Socio-economic aware data forwarding in mobile sensing networks and systems

The vision for smart sustainable cities is one whereby urban sensing is core to optimising city operation which in turn improves citizen contentment. Wireless Sensor Networks are envisioned to become pervasive form of data collection and analysis for smart cities but deployment of millions of inter-connected sensors in a city can be cost-prohibitive. Given the ubiquity and ever-increasing capabilities of sensor-rich mobile devices, Wireless Sensor Networks with Mobile Phones (WSN-MP) provide a highly flexible and ready-made wireless infrastructure for future smart cities. In a WSN-MP, mobile phones not only generate the sensing data but also relay the data using cellular communication or short range opportunistic communication. The largest challenge here is the efficient transmission of potentially huge volumes of sensor data over sometimes meagre or faulty communications networks in a cost-effective way. This thesis investigates distributed data forwarding schemes in three types of WSN-MP: WSN with mobile sinks (WSN-MS), WSN with mobile relays (WSN-HR) and Mobile Phone Sensing Systems (MPSS). For these dynamic WSN-MP, realistic models are established and distributed algorithms are developed for efficient network performance including data routing and forwarding, sensing rate control and and pricing. This thesis also considered realistic urban sensing issues such as economic incentivisation and demonstrates how social network and mobility awareness improves data transmission. Through simulations and real testbed experiments, it is shown that proposed algorithms perform better than state-of-the-art schemes.Open Acces

Modeling and Implementation of Wireless Sensor Networks for Logistics Applications

Logistics has experienced a long time of developments and improvements based on the advanced vehicle technologies, transportation systems, traffic network extension and logistics processes. In the last decades, the complexity has increased significantly and this has created complex logistics networks over multiple continents. Because of the close cooperation, these logistics networks are highly dependent on each other in sharing and processing the logistics information. Every customer has many suppliers and vice versa. The conventional centralized control continues but reaches some limitations such as the different distribution of suppliers, the complexity and flexibility of processing orders or the dynamics of the logistic objects. In order to overcome these disadvantages, the paradigm of autonomous logistics is proposed and promises a better technical solution for current logistics systems. In autonomous logistics, the decision making is shifted toward the logistic objects which are defined as material items (e.g., vehicles, containers) or immaterial items (e.g., customer orders) of a networked logistics system. These objects have the ability to interact with each other and make decisions according to their own objectives. In the technical aspect, with the rapid development of innovative sensor technology, namely Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), each element in the network can self-organize and interact with other elements for information transmission. The attachment of an electronic sensor element into a logistic object will create an autonomous environment in both the communication and the logistic domain. With this idea, the requirements of logistics can be fulfilled; for example, the monitoring data can be precise, comprehensive and timely. In addition, the goods flow management can be transferred to the information logistic object management, which is easier by the help of information technologies. However, in order to transmit information between these logistic objects, one requirement is that a routing protocol is necessary. The Opportunistic relative Distance-Enabled Uni-cast Routing (ODEUR ) protocol which is proposed and investigated in this thesis shows that it can be used in autonomous environments like autonomous logistics. Moreover, the support of mobility, multiple sinks and auto-connection in this protocol enhances the dynamics of logistic objects. With a general model which covers a range from low-level issues to high-level protocols, many services such as real time monitoring of environmental conditions, context-aware applications and localization make the logistic objects (embedded with sensor equipment) more advanced in information communication and data processing. The distributed management service in each sensor node allows the flexible configuration of logistic items at any time during the transportation. All of these integrated features introduce a new technical solution for smart logistic items and intelligent transportation systems. In parallel, a management system, WSN data Collection and Management System (WiSeCoMaSys), is designed to interact with the deployed Wireless Sensor Networks. This tool allows the user to easily manipulate the sensor networks remotely. With its rich set of features such as real time data monitoring, data analysis and visualization, per-node management, and alerts, this tool helps both developers and users in the design and deployment of a sensor network. In addition, an analytical model is developed for comparison with the results from simulations and experiments. Focusing on the use of probability theory to model the network links, this model considers several important factors such as packet reception rate and network traffic which are used in the simulation and experiment parts. Moreover, the comparison between simulation, experiment and analytical results is also carried out to estimate the accuracy of the design and make several improvements of the simulation accuracy. Finally, all of the above parts are integrated in one unique system. This system is verified by both simulations in logistic scenarios (e.g., harbors, warehouses and containers) and experiments. The results show that the proposed model and protocol have a good packet delivery rate, little memory requirements and low delay. Accordingly, this system design is practical and applicable in logistics

Implementation of Multicast Routing Protocol on MANET

Underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) have been showed as a promising technology to monitor and explore the oceans in lieu of traditional undersea wireline instruments. Nevertheless, the data gathering of UWSNs is still severely limited because of the acoustic channel communication characteristics. One way to improve the data collection in UWSNs is through the design of routing protocols considering the unique characteristics of the underwater acoustic communication and the highly dynamic network topology. In this paper, we propose the GEDAR routing protocol for UWSNs. GEDAR is an anycast, geographic and opportunistic routing protocol that routes data packets from sensor nodes to multiple sonobuoys (sinks) at the sea�s surface. When the node is in a communication void region, GEDAR switches to the recovery mode procedure which is based on topology control through the depth adjustment of the void nodes, instead of the traditional approaches using control messages to discover and maintain routing paths along void region

The Programmable City

AbstractThe worldwide proliferation of mobile connected devices has brought about a revolution in the way we live, and will inevitably guide the way in which we design the cities of the future. However, designing city-wide systems poses a new set of challenges in terms of scale, manageability and citizen involvement. Solving these challenges is crucial to making sure that the vision of a programmable Internet of Things (IoT) becomes reality. In this article we will analyse these issues and present a novel programming approach to designing scalable systems for the Internet of Things, with an emphasis on smart city applications, that addresses these issues