow network coding (NC). We analyse two queueing models
for a router that carries out NC, in addition to its standard packet routing function. The
approach is extended to the study of multiple hops, which leads to an optimisation problem
that characterises the optimal time that packets should be held back in a router, waiting
for coding opportunities to arise, so that the total packet end-to-end delay is minimised
BurstProbe: Debugging Time-Critical Data Delivery in Wireless Sensor Networks
In this paper we present BurstProbe, a new technique to accurately measure link burstiness in a wireless sensor network employed for time-critical data delivery. Measurement relies on shared probing slots that are embedded in the transmission schedule and used by nodes to assess link burstiness over time. The acquired link burstiness information can be stored in the node's flash memory and relied upon to diagnose transmission problems when missed deadlines occur. Thus, accurate diagnosis is achieved in a distributed manner and without the overhead of transmitting rich measurement data to a central collection point. For the purpose of evaluation we have implemented BurstProbe in the GinMAC WSN protocol and we are able to demonstrate it is an accurate tool to debug time-critical data delivery. In addition, we analyze the cost of implementingBurstProbe and investigate its effectiveness
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
Optimal Energy Allocation for Kalman Filtering over Packet Dropping Links with Imperfect Acknowledgments and Energy Harvesting Constraints
This paper presents a design methodology for optimal transmission energy
allocation at a sensor equipped with energy harvesting technology for remote
state estimation of linear stochastic dynamical systems. In this framework, the
sensor measurements as noisy versions of the system states are sent to the
receiver over a packet dropping communication channel. The packet dropout
probabilities of the channel depend on both the sensor's transmission energies
and time varying wireless fading channel gains. The sensor has access to an
energy harvesting source which is an everlasting but unreliable energy source
compared to conventional batteries with fixed energy storages. The receiver
performs optimal state estimation with random packet dropouts to minimize the
estimation error covariances based on received measurements. The receiver also
sends packet receipt acknowledgments to the sensor via an erroneous feedback
communication channel which is itself packet dropping.
The objective is to design optimal transmission energy allocation at the
energy harvesting sensor to minimize either a finite-time horizon sum or a long
term average (infinite-time horizon) of the trace of the expected estimation
error covariance of the receiver's Kalman filter. These problems are formulated
as Markov decision processes with imperfect state information. The optimal
transmission energy allocation policies are obtained by the use of dynamic
programming techniques. Using the concept of submodularity, the structure of
the optimal transmission energy policies are studied. Suboptimal solutions are
also discussed which are far less computationally intensive than optimal
solutions. Numerical simulation results are presented illustrating the
performance of the energy allocation algorithms.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. arXiv admin
note: text overlap with arXiv:1402.663
An Optimal Medium Access Control with Partial Observations for Sensor Networks
We consider medium access control (MAC) in multihop sensor networks, where only partial information about the shared medium is available to the transmitter. We model our setting as a queuing problem in which the service rate of a queue is a function of a partially observed Markov chain representing the available bandwidth, and in which the arrivals are controlled based on the partial observations so as to keep the system in a desirable mildly unstable regime. The optimal controller for this problem satisfies a separation property: we first compute a probability measure on the state space of the chain, namely the information state, then use this measure as the new state on which the control decisions are based. We give a formal description of the system considered and of its dynamics, we formalize and solve an optimal control problem, and we show numerical simulations to illustrate with concrete examples properties of the optimal control law. We show how the ergodic behavior of our queuing model is characterized by an invariant measure over all possible information states, and we construct that measure. Our results can be specifically applied for designing efficient and stable algorithms for medium access control in multiple-accessed systems, in particular for sensor networks
Cross-layer design of multi-hop wireless networks
MULTI -hop wireless networks are usually defined as a collection of nodes
equipped with radio transmitters, which not only have the capability to
communicate each other in a multi-hop fashion, but also to route each others’ data
packets. The distributed nature of such networks makes them suitable for a variety of
applications where there are no assumed reliable central entities, or controllers, and
may significantly improve the scalability issues of conventional single-hop wireless
networks.
This Ph.D. dissertation mainly investigates two aspects of the research issues
related to the efficient multi-hop wireless networks design, namely: (a) network
protocols and (b) network management, both in cross-layer design paradigms to
ensure the notion of service quality, such as quality of service (QoS) in wireless mesh
networks (WMNs) for backhaul applications and quality of information (QoI) in
wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for sensing tasks. Throughout the presentation of
this Ph.D. dissertation, different network settings are used as illustrative examples,
however the proposed algorithms, methodologies, protocols, and models are not
restricted in the considered networks, but rather have wide applicability.
First, this dissertation proposes a cross-layer design framework integrating
a distributed proportional-fair scheduler and a QoS routing algorithm, while using
WMNs as an illustrative example. The proposed approach has significant performance
gain compared with other network protocols. Second, this dissertation proposes
a generic admission control methodology for any packet network, wired and
wireless, by modeling the network as a black box, and using a generic mathematical
0. Abstract 3
function and Taylor expansion to capture the admission impact. Third, this dissertation
further enhances the previous designs by proposing a negotiation process,
to bridge the applications’ service quality demands and the resource management,
while using WSNs as an illustrative example. This approach allows the negotiation
among different service classes and WSN resource allocations to reach the optimal
operational status. Finally, the guarantees of the service quality are extended to
the environment of multiple, disconnected, mobile subnetworks, where the question
of how to maintain communications using dynamically controlled, unmanned data
ferries is investigated
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