Cognitive MAC protocols for mobile Ad-Hoc networks

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The term of Cognitive Radio (CR) used to indicate that spectrum radio could be accessed dynamically and opportunistically by unlicensed users. In CR Networks, Interference between nodes, hidden terminal problem, and spectrum sensing errors are big issues to be widely discussed in the research field nowadays. To improve the performance of such kind of networks, this thesis proposes Cognitive Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs). From the concept of CR, this thesis has been able to develop a cognitive MAC framework in which a cognitive process consisting of cognitive elements is considered, which can make efficient decisions to optimise the CR network. In this context, three different scenarios to maximize the secondary user's throughput have been proposed. We found that the throughput improvement depends on the transition probabilities. However, considering the past information state of the spectrum can dramatically increases the secondary user's throughput by up to 40%. Moreover, by increasing the number of channels, the throughput of the network can be improved about 25%. Furthermore, to study the impact of Physical (PHY) Layer errors on cognitive MAC layer in MANETs, in this thesis, a Sensing Error-Aware MAC protocols for MANETs has been proposed. The developed model has been able to improve the MAC layer performance under the challenge of sensing errors. In this context, the proposed model examined two sensing error probabilities: the false alarm probability and the missed detection probability. The simulation results have shown that both probabilities could be adapted to maintain the false alarm probability at certain values to achieve good results. Finally, in this thesis, a cooperative sensing scheme with interference mitigation for Cognitive Wireless Mesh Networks (CogMesh) has been proposed. Moreover, a prioritybased traffic scenario to analyze the problem of packet delay and a novel technique for dynamic channel allocation in CogMesh is presented. Considering each channel in the system as a sub-server, the average delay of the users' packets is reduced and the cooperative sensing scenario dramatically increases the network throughput 50% more as the number of arrival rate is increased

Multi-Hop Selective Constructive Interference Flooding Protocol For Wireless Sensor Networks

Connectivity is a critical issue in WSNs, as the data collected needs to be sent to the base station or the processing centers. Low connectivity due to the limited radio range of sensor nodes and random distribution leads the network to be partitioned into disconnected groups, which can interrupt or completely prevent communication between nodes. For effective communication, each node must be located close enough to each other. Improper positioning of the nodes can cause a failure in sending or receiving radio signals, resulting in a segmented or incomplete network. A Multi-Hop Selective Constructive Interference Flooding (MSCIF) protocol is proposed to address the problem of low connectivity in WSNs with a sparse distribution and improve the network’s lifetime. MSCIF integrates three main algorithms: clustering algorithm, selection algorithm, and a synchronized flooding. The first step of the proposed protocol involves the development of an energy efficient clustering algorithm which is appropriate for WSN with a sparse density topology. Clustering is necessary in the proposed protocol as it helps to exclude nodes that are far away from other nodes, which consume a lot of energy. The stages of clustering are: initialization, scheduling, and clustering. The second step in MSCIF protocol involves designing a selection algorithm to select the minimum connected dominating nodes. This is to improve the network reliability and control the energy consumption by reducing the number of cooperating nodes. The third step is applying a fast-synchronized flooding to achieve a constructive interference at the receiver to improve the received signal strength and improve connectivity

Energy Efficient, Cooperative Communication in Low-Power Wireless Networks

The increased interest in massive deployment of wireless sensors and network densification requires more innovation in low-latency communication across multi-hop networks. Moreover, the resource constrained nature of sensor nodes calls for more energy efficient transmission protocols, in order to increase the battery life of said devices. Therefore, it is important to investigate possible technologies that would aid in improving energy efficiency and decreasing latency in wireless sensor networks (WSN) while focusing on application specific requirements. To this end, and based on state of the art Glossy, a low-power WSN flooding protocol, this dissertation introduces two energy efficient, cooperative transmission schemes for low-power communication in WSNs, with the aim of achieving performance gains in energy efficiency, latency and power consumption. These approaches apply several cooperative transmission technologies such as physical layer network coding and transmit beamforming. Moreover, mathematical tools such as convex optimization and game theory are used in order to analytically construct the proposed schemes. Then, system level simulations are performed, where the proposed schemes are evaluated based on different criteria. First, in order to improve over all latency in the network as well as energy efficiency, MF-Glossy is proposed; a communication scheme that enables the simultaneous flooding of different packets from multiple sources to all nodes in the network. Using a communication-theoretic analysis, upper bounds on the performance of Glossy and MF-Glossy are determined. Further, simulation results show that MF-Glossy has the potential to achieve several-fold improvements in goodput and latency across a wide spectrum of network configurations at lower energy costs and comparable packet reception rates. Hardware implementation challenges are discussed as a step towards harnessing the potential of MF-Glossy in real networks, while focusing on key challenges and possible solutions. Second, under the assumption of available channel state information (CSI) at all nodes, centralized and distributed beamforming and power control algorithms are proposed and their performance is evaluated. They are compared in terms of energy efficiency to standard Glossy. Numerical simulations demonstrate that a centralized power control scheme can achieve several-fold improvements in energy efficiency over Glossy across a wide spectrum of network configurations at comparable packet reception rates. Furthermore, the more realistic scenario where CSI is not available at transmitting nodes is considered. To battle CSI unavailability, cooperation is introduced on two stages. First, cooperation between receiving and transmitting nodes is proposed for the process of CSI acquisition, where the receivers provide the transmitters with quantized (e.g. imperfect) CSI. Then, cooperation within transmitting nodes is proposed for the process of multi-cast transmit beamforming. In addition to an analytical formulation of the robust multi-cast beamforming problem with imperfect CSI, its performance is evaluated, in terms of energy efficiency, through numerical simulations. It is shown that the level of cooperation, represented by the number of limited feedback bits from receivers to transmitters, greatly impacts energy efficiency. To this end, the optimization problem of finding the optimal number of feedback bits B is formulated, as a programming problem, under QoS constraints of 5% maximum outage. Numerical simulations show that there exists an optimal number of feedback bits that maximizes energy efficiency. Finally, the effect of choosing cooperating transmitters on energy efficiency is studied, where it is shown that an optimum group of cooperating transmit nodes, also known as a transmit coalition, can be formed in order to maximize energy efficiency. The investigated techniques including optimum feedback bits and transmit coalition formation can achieve a 100% increase in energy efficiency when compared to state of the art Glossy under same operation requirements in very dense networks. In summary, the two main contributions in this dissertation provide insights on the possible performance gains that can be achieved when cooperative technologies are used in low-power wireless networks

Interference in vehicle-to-vehicle communication networks - analysis, modeling, simulation and assessment

In wireless vehicular communication networks the periodic transmission of status updates by all vehicles represents a basic service primitive, in particular for safety related applications. Due to the limited communication resources the question raises how much data each node may provide such that the quality of service required by applications can still be guaranteed under realistic interference conditions. Local broadcasts capacity is introduced and analyzed to tackle this open question

Cooperative diversity using MIMO systems

Multipath fading is one of the primary factors for degrading the performance in a wireless network. Information theoretic and past research suggest the use various diversity techniques to combat fading in wireless networks. Antenna diversity, a form of diversity technique, when incorporated in a wireless transceiver increases the system capacity and is one of the effective methods to combat fading in wireless systems. Also, recent research by Laneman et.al., Sendonaris et.al. suggests that cooperation among users in a wireless networks is an effective approach for a better signal reception in multipath fading environments. The diversity gains obtained by cooperation among the users of a wireless network is termed as cooperative diversity . Although, prior research in cooperative diversity considers users equipped with single antenna, in practical scenarios users may be able to accommodate multiple antennas due to the recent advanced research in semiconductor industry. Hence, the primary purpose of this thesis is to design, simulate and analyze an end-end performance of multi-antenna wireless systems employing cooperative multi antenna relay nodes so as to exploit the cooperative diversity and antenna diversity simultaneously in a wireless networks. Three main contributions to the area of cooperative multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless systems is presented in this thesis. First, we perform information theoretic analysis to study the impact of antenna arrays on cooperative wireless networks and propose the best possible distribution of antenna arrays among the three terminals of a simple three terminal cooperative relay network. Second, we design, simulate, and analyze a cooperative multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless systems employing orthogonal space-time block codes as proposed by Alamouti in 1998 with a decode-and-forward (DF) relay terminal. We implement a maximal ratio combining receiver that provides almost twice the diversity gain with respect to point-point multiple input multiple output link. Finally, we implement a practical receiver for cooperative reception using multiple antennas at all nodes based on Bell-Labs Layered Space Time architecture (BLAST). We incorporate a practical adaptive decode-and-forward (DF) relaying technique for reliable signal retransmission for both Alamouti space-time coding and the BLAST schemes. Results presented in terms of bit error rates and throughput show that remarkable performance gains are achievable by combining the concepts drawn from space-time coding, cooperative relaying and array processing