Adoption of vehicular ad hoc networking protocols by networked robots

This paper focuses on the utilization of wireless networking in the robotics domain. Many researchers have already equipped their robots with wireless communication capabilities, stimulated by the observation that multi-robot systems tend to have several advantages over their single-robot counterparts. Typically, this integration of wireless communication is tackled in a quite pragmatic manner, only a few authors presented novel Robotic Ad Hoc Network (RANET) protocols that were designed specifically with robotic use cases in mind. This is in sharp contrast with the domain of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). This observation is the starting point of this paper. If the results of previous efforts focusing on VANET protocols could be reused in the RANET domain, this could lead to rapid progress in the field of networked robots. To investigate this possibility, this paper provides a thorough overview of the related work in the domain of robotic and vehicular ad hoc networks. Based on this information, an exhaustive list of requirements is defined for both types. It is concluded that the most significant difference lies in the fact that VANET protocols are oriented towards low throughput messaging, while RANET protocols have to support high throughput media streaming as well. Although not always with equal importance, all other defined requirements are valid for both protocols. This leads to the conclusion that cross-fertilization between them is an appealing approach for future RANET research. To support such developments, this paper concludes with the definition of an appropriate working plan

Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks

In this chapter, we present a literature survey of an emerging, cutting-edge, and multi-disciplinary field of research at the intersection of Robotics and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which we refer to as Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks (RWSN). We define a RWSN as an autonomous networked multi-robot system that aims to achieve certain sensing goals while meeting and maintaining certain communication performance requirements, through cooperative control, learning and adaptation. While both of the component areas, i.e., Robotics and WSN, are very well-known and well-explored, there exist a whole set of new opportunities and research directions at the intersection of these two fields which are relatively or even completely unexplored. One such example would be the use of a set of robotic routers to set up a temporary communication path between a sender and a receiver that uses the controlled mobility to the advantage of packet routing. We find that there exist only a limited number of articles to be directly categorized as RWSN related works whereas there exist a range of articles in the robotics and the WSN literature that are also relevant to this new field of research. To connect the dots, we first identify the core problems and research trends related to RWSN such as connectivity, localization, routing, and robust flow of information. Next, we classify the existing research on RWSN as well as the relevant state-of-the-arts from robotics and WSN community according to the problems and trends identified in the first step. Lastly, we analyze what is missing in the existing literature, and identify topics that require more research attention in the future

Machine Learning in Wireless Sensor Networks: Algorithms, Strategies, and Applications

Wireless sensor networks monitor dynamic environments that change rapidly over time. This dynamic behavior is either caused by external factors or initiated by the system designers themselves. To adapt to such conditions, sensor networks often adopt machine learning techniques to eliminate the need for unnecessary redesign. Machine learning also inspires many practical solutions that maximize resource utilization and prolong the lifespan of the network. In this paper, we present an extensive literature review over the period 2002-2013 of machine learning methods that were used to address common issues in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The advantages and disadvantages of each proposed algorithm are evaluated against the corresponding problem. We also provide a comparative guide to aid WSN designers in developing suitable machine learning solutions for their specific application challenges.Comment: Accepted for publication in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial

Self-stabilizing TDMA Algorithms for Wireless Ad-hoc Networks without External Reference

Time division multiple access (TDMA) is a method for sharing communication media. In wireless communications, TDMA algorithms often divide the radio time into timeslots of uniform size, $\xi$, and then combine them into frames of uniform size, $\tau$. We consider TDMA algorithms that allocate at least one timeslot in every frame to every node. Given a maximal node degree, $\delta$, and no access to external references for collision detection, time or position, we consider the problem of collision-free self-stabilizing TDMA algorithms that use constant frame size. We demonstrate that this problem has no solution when the frame size is $\tau < \max\{2\delta,\chi_2\}$, where $\chi_2$ is the chromatic number for distance-$2$ vertex coloring. As a complement to this lower bound, we focus on proving the existence of collision-free self-stabilizing TDMA algorithms that use constant frame size of $\tau$. We consider basic settings (no hardware support for collision detection and no prior clock synchronization), and the collision of concurrent transmissions from transmitters that are at most two hops apart. In the context of self-stabilizing systems that have no external reference, we are the first to study this problem (to the best of our knowledge), and use simulations to show convergence even with computation time uncertainties

A survey of localization in wireless sensor network

Localization is one of the key techniques in wireless sensor network. The location estimation methods can be classified into target/source localization and node self-localization. In target localization, we mainly introduce the energy-based method. Then we investigate the node self-localization methods. Since the widespread adoption of the wireless sensor network, the localization methods are different in various applications. And there are several challenges in some special scenarios. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of these challenges: localization in non-line-of-sight, node selection criteria for localization in energy-constrained network, scheduling the sensor node to optimize the tradeoff between localization performance and energy consumption, cooperative node localization, and localization algorithm in heterogeneous network. Finally, we introduce the evaluation criteria for localization in wireless sensor network

A Cluster-Based Distributed Hierarchical IDS for MANETs

Many attempts were made to secure wireless ad hoc networks, but due to special ad-hoc nature, which is lack of a fixed infrastructure and central management, finding an optimal and comprehensive security solution is still a research challenge