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

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

Information-theoretic limits of dense underwater networks

Information-theoretic throughput scaling laws are analyzed in an underwater acoustic network with n regularly located nodes on a unit square, in which both bandwidth and received signal power can be severely limited. A narrow-band model is assumed where the carrier frequency is allowed to scale as a function of n. We first characterize an attenuation parameter that depends on the frequency scaling as well as the transmission distance. In the dense network having unit area, a cut-set upper bound on the capacity scaling is then derived. We show that there exists either a bandwidth or a power limitation, or both, according to the path-loss attenuation regimes, thus yielding the upper bound that has three fundamentally different operating regimes. In the dense network, we also describe an achievable scheme based on the simple nearest-neighbor multi-hop transmission. The operating regimes that guarantee the order optimality are identified, where frequency scaling is instrumental towards achieving the order optimality in the regimes

A modified energy efficient multi-hop routing protocol in wireless sensor networks

Energy efficient routing protocols in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is an important area of research due to energy limitations. It is therefore important to maximize the limited energy so as to increase the network lifetime of the WSN. In this paper, a modified energy efficient multi-hop routing protocol (mEEMRP) in a 200 m2 field is presented. This protocol is based on a technique that involves balancing load between communication management (CM) nodes during the multi-hop routing of aggregated data to the base station (BS), where the residual energy (RE) levels of CM nodes are considered as well as the distance between neighboring CM nodes. Simulation results showed that mEEMRP yielded a 1.77% improvement over energy efficient multi-hop routing protocol (EEMRP) in terms of network lifetime. More so, the proposed mEEMRP also improved the energy consumption and the number of packets received at the BS by 4.83% and 7.41%, respectively.Keywords: Routing protocol, Multi-hop routing, Network lifetime, mEEMRP, EEMR