Sensing with Earables: A Systematic Literature Review and Taxonomy of Phenomena

Earables have emerged as a unique platform for ubiquitous computing by augmenting ear-worn devices with state-of-the-art sensing. This new platform has spurred a wealth of new research exploring what can be detected on a wearable, small form factor. As a sensing platform, the ears are less susceptible to motion artifacts and are located in close proximity to a number of important anatomical structures including the brain, blood vessels, and facial muscles which reveal a wealth of information. They can be easily reached by the hands and the ear canal itself is affected by mouth, face, and head movements. We have conducted a systematic literature review of 271 earable publications from the ACM and IEEE libraries. These were synthesized into an open-ended taxonomy of 47 different phenomena that can be sensed in, on, or around the ear. Through analysis, we identify 13 fundamental phenomena from which all other phenomena can be derived, and discuss the different sensors and sensing principles used to detect them. We comprehensively review the phenomena in four main areas of (i) physiological monitoring and health, (ii) movement and activity, (iii) interaction, and (iv) authentication and identification. This breadth highlights the potential that earables have to offer as a ubiquitous, general-purpose platform

Device-Free Localization for Human Activity Monitoring

Over the past few decades, human activity monitoring has grabbed considerable research attentions due to greater demand for human-centric applications in healthcare and assisted living. For instance, human activity monitoring can be adopted in smart building system to improve the building management as well as the quality of life, especially for the elderly people who are facing health deterioration due to aging factor, without neglecting the important aspects such as safety and energy consumption. The existing human monitoring technology requires additional sensors, such as GPS, PIR sensors, video camera, etc., which incur cost and have several drawbacks. There exist various solutions of using other technologies for human activity monitoring in a smartly controlled environment, either device-assisted or device-free. A radio frequency (RF)-based device-free indoor localization, known as device-free localization (DFL), has attracted a lot of research effort in recent years due its simplicity, low cost, and compatibility with the existing hardware equipped with RF interface. This chapter introduces the potential of RF signals, commonly adopted for wireless communications, as sensing tools for DFL system in human activity monitoring. DFL is based on the concept of radio irregularity where human existence in wireless communication field may interfere and change the wireless characteristics

Sensing with Earables: A Systematic Literature Review and Taxonomy of Phenomena

Earables have emerged as a unique platform for ubiquitous computing by augmenting ear-worn devices with state-of-the-art sensing. This new platform has spurred a wealth of new research exploring what can be detected on a wearable, small form factor. As a sensing platform, the ears are less susceptible to motion artifacts and are located in close proximity to a number of important anatomical structures including the brain, blood vessels, and facial muscles which reveal a wealth of information. They can be easily reached by the hands and the ear canal itself is affected by mouth, face, and head movements. We have conducted a systematic literature review of 271 earable publications from the ACM and IEEE libraries. These were synthesized into an open-ended taxonomy of 47 different phenomena that can be sensed in, on, or around the ear. Through analysis, we identify 13 fundamental phenomena from which all other phenomena can be derived, and discuss the different sensors and sensing principles used to detect them. We comprehensively review the phenomena in four main areas of (i) physiological monitoring and health, (ii) movement and activity, (iii) interaction, and (iv) authentication and identification. This breadth highlights the potential that earables have to offer as a ubiquitous, general-purpose platform

Toward UWB Impulse Radio Sensing: Fundamentals, Potentials, and Challenges

Radio sensing is a rapidly emerging research field. It focuses on designing an integrated communication system that can also perform localization and radar functionalities sharing the same transmit signals and potentially the same hardware. Ultra-wideband (UWB) impulse radio is a promising technology for radio sensing because it offers a high-range resolution and direct access to the channel impulse response (CIR) to observe the multipath components (MPCs) of the wideband channel caused by scattering at target objects. This approach enables a wide range of functionalities and applications, especially in the field of mobility and transportation. The foundation is given by the signal propagation and channel modeling of the UWB channel, which is briefly revisited in this chapter. Based on the CIR and estimated MPCs the target object can be localized like a multistatic passive radar. The influence of geometry in a passive target localization system is studied by calculating the geometric dilution of precision (GDOP). In addition to passive localization more tasks and functionalities of radio sensing, are briefly introduced including detection, tracking, imaging, counting, and classification. The chapter concludes with further research directions and challenges in UWB radio sensing, especially for real-world use in the context of mobility applications

Kablosuz sensör ağlarinda yönlü antenlerle enerji̇ veri̇mli̇ yönlendi̇rme

Without measurements, sustainable development effort can not progress in the right direction. Wireless sensor networks are vital for monitoring in real time and making accurate measurements for such an endeavor. However small energy storage in the sensors can become a bottleneck if the wireless sensor network is not optimized at the hardware and software level. Directional antennas are such optimization technologies at the hardware level. They have advantages over the omnidirectional antennas, such as high gain, less interference, longer transmission range, and less power consumption. In wireless sensor networks, most of the energy is consumed for communication. Considering the limited energy in small scale batteries of the sensors, energy efficient (aware) routing, is one of the most important software optimization techniques. The main goal of the technique is to improve the lifetime of the wireless sensor networks. In the light of these observations, it is desirable to do a coupled design of directional antennas with network software, for fully exploiting the advantages offered by directional antenna technology. In this thesis, the possibilities of doing such integrated design are surveyed and improvements are suggested. The design of the proposed microstrip patch antenna array is discussed and the performance characteristics are assessed through simulations. In the benchmarks, the proposed routing method showed improvements in energy usage compared to the existing approaches.Ölçümler olmadan sürdürülebilir kalkınma çabaları doğru yönde ilerleyemez. Bu tür çabalar için, kablosuz sensör ağları, gerçek zamanlı olarak izleme ve kesin ölçümler yapmak için vazgeçilemez unsurdur. Ancak, sensör ağı, donanım ve yazılım düzeylerinde optimize edilmemişse, sensörlerde enerji yetersizliği görülebilinir. Yönlü antenler, donanım düzeyinde uygulanan optimizasyon teknolojilerinden biri olmakla birlikte, çok yönlü antenlerden farklı olarak, yüksek kazanç, daha az parazit, daha uzun iletim mesafesi ve daha az güç tüketimi sağlarlar. Kablosuz sensör ağlarında enerjinin çoğu iletişim için tüketilir. Sensörlerdeki limitli enerjili küçük ölçekli piller göz önüne alındığında, yazılım düzeyindeki önemli metodlardan biri olan enerji verimli (duyarlı) yönlendirme protokolü, kablosuz sensör ağının genel enerji kullanımını optimize etmek ve ömrünü uzatmak için gereklidir. Bu gözlemlerin ışığında, yönlü anten teknolojisinin sunduğu potansiyel avantajlardan tam olarak yararlanmak için, yönlü antenlerin ağ yazılımıyla birlikte entegre tasarımını yapmak arzu edilir. Bu tezde, böyle bir entegre tasarımın yapılma olasılıkları araştırılmış ve iyileştirmeler önerilmiştir. Tezde, küçük şeritli yamalı anten dizisinin tasarımı tartışılmış ve performans karakteristikleri simulasyonlarla ölçülmüştür. Önerilen yönlendirme algoritması, diğer yönlendirme algoritmaları ile karşılaştırıldığında, enerji kullanımında iyileştirmeler göstermiştirM.S. - Master of Scienc

Facilitating Flexible Link Layer Protocols for Future Wireless Communication Systems

This dissertation addresses the problem of designing link layer protocols which are flexible enough to accommodate the demands offuture wireless communication systems (FWCS).We show that entire link layer protocols with diverse requirements and responsibilities can be composed out of reconfigurable and reusable components.We demonstrate this by designing and implementinga novel concept termed Flexible Link Layer (FLL) architecture.Through extensive simulations and practical experiments, we evaluate a prototype of the suggested architecture in both fixed-spectrumand dynamic spectrum access (DSA) networks. FWCS are expected to overcome diverse challenges including the continual growthin traffic volume and number of connected devices.Furthermore, they are envisioned to support a widerange of new application requirements and operating conditions.Technology trends, including smart homes, communicating machines, and vehicularnetworks, will not only grow on a scale that once was unimaginable, they will also become the predominant communication paradigm, eventually surpassing today's human-produced network traffic. In order for this to become reality, today's systems have to evolve in many ways.They have to exploit allocated resources in a more efficient and energy-conscious manner.In addition to that, new methods for spectrum access and resource sharingneed to be deployed.Having the diversification of applications and network conditions in mind, flexibility at all layers of a communication system is of paramount importance in order to meet the desired goals. However, traditional communication systems are often designed with specific and distinct applications in mind. Therefore, system designers can tailor communication systems according to fixedrequirements and operating conditions, often resulting in highly optimized but inflexible systems.Among the core problems of such design is the mix of data transfer and management aspects.Such a combination of concerns clearly hinders the reuse and extension of existing protocols. To overcome this problem, the key idea explored in this dissertation is a component-based design to facilitate the development of more flexible and versatile link layer protocols.Specifically, the FLL architecture, suggested in this dissertation, employs a generic, reconfigurable data transfer protocol around which one or more complementary protocols, called link layer applications, are responsible for management-related aspects of the layer. To demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach, we have designed andimplemented a prototype of the FLL architecture on the basis ofa reconfigurable software defined radio (SDR) testbed.Employing the SDR prototype as well as computer simulations, thisdissertation describes various experiments used to examine a range of link layerprotocols for both fixed-spectrum and DSA networks. This dissertation firstly outlines the challenges faced by FWCSand describes DSA as a possible technology component for their construction.It then specifies the requirements for future DSA systemsthat provide the basis for our further considerations.We then review the background on link layer protocols, surveyrelated work on the construction of flexible protocol frameworks,and compare a range of actual link layer protocols and algorithms.Based on the results of this analysis, we design, implement, and evaluatethe FLL architecture and a selection of actual link layer protocols. We believe the findings of this dissertation add substantively to the existing literature on link layer protocol design and are valuable for theoreticians and experimentalists alike

Efficient packet delivery in modern communication networks

Modern communication networks are often designed for diverse applications, such as voice, data and video. Packet-switching is often adapted in today’s networks to transmit multiple types of traffic. In packet-switching networks, network performance is directly affected by how the networks handle their packets. This work addresses the packet-handling issues from the following two aspects: Quality of Service (QoS) and network coding. QoS has been a well-addressed issue in the study of IP-based networks. Generally, nodes in a network need to be informed of the state of each communication link in order to make intelligent decisions to route packets according to their QoS demands. The link state can, however, change rapidly in a network; therefore, nodes would have to receive frequent link state updates in order to maintain the latest link state information at all times. Frequent link state updating is resource-consuming and hence impractical in network design. Therefore, there is a trade-off between the link state updating frequency and the QoS routing performance. It is necessary to design a link state update algorithm that utilizes less frequent link state updates to achieve a high degree of satisfaction in QoS performance. The first part of this work addresses this link state update problem and provides two solutions: ROSE and Smart Packet Marking. ROSE is a class-based link state update algorithm, in which the class boundaries are designed based on the statistical data of users’ QoS requests. By doing so, link state update is triggered only when certain necessary conditions are met. For example, if the available bandwidth of a link is fluctuating within a range that is higher than the highest possible bandwidth request, there is no need to update the state of this link. Smart Packet Marking utilizes a similar concept like ROSE, except that the link state information is carried in the probing packet sent in conjunction with each connection request instead of through link state updates. The second part of this work addresses the packet-handling issue by means of network coding. Instead of the traditional store-and-forward approach, network coding allows intermediate nodes in a multi-hop path to code multiple packets into one in order to reduce bandwidth consumption. The coded packet can later be decoded by its recipients to retrieve the original plain packet. Network coding is found to be beneficial in many network applications. This dissertation makes contributions in network coding in two areas: peer-to-peer file sharing and wireless ad-hoc networks. The benefit of network coding in peer-to-peer file sharing networks is analyzed, and a network coding algorithm – Downloader-Initiated Random Linear Network Coding (DRLNC) – is proposed. DLRNC shifts the coding decision from the seeders to the leechers; by doing so it solves the “collision” problem without increasing the field size. In wireless network coding, this work addresses the implementation difficulty pertaining to MAC layer scheduling. To achieve the ideal network coding gain in wireless networks, it requires perfect MAC layer scheduling. This dissertation first provides an algorithm to solve the ideal-case MAC layer scheduling problem. Since the ideal MAC layer schedule is often difficult to realize, a practical approach is then proposed to increase the network coding performance by modifying the ACK packets in the 802.11 MAC

Études des systèmes de communications sans-fil dans un environnement rural difficile

Les systèmes de communication sans fil, ayant de nombreux avantages pour les zones rurales, peuvent aider la population à bien s'y établir au lieu de déménager vers les centres urbains, accentuant ainsi les problèmes d’embouteillage, de pollution et d’habitation. Pour une planification et un déploiement efficace de ces systèmes, l'atténuation du signal radio et la réussite des liens d’accès doivent être envisagées. Ce travail s’intéresse à la provision d’accès Internet sans fil dans le contexte rural canadien caractérisé par sa végétation dense et ses variations climatiques extrêmes vu que les solutions existantes sont plus concentrées sur les zones urbaines. Pour cela, nous étudions plusieurs cas d’environnements difficiles affectant les performances des systèmes de communication. Ensuite, nous comparons les systèmes de communication sans fil les plus connus. Le réseau sans fil fixe utilisant le Wi-Fi ayant l’option de longue portée est choisi pour fournir les communications aux zones rurales. De plus, nous évaluons l'atténuation du signal radio, car les modèles existants sont conçus, en majorité, pour les technologies mobiles en zones urbaines. Puis, nous concevons un nouveau modèle empirique pour les pertes de propagation. Des approches utilisant l’apprentissage automatique sont ensuite proposées, afin de prédire le succès des liens sans fil, d’optimiser le choix des points d'accès et d’établir les limites de validité des paramètres des liens sans fil fiables. Les solutions proposées font preuve de précision (jusqu’à 94 % et 8 dB RMSE) et de simplicité, tout en considérant une multitude de paramètres difficiles à prendre en compte tous ensemble avec les solutions classiques existantes. Les approches proposées requièrent des données fiables qui sont généralement difficiles à acquérir. Dans notre cas, les données de DIGICOM, un fournisseur Internet sans fil en zone rurale canadien, sont utilisées. Wireless communication systems have many advantages for rural areas, as they can help people settle comfortably and conveniently in these regions instead of relocating to urban centers causing various overcrowding, habitation, and pollution problems. For effective planning and deployment of these technologies, the attenuation of the radio signal and the success of radio links must be precisely predicted. This work examines the provision of wireless internet access in the Canadian rural context, characterized by its dense vegetation and its extreme climatic variations, since existing solutions are more focused on urban areas. Hence, we study several cases of difficult environments affecting the performances of communication systems. Then, we compare the best-known wireless communication systems. The fixed wireless network using Wi-Fi, having the long-range option, is chosen to provide wireless access to rural areas. Moreover, we evaluate the attenuation of the radio signal, since the existing path loss models are generally designed for mobile technologies in urban areas. Then, we design a new path loss empirical model. Several approaches are then proposed by using machine learning to predict the success of wireless links, optimize the choice of access points and establish the validity limits for the pertinent parameters of reliable wireless connections. The proposed solutions are characterized by their accuracy (up to 94% and 8 dB RMSE) and simplicity while considering a wide range of parameters that are difficult to consider all together with conventional solutions. These approaches require reliable data, which is generally difficult to acquire. In our case, the dataset from DIGICOM, a rural Canadian wireless internet service provider, is used

Efficient design of WIMAX/802.16 mesh networks

Broadband wireless networks are becoming increasingly popular due to their fast and inexpensive deployment and their capabilities of providing flexible and ubiquitous Internet access. While the majority of existing broadband wireless networks are still exclusively limited to single hop access, it is the ability of these networks to forward data frames over multi-hop wireless routes which enabled them to easily extend the network coverage area. Unfortunately, achieving good multi- hop throughput has been challenging due to several factors, such as lossy wireless links caused by interference from concurrent transmissions, and intra-path interference caused by transmissions on successive hops along a single path. A wireless mesh network WMN consists of a number of stationary wireless mesh routers, forming a wireless backbone. The wireless mesh routers serve as access points (APs) for wireless mobile devices, and some of them also act as gateways to the Internet via high speed wireless links. Several technologies are currently being considered for mesh (multi-hop) networks, including, IEEE 802.11 (both single channel and multi-channel), IEEE 802.16/WiMAX, and next generation cellular networks (LTE). In this work, we focus on the IEEE 802.16. To maximize the network performance of mesh networks (e.g., throughput), it is essential to consider a cross-layer design, exploiting the dependency between protocol layers such as the routing network layer and the scheduling resource allocation MAC layer. Therefore this PhD thesis considers a cross-layer design approach for designing efficient wireless mesh networks; we first develop mathematical models (link-based and path-based) for the problem of joint routing tree construction and link scheduling in WiMAX-based mesh networks with the objective of minimizing the schedule length to satisfy a set of uplink and downlink demands. This is achieved by maximizing the number of concurrent active transmissions in the network by efficiently reusing the spectrum spatially. Second, we exploit the broadcasts nature of the wireless medium and enhance our design models by incorporating opportunistic network coding into the joint routing tree construction and link scheduling problem. Identifying coding-aware routing structures and utilizing the broadcasting feature of the wireless medium play an important role in realizing the achievable gain of network coding. Last, the uprising mobile WiMAX (802.16e amendment) has introduced more difficulties and challenges into the network design problem; thus, ensuring larger connection lifetime and better routing stability become of greater interest for the joint routing and scheduling problem. This is addressed by augmenting the previously designed models. Throughout this thesis, we assume centralized scheduling at the base station (BS) and we develop, for the joint problems, integer linear programming (ILP) models which require the enumeration of all feasible solutions to reach the optimal solution. Given their complexities, we rely on optimization decomposition methods using column generation for solving each model in an efficient way