Design and Analysis of Medium Access Control Protocols for Broadband Wireless Networks

The next-generation wireless networks are expected to integrate diverse network architectures and various wireless access technologies to provide a robust solution for ubiquitous broadband wireless access, such as wireless local area networks (WLANs), Ultra-Wideband (UWB), and millimeter-wave (mmWave) based wireless personal area networks (WPANs), etc. To enhance the spectral efficiency and link reliability, smart antenna systems have been proposed as a promising candidate for future broadband access networks. To effectively exploit the increased capabilities of the emerging wireless networks, the different network characteristics and the underlying physical layer features need to be considered in the medium access control (MAC) design, which plays a critical role in providing efficient and fair resource sharing among multiple users. In this thesis, we comprehensively investigate the MAC design in both single- and multi-hop broadband wireless networks, with and without infrastructure support. We first develop mathematical models to identify the performance bottlenecks and constraints in the design and operation of existing MAC. We then use a cross-layer approach to mitigate the identified bottleneck problems. Finally, by evaluating the performance of the proposed protocols with analytical models and extensive simulations, we determine the optimal protocol parameters to maximize the network performance. In specific, a generic analytical framework is developed for capacity study of an IEEE 802.11 WLAN in support of non-persistent asymmetric traffic flows. The analysis can be applied for effective admission control to guarantee the quality of service (QoS) performance of multimedia applications. As the access point (AP) becomes the bottleneck in an infrastructure based WLAN, we explore the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) capability in the future IEEE 802.11n WLANs and propose a MIMO-aware multi-user (MU) MAC. By exploiting the multi-user degree of freedom in a MIMO system to allow the AP to communicate with multiple users in the downlink simultaneously, the proposed MU MAC can minimize the AP-bottleneck effect and significantly improve the network capacity. Other enhanced MAC mechanisms, e.g., frame aggregation and bidirectional transmissions, are also studied. Furthermore, different from a narrowband system where simultaneous transmissions by nearby neighbors collide with each other, wideband system can support multiple concurrent transmissions if the multi-user interference can be properly managed. Taking advantage of the salient features of UWB and mmWave communications, we propose an exclusive region (ER) based MAC protocol to exploit the spatial multiplexing gain of centralized UWB and mmWave based wireless networks. Moreover, instead of studying the asymptotic capacity bounds of arbitrary networks which may be too loose to be useful in realistic networks, we derive the expected capacity or transport capacity of UWB and mmWave based networks with random topology. The analysis reveals the main factors affecting the network (transport) capacity, and how to determine the best protocol parameters to maximize the network capacity. In addition, due to limited transmission range, multi-hop relay is necessary to extend the communication coverage of UWB networks. A simple, scalable, and distributed UWB MAC protocol is crucial for efficiently utilizing the large bandwidth of UWB channels and enabling numerous new applications cost-effectively. To address this issue, we further design a distributed asynchronous ER based MAC for multi-hop UWB networks and derive the optimal ER size towards the maximum network throughput. The proposed MAC can significantly improve both network throughput and fairness performance, while the throughput and fairness are usually treated as a tradeoff in other MAC protocols

Support of Uncompressed Video Streaming Over 60GHz Wireless Networks

Uncompressed HD (high-definition) video delivery over wireless personal area networks (WPANs) is a challenging problem because of the limited bandwidth and variations in channel. The 60GHz millimeter-wave (mmWave) band has recently drawn much interest because of the huge bandwidth that it can provide from 57-66 GHz unlicensed spectrum available worldwide. However, to date a system design supporting uncompressed HD video over WPAN is still lacking. In this paper, we develop, simulate, and evaluate an mmWave system for supporting Uncompressed Video streaming over Wireless (UVoW). New features of the UVoW system incorporates: (i) UEP (unequal error protection) where different video bits (MSBs and LSBs) are protected differently, (ii) a multi-CRC to determine whether MSB or/and LSB portions are in error, (iii) UV-ARQ, uncompressed video retransmission protocol which allows the receiver to request only those portions of a video packet which have high importance. Simulations indicate that the UVoW system achieves significantly higher video quality than normal systems under various wireless channel conditions. This shows that UVoW is a promising wireless system supporting uncompressed HD video

Application priority framework for fixed mobile converged communication networks

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The current prospects in wired and wireless access networks, it is becoming increasingly important to address potential convergence in order to offer integrated broadband services. These systems will need to offer higher data transmission capacities and long battery life, which is the catalyst for an everincreasing variety of air interface technologies targeting local area to wide area connectivity. Current integrated industrial networks do not offer application aware context delivery and enhanced services for optimised networks. Application aware services provide value-added functionality to business applications by capturing, integrating, and consolidating intelligence about users and their endpoint devices from various points in the network. This thesis mainly intends to resolve the issues related to ubiquitous application aware service, fair allocation of radio access, reduced energy consumption and improved capacity. A technique that measures and evaluates the data rate demand to reduce application response time and queuing delay for multi radio interfaces is proposed. The technique overcomes the challenges of network integration, requiring no user intervention, saving battery life and selecting the radio access connection for the application requested by the end user. This study is split in two parts. The first contribution identifies some constraints of the services towards the application layer in terms of e.g. data rate and signal strength. The objectives are achieved by application controlled handover (ACH) mechanism in order to maintain acceptable data rate for real-time application services. It also looks into the impact of the radio link on the application and identifies elements and parameters like wireless link quality and handover that will influence the application type. It also identifies some enhanced traditional mechanisms such as distance controlled multihop and mesh topology required in order to support energy efficient multimedia applications. The second contribution unfolds an intelligent application priority assignment mechanism (IAPAM) for medical applications using wireless sensor networks. IAPAM proposes and evaluates a technique based on prioritising multiple virtual queues for the critical nature of medical data to improve instant transmission. Various mobility patterns (directed, controlled and random waypoint) has been investigated and compared by simulating IAPAM enabled mobile BWSN. The following topics have been studied, modelled, simulated and discussed in this thesis: 1. Application Controlled Handover (ACH) for multi radios over fibre 2. Power Controlled Scheme for mesh multi radios over fibre using ACH 3. IAPAM for Biomedical Wireless Sensor Networks (BWSN) and impact of mobility over IAPAM enabled BWSN. Extensive simulation studies are performed to analyze and to evaluate the proposed techniques. Simulation results demonstrate significant improvements in multi radios over fibre performance in terms of application response delay and power consumption by upto 75% and 15 % respectively, reduction in traffic loss by upto 53% and reduction in delay for real time application by more than 25% in some cases

Supporting Uncompressed HD Video Streaming without Retransmissions over 60GHz Wireless Networks

Uncompressed HD (high-definition) video delivery over wireless personal area networks (WPANs) is a challenging problem because of the limited bandwidth and variations in channel. The most straight forward technique to recover from channel errors is to retransmit corrupted packets. However, retransmissions introduce significant delay/jitter and require additional bandwidth. Therefore, retransmissions may be unsuitable for uncompressed video streaming. In this paper, we develop, simulate, and evaluate an millimeter- wave (mmWave) system for supporting uncompressed video streams up to 3-Gbps without any retransmissions. New features of the mmWave system incorporates: (i) UEP (unequal error protection) where different video bits (MSBs and LSBs) are protected differently, (ii) a multiple-CRC to determine whether MSB or/and LSB portions are in error, (iii) RS code swapping (RSS), an error concealment scheme which can conceal some errors in video pixels. Simulations using real uncompressed HD images indicate that the proposed mmWave system can maintain good average PSNR (peak-signal-to-noise-ratio) under poor channel conditions, achieving what is generally accepted as a good picture quality with PSNR values greater than 40 dB. Moreover, the proposed system results in less fluctuating PSNR values

Design, Modeling, and Analysis for MAC Protocols in Ultra-wideband Networks

Ultra-wideband (UWB) is an appealing transmission technology for short-range, bandwidth demanded wireless communications. With the data rate of several hundred megabits per second, UWB demonstrates great potential in supporting multimedia streams such as high-definition television (HDTV), voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and console gaming in office or home networks, known as the wireless personal area network (WPAN). While vast research effort has been made on the physical layer issues of UWB, the corresponding medium access control (MAC) protocols that exploit UWB technology have not been well developed. Given an extremely wide bandwidth of UWB, a fundamental problem on how to manage multiple users to efficiently utilize the bandwidth is a MAC design issue. Without explicitly considering the physical properties of UWB, existing MAC protocols are not optimized for UWB-based networks. In addition, the limited processing capability of UWB devices poses challenges to the design of low-complexity MAC protocols. In this thesis, we comprehensively investigate the MAC protocols for UWB networks. The objective is to link the physical characteristics of UWB with the MAC protocols to fully exploit its advantage. We consider two themes: centralized and distributed UWB networks. For centralized networks, the most critical issue surrounding the MAC protocol is the resource allocation with fairness and quality of service (QoS) provisioning. We address this issue by breaking down into two scenarios: homogeneous and heterogeneous network configurations. In the homogeneous case, users have the same bandwidth requirement, and the objective of resource allocation is to maximize the network throughput. In the heterogeneous case, users have different bandwidth requirements, and the objective of resource allocation is to provide differentiated services. For both design objectives, the optimal scheduling problem is NP-hard. Our contributions lie in the development of low-complexity scheduling algorithms that fully exploit the characteristics of UWB. For distributed networks, the MAC becomes node-based problems, rather than link-based problems as in centralized networks. Each node either contends for channel access or reserves transmission opportunity through negotiation. We investigate two representative protocols that have been adopted in the WiMedia specification for future UWB-based WPANs. One is a contention-based protocol called prioritized channel access (PCA), which employs the same mechanisms as the enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA) in IEEE 802.11e for providing differentiated services. The other is a reservation-based protocol called distributed reservation protocol (DRP), which allows time slots to be reserved in a distributed manner. Our goal is to identify the capabilities of these two protocols in supporting multimedia applications for UWB networks. To achieve this, we develop analytical models and conduct detailed analysis for respective protocols. The proposed analytical models have several merits. They are accurate and provide close-form expressions with low computational effort. Through a cross-layer approach, our analytical models can capture the near-realistic protocol behaviors, thus useful insights into the protocol can be obtained to improve or fine-tune the protocol operations. The proposed models can also be readily extended to incorporate more sophisticated considerations, which should benefit future UWB network design

A critical analysis of research potential, challenges and future directives in industrial wireless sensor networks

In recent years, Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) have emerged as an important research theme with applications spanning a wide range of industries including automation, monitoring, process control, feedback systems and automotive. Wide scope of IWSNs applications ranging from small production units, large oil and gas industries to nuclear fission control, enables a fast-paced research in this field. Though IWSNs offer advantages of low cost, flexibility, scalability, self-healing, easy deployment and reformation, yet they pose certain limitations on available potential and introduce challenges on multiple fronts due to their susceptibility to highly complex and uncertain industrial environments. In this paper a detailed discussion on design objectives, challenges and solutions, for IWSNs, are presented. A careful evaluation of industrial systems, deadlines and possible hazards in industrial atmosphere are discussed. The paper also presents a thorough review of the existing standards and industrial protocols and gives a critical evaluation of potential of these standards and protocols along with a detailed discussion on available hardware platforms, specific industrial energy harvesting techniques and their capabilities. The paper lists main service providers for IWSNs solutions and gives insight of future trends and research gaps in the field of IWSNs

Performance evaluation of a prototyped wireless ground sensor networks

This thesis investigated the suitability of wireless, unattended ground sensor networks for military applications. The unattended aspect requires the network to self-organize and adapt to dynamic changes. A wireless, unattended ground sensor network was prototyped using commercial off-the-shelf technology and three to four networked nodes. Device and network performance were measured under indoor and outdoor scenarios. The measured communication range of a node varied between three and nineteen meters depending on the scenario. The sensors evaluated were an acoustic sensor, a magnetic sensor, and an acceleration sensor. The measured sensing range varied by the type of sensor. Node discovery durations observed were between forty seconds and over five minutes. Node density calculations indicated that the prototype was scalable to five hundred nodes. This thesis substantiated the feasibility of interconnecting, self-organizing sensor nodes in military applications. Tests and evaluations demonstrated that the network was capable of dynamic adaptation to failure and degradation.http://archive.org/details/performanceevalu109452263Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Wireless Technologies for Indoor Asset Positioning

The Positioning of assets in a manufacturing industry is one of the milestones in the process to increase the visibility inside the factory and improve the current manufacturing practices. Furthermore, in order to cope with the high mobility of the assets in a factory, the utilization of wireless technologies has been increased in the past few years in order to develop the positioning applications. However, the utilization of these technologies must not increase the complexity of the manufacturing systems. Therefore, the utilization of a common network protocol such as the Internet Protocol is preferred. The theoretical part of this thesis work presents a general description of the wireless technologies used in industrial environments. Additionally, it discusses the different methodologies and algorithms used for the positioning of assets applications in wireless networks in more detail. Furthermore, an introduction to the latest efforts and systems developed to address the problem of position estimation of assets in wireless networks is provided. In order to understand the realization of the IP-based wireless sensor networks, a brief review of the operating systems supporting this characteristic is presented. Finally a survey about the IP-ready wireless sensor network is performed in order to select the most suitable platform to use in the practical part of this work. The practical part of this thesis work focuses on the implementation of a real-time position estimation tool for manufacturing assets based on a Wireless Sensor Network for indoor environments. The main purpose is to estimate the position of a pallet allocated on a light assembly manufacturing line. In addition, the wireless sensor network utilizes the Internet Protocol version 6 as the networking protocol. Furthermore, the estimation parameter utilized by the tool is the received signal strength. Consequently, the position estimation methodologies based on the received signal strength are implemented by this tool. Finally, the position estimation tool was tested which is documented in the results section. /Kir1

Performance modelling and analysis of multiple coexisting IEEE 802.15.4 wireless sensor networks

With the features of low-power and flexible networking capabilities IEEE 802.15.4 has been widely regarded as one strong candidate of communication technologies for wireless sensor networks (WSNs). It is expected that with an increasing number of deployments of 802.15.4 based WSNs, multiple WSNs could coexist with full or partial overlap in residential or enterprise areas. As WSNs are usually deployed without coordination, the communication could meet significant degradation with the 802.15.4 channel access scheme, which has a large impact on system performance. In this thesis we are motivated to investigate the effectiveness of 802.15.4 networks supporting WSN applications with various environments, especially when hidden terminals are presented due to the uncoordinated coexistence problem. Both analytical models and system level simulators are developed to analyse the performance of the random access scheme specified by IEEE 802.15.4 medium access control (MAC) standard for several network scenarios. The first part of the thesis investigates the effectiveness of single 802.15.4 network supporting WSN applications. A Markov chain based analytic model is applied to model the MAC behaviour of IEEE 802.15.4 standard and a discrete event simulator is also developed to analyse the performance and verify the proposed analytical model. It is observed that 802.15.4 networks could sufficiently support most WSN applications with its various functionalities. After the investigation of single network, the uncoordinated coexistence problem of multiple 802.15.4 networks deployed with communication range fully or partially overlapped are investigated in the next part of the thesis. Both nonsleep and sleep modes are investigated with different channel conditions by analytic and simulation methods to obtain the comprehensive performance evaluation. It is found that the uncoordinated coexistence problem can significantly degrade the performance of 802.15.4 networks, which is unlikely to satisfy the QoS requirements for many WSN applications. The proposed analytic model is validated by simulations which could be used to obtain the optimal parameter setting before WSNs deployments to eliminate the interference risks