Performance assessment of mobility solutions for IPv6-based healthcare wireless sensor networks

This thesis focuses on the study of mobile wireless sensor networks applied to healthcare scenarios. The promotion of better quality-of-life for hospitalized patients is addressed in this research work with a solution that can help these patients to keep their mobility (if possible). The solution proposed allows remote monitoring and control of patients’ health in real-time and without interruptions. Small sensor nodes able to collect and send wirelessly the health parameters allow for the control of the patients' health condition. A network infrastructure, composed by several access points, allows the connection of the sensor nodes (carried by the patients) to remote healthcare providers. To ensure continuous access to sensor nodes special attention should be dedicated to manage the transition of these sensor nodes between different access points’ coverage areas. The process of changing an access point attachment of a sensor node is called handover. In that context, this thesis proposes a new handover mechanism that can ensure continuous connection to mobile sensor nodes in a healthcare wireless sensor network. Due to the limitations of sensor nodes’ resources, namely available energy (these sensor nodes are typically powered by small batteries), the proposed mechanism pays a special attention in the optimization of energy consumption. To achieve this optimization, part of this work is dedicated to the construction of a small sensor node. The handover mechanism proposed in this work is called Hand4MAC (handover mechanism for MAC layer). This mechanism is compared with other mechanisms commonly used in handover management. The Hand4MAC mechanism is deployed and validated through by simulation and in a real testbed. The scenarios used for the validation reproduces a hospital ward. The performance evaluation is focused in the percentage of time that senor nodes are accessible to the network while traveling across several access points’ coverage areas and the energy expenditures in handover processes. The experiments performed take into account various parameters that are the following: number of sent messages, number of received messages, multicast message usage, energy consumption, number of sensor nodes present in the scenario, velocity of sensor nodes, and time-to-live value. In both simulation and real testbed, the Hand4MAC mechanism is shown to perform better than all the other handover mechanisms tested. In this comparison it was only considered the most promising handover mechanisms proposed in the literature.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

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

A Review on Provisioning Quality of Service of Wireless Telemedicine for E-Health Services

In general, on-line medical consultation reduces time required for medical consultation induces improvement in the quality and efficiency of healthcare services. All major types of current e-health applications such as ECG, X-ray, video, diagnosis images and other common applications have been included in the scope of the study. In addition, the provision of Quality of Service (QoS) for the application of specific healthcare services in e-health, the scheme of priority for e-health services and the support of QoS in wireless networks and techniques or methods for IEEE 802.11 to guarantee the provision of QoS has also been assessed. In e-health, medical services in remote locations such as rural healthcare centers, ambulances, ships as well as home healthcare services can be supported through the applications of e-health services such as medical databases, electronic health records and the routing of text, audio, video and images. Given this, an adaptive resource allocation for a wireless network with multiple service types and multiple priorities have been proposed. For the provision of an acceptable QoS level to users of e-health services, prioritization is an important criterion in a multi-traffic network. The requirement for QoS provisioning in wireless broadband medical networks have paved the pathway for bandwidth requirements and the real-time or live transmission of medical applications. From the study, good performance of the proposed scheme has been validated by the results obtained. The proposed wireless network is capable of handling medical applications for both normal and life-threatening conditions as characterized by the level of emergencies. In addition, the bandwidth allocation and admission control algorithm for IEEE 802.16- based design specifically for wireless telemedicine/e-health services have also been presented in the study. It has been concluded that under busy traffic conditions, the proposed architecture can used as a feasible and reliable infrastructure network for telemedicine

A Survey on the Security and the Evolution of Osmotic and Catalytic Computing for 5G Networks

The 5G networks have the capability to provide high compatibility for the new applications, industries, and business models. These networks can tremendously improve the quality of life by enabling various use cases that require high data-rate, low latency, and continuous connectivity for applications pertaining to eHealth, automatic vehicles, smart cities, smart grid, and the Internet of Things (IoT). However, these applications need secure servicing as well as resource policing for effective network formations. There have been a lot of studies, which emphasized the security aspects of 5G networks while focusing only on the adaptability features of these networks. However, there is a gap in the literature which particularly needs to follow recent computing paradigms as alternative mechanisms for the enhancement of security. To cover this, a detailed description of the security for the 5G networks is presented in this article along with the discussions on the evolution of osmotic and catalytic computing-based security modules. The taxonomy on the basis of security requirements is presented, which also includes the comparison of the existing state-of-the-art solutions. This article also provides a security model, "CATMOSIS", which idealizes the incorporation of security features on the basis of catalytic and osmotic computing in the 5G networks. Finally, various security challenges and open issues are discussed to emphasize the works to follow in this direction of research.Comment: 34 pages, 7 tables, 7 figures, Published In 5G Enabled Secure Wireless Networks, pp. 69-102. Springer, Cham, 201

Design for energy-efficient and reliable fog-assisted healthcare IoT systems

Cardiovascular disease and diabetes are two of the most dangerous diseases as they are the leading causes of death in all ages. Unfortunately, they cannot be completely cured with the current knowledge and existing technologies. However, they can be effectively managed by applying methods of continuous health monitoring. Nonetheless, it is difficult to achieve a high quality of healthcare with the current health monitoring systems which often have several limitations such as non-mobility support, energy inefficiency, and an insufficiency of advanced services. Therefore, this thesis presents a Fog computing approach focusing on four main tracks, and proposes it as a solution to the existing limitations. In the first track, the main goal is to introduce Fog computing and Fog services into remote health monitoring systems in order to enhance the quality of healthcare. In the second track, a Fog approach providing mobility support in a real-time health monitoring IoT system is proposed. The handover mechanism run by Fog-assisted smart gateways helps to maintain the connection between sensor nodes and the gateways with a minimized latency. Results show that the handover latency of the proposed Fog approach is 10%-50% less than other state-of-the-art mobility support approaches. In the third track, the designs of four energy-efficient health monitoring IoT systems are discussed and developed. Each energy-efficient system and its sensor nodes are designed to serve a specific purpose such as glucose monitoring, ECG monitoring, or fall detection; with the exception of the fourth system which is an advanced and combined system for simultaneously monitoring many diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Results show that these sensor nodes can continuously work, depending on the application, up to 70-155 hours when using a 1000 mAh lithium battery. The fourth track mentioned above, provides a Fog-assisted remote health monitoring IoT system for diabetic patients with cardiovascular disease. Via several proposed algorithms such as QT interval extraction, activity status categorization, and fall detection algorithms, the system can process data and detect abnormalities in real-time. Results show that the proposed system using Fog services is a promising approach for improving the treatment of diabetic patients with cardiovascular disease

Wireless Patient Monitoring over 4G Network

The purpose of this thesis is to explain how remote patient monitoring systems work over the 4G network using wearable sensors and corresponding interface devices. Gathered data from the sensing devices are carried over the Monitoring Wireless Sensor Network to the more elaborate 4G Network where the data is then relayed to the interface devices for reading, storage, interpretation and effective utilization. This thesis describes the underlying technologies and principles of sensors and sensor net-works, the concept of the 4G Network and how it integrates with the sensor network. The goal of Wireless Patient Monitoring over the 4G Network is link the spatial gap that exist between Healthcare and ICT, this will in turn enhance patients care efficiency while cutting costs, maximising profits and increase security while monitoring patients. This thesis is important in that it gives the reader an overview and basic idea of how a wireless patient monitoring system works over the 4G Network. An increasing number of ICT firms, healthcare and medical institutions are investing heavily on remote patient monitoring systems technologies and this thesis provides the reader the insight of how such systems work and how they can be implemented

Provisioning Quality of Service of Wireless Telemedicine for E-Health Services: A Review

In general, on-line medical consultation reduces time required for medical consultation and induces improvement in the quality and efficiency of healthcare services. The scope of study includes several key features of present day e-health applications such as X-ray, ECG, video, diagnosis images and other common applications. Moreover, the provision of Quality of Service (QoS) in terms of specific medical care services in e-health, the priority set for e-health services and the support of QoS in wireless networks and techniques or methods aimed at IEEE 802.11 to secure the provision of QoS has been assessed as well. In e-health, medical services in remote places which include rustic healthcare centres, ships, ambulances and home healthcare services can be supported through the applications of e-health services such as medical databases, electronic health data and the transferring of text, video, sound and images. Given this, a proposal has been made for a multiple service wireless networking with multiple sets of priorities. In relation to the terms of an acceptable QoS level by the customers of e-health services, prioritization is an important criterion in a multi-traffic network. The requirement for QoS in medical networking of wireless broadband has paved the way for bandwidth prerequisites and the live transmission or real-time medical applications. The proposed wireless network is capable of handling medical applications for both normal and life-threatening conditions as characterized by the level of emergencies. In addition, the allocation of bandwidth and the system that controls admittance designed based on IEEE 802.16 especially for e-health services or wireless telemedicine will be discussed in this study. It has been concluded that under busy traffic conditions, the proposed architecture can used as a feasible and reliable infrastructure network for telemedicine