Highway construction for wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks are a rapidly growing field of study with many open research topics. The aim of this project is to build a hierarchy of clusters in wireless sensor networks and to communicate them through distinguished paths. Those paths are known as highways, and simplify higher level node inter-communication while reducing energy and memory requirements. To achieve this goal several distributed algorithms were designed and tested either in simulators or in real hardware. The message delivery rate, through highways, measured in hardware was close to 70% and it effectively served as base for a higher level network module to make end to end communication between every node of the connected network. This opens a way for the development of more algorithms to make Wireless Sensor Networks communications on large deployments effective and troubleless.Postprint (published version

Creating Tailored and Adaptive Network Services with the Open Orchestration C-RAN Framework

Next generation wireless communications networks will leverage software-defined radio and networking technologies, combined with cloud and fog computing. A pool of resources can then be dynamically allocated to create personalized network services (NSs). The enabling technologies are abstraction, virtualization and consolidation of resources, automatization of processes, and programmatic provisioning and orchestration. ETSI's network functions virtualization (NFV) management and orchestration (MANO) framework provides the architecture and specifications of the management layers. We introduce OOCRAN, an open-source software framework and testbed that extends existing NFV management solutions by incorporating the radio communications layers. This paper presents OOCRAN and illustrates how it monitors and manages the pool of resources for creating tailored NSs. OOCRAN can automate NS reconfiguration, but also facilitates user control. We demonstrate the dynamic deployment of cellular NSs and discuss the challenges of dynamically creating and managing tailored NSs on shared infrastructure.Comment: IEEE 5G World Forum 201

Cross-layer signalling and middleware: a survey for inelastic soft real-time applications in MANETs

This paper provides a review of the different cross-layer design and protocol tuning approaches that may be used to meet a growing need to support inelastic soft real-time streams in MANETs. These streams are characterised by critical timing and throughput requirements and low packet loss tolerance levels. Many cross-layer approaches exist either for provision of QoS to soft real-time streams in static wireless networks or to improve the performance of real and non-real-time transmissions in MANETs. The common ground and lessons learned from these approaches, with a view to the potential provision of much needed support to real-time applications in MANETs, is therefore discussed

Implementation and evaluation of the sensornet protocol for Contiki

Sensornet Protocol (SP) is a link abstraction layer between the network layer and the link layer for sensor networks. SP was proposed as the core of a future-oriented sensor node architecture that allows flexible and optimized combination between multiple coexisting protocols. This thesis implements the SP sensornet protocol on the Contiki operating system in order to: evaluate the effectiveness of the original SP services; explore further requirements and implementation trade-offs uncovered by the original proposal. We analyze the original SP design and the TinyOS implementation of SP to design the Contiki port. We implement the data sending and receiving part of SP using Contiki processes, and the neighbor management part as a group of global routines. The evaluation consists of a single-hop traffic throughput test and a multihop convergecast test. Both tests are conducted using both simulation and experimentation. We conclude from the evaluation results that SP's link-level abstraction effectively improves modularity in protocol construction without sacrificing performance, and our SP implementation on Contiki lays a good foundation for future protocol innovations in wireless sensor networks

Adam Smith goes mobile : managing services beyond 3G with the digital marketplace

The next generation of mobile communications systems is expected to offer new business opportunities to existing and new market players. A market-based middleware framework has been recently proposed whereby service providers, independent of network operators, are able to tender online service contracts to network operators in a dynamic and competitive manner. This facilitates a seamless service provision over disparate networks in a consumer-centric manner. Service providers select network bearers according to the network operators' ability to meet the QoS target, which in turn is influenced, among other things, by user's price and quality requirements. The benefits of this proposal are the complementarity of numerous network resources, the decoupling of services and networks in a self-organising distributed environment, and increased competition to consumers’ advantag

A cross-layer middleware architecture for time and safety critical applications in MANETs

Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) can be deployed instantaneously and adaptively, making them highly suitable to military, medical and disaster-response scenarios. Using real-time applications for provision of instantaneous and dependable communications, media streaming, and device control in these scenarios is a growing research field. Realising timing requirements in packet delivery is essential to safety-critical real-time applications that are both delay- and loss-sensitive. Safety of these applications is compromised by packet loss, both on the network and by the applications themselves that will drop packets exceeding delay bounds. However, the provision of this required Quality of Service (QoS) must overcome issues relating to the lack of reliable existing infrastructure, conservation of safety-certified functionality. It must also overcome issues relating to the layer-2 dynamics with causal factors including hidden transmitters and fading channels. This thesis proposes that bounded maximum delay and safety-critical application support can be achieved by using cross-layer middleware. Such an approach benefits from the use of established protocols without requiring modifications to safety-certified ones. This research proposes ROAM: a novel, adaptive and scalable cross-layer Real-time Optimising Ad hoc Middleware framework for the provision and maintenance of performance guarantees in self-configuring MANETs. The ROAM framework is designed to be scalable to new optimisers and MANET protocols and requires no modifications of protocol functionality. Four original contributions are proposed: (1) ROAM, a middleware entity abstracts information from the protocol stack using application programming interfaces (APIs) and that implements optimisers to monitor and autonomously tune conditions at protocol layers in response to dynamic network conditions. The cross-layer approach is MANET protocol generic, using minimal imposition on the protocol stack, without protocol modification requirements. (2) A horizontal handoff optimiser that responds to time-varying link quality to ensure optimal and most robust channel usage. (3) A distributed contention reduction optimiser that reduces channel contention and related delay, in response to detection of the presence of a hidden transmitter. (4) A feasibility evaluation of the ROAM architecture to bound maximum delay and jitter in a comprehensive range of ns2-MIRACLE simulation scenarios that demonstrate independence from the key causes of network dynamics: application setting and MANET configuration; including mobility or topology. Experimental results show that ROAM can constrain end-to-end delay, jitter and packet loss, to support real-time applications with critical timing requirements

Design and implementation of multicast listener discovery protocol on constrained devices

Para la aplicación y apoyo del uso de IPv6 en 6LoWPANs (Low-power Wireless Personal Area Networks), ha habido numerosas investigaciones y se han desarrollado protocolos y mecanismos estandarizados. Sin embargo para la comunicación multicast en estas redes, el tema esta aún bastante abierto a la investigación. La comunicación multicast permite conectar routers con hosts preseleccionados por grupos. La comunicación multicast es muy beneficiosa para aplicaciones con dispositivos con recursos limitados ya que ahorra energía y ancho de banda. A continuación mostramos posibles ejemplos de estas aplicaciones, la iluminación de un edificio organizada por plantas, una red de sensores de temperatura organizados por áreas y un largo número de aplicaciones basadas en la comunicación de un punto a varios puntos preseleccionados. El grupo de investigación de la universidad de Aalto (Finlandia) llamado MAMMoTH (Massive Scale Machine-to-Machine Service) tiene como uno de sus objetivos construir un protocolo multicast para dispositivos con recursos limitados. Para el desarrollo de este protocolo, es necesario un protocolo de encaminamiento multicast y un protocolo de gestión de grupos multicast. Este último, es el protocolo que he desarrollado como “research assistant” para mi proyecto final de carrera. En este proyecto final de carrera, se ha diseñado, implementado y evaluado el protocolo MLD para dispositivos con recursos limitados. MLD permite a un router IPv6 gestionar grupos multicast. No obstante, el uso de MLD en LoWPANs tiene varios problemas como la definición del area local, el tamaño de los paquete y la complejidad del comportamiento del router. El protocolo ha sido implementado en Contiki, un sistema operativo para desarrollar para el “Internet of Things”. Contiki permite conectar sistemas pequeños de poco coste con poca potencia a Internet. Hemos ampliado la pila TCP/IP de Contiki para respaldar MLD. El protocolo ha sido evaluado y analizado sobre un simulador en diferentes topologías para validar el funcionamiento. Del mismo modo, también se ha verificado que el tamaño del objeto creado no ocupaba más memoria de la disponible en los dispositivos Z1 Zolertia