Performance enhancement solutions in wireless communication networks

In this dissertation thesis, we study the new relaying protocols for different wireless network systems. We analyze and evaluate an efficiency of the transmission in terms of the outage probability over Rayleigh fading channels by mathematical analyses. The theoretical analyses are verified by performing Monte Carlo simulations. First, we study the cooperative relaying in the Two-Way Decode-and-Forward (DF) and multi-relay DF scheme for a secondary system to obtain spectrum access along with a primary system. In particular, we proposed the Two-Way DF scheme with Energy Harvesting, and the Two-Way DF Non-orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) scheme with digital network coding. Besides, we also investigate the wireless systems with multi-relay; the best relay selection is presented to optimize the effect of the proposed scheme. The transmission protocols of the proposed schemes EHAF (Energy Harvesting Amplify and Forward) and EHDF (Energy Harvesting Decode and Forward) are compared together in the same environment and in term of outage probability. Hence, with the obtained results, we conclude that the proposed schemes improve the performance of the wireless cooperative relaying systems, particularly their throughput. Second, we focus on investigating the NOMA technology and proposing the optimal solutions (protocols) to advance the data rate and to ensure the Quality of Service (QoS) for the users in the next generation of wireless communications. In this thesis, we propose a Two-Way DF NOMA scheme (called a TWNOMA protocol) in which an intermediate relay helps two source nodes to communicate with each other. Simulation and analysis results show that the proposed protocol TWNOMA is improving the data rate when comparing with a conventional Two-Way scheme using digital network coding (DNC) (called a TWDNC protocol), Two-Way scheme without using DNC (called a TWNDNC protocol) and Two-Way scheme in amplify-and-forward(AF) relay systems (called a TWANC protocol). Finally, we considered the combination of the NOMA and physical layer security (PLS) in the Underlay Cooperative Cognitive Network (UCCN). The best relay selection strategy is investigated, which uses the NOMA and considers the PLS to enhance the transmission efficiency and secrecy of the new generation wireless networks.V této dizertační práci je provedena studie nových přenosových protokolů pro různé bezdrátové síťové systémy. S využitím matematické analýzy jsme analyzovali a vyhodnotili efektivitu přenosu z hlediska pravděpodobnosti výpadku přes Rayleighův kanál. Teoretické analýzy jsou ověřeny provedenými simulacemi metodou Monte Carlo. Nejprve došlo ke studii kooperativního přenosu ve dvoucestném dekóduj-a-předej (Two-Way Decode-and-Forward–TWDF) a vícecestném DF schématu s větším počtem přenosových uzlů pro sekundární systém, kdy takto byl získán přístup ke spektru spolu s primárním systémem. Konkrétně jsme navrhli dvoucestné DF schéma se získáváním energie a dvoucestné DF neortogonální schéma s mnohonásobným přístupem (Non-orthogonal Multiple Access–NOMA) s digitálním síťovým kódováním. Kromě toho rovněž zkoumáme bezdrátové systémy s větším počtem přenosových uzlů, kde je přítomen výběr nejlepšího přenosového uzlu pro optimalizaci efektivnosti navrženého schématu. Přenosové protokoly navržených schémat EHAF (Energy Harvesting Amplify and Forward) a EHDF(Energy Harvesting Decode and Forward) jsou společně porovnány v identickém prostředí z pohledu pravděpodobnosti výpadku. Následně, na základě získaných výsledků, jsme dospěli k závěru, že navržená schémata vylepšují výkonnost bezdrátových kooperativních systémů, konkrétně jejich propustnost. Dále jsme se zaměřili na zkoumání NOMA technologie a navrhli optimální řešení (protokoly) pro urychlení datového přenosu a zajištění QoS v další generaci bezdrátových komunikací. V této práci jsme navrhli dvoucestné DF NOMA schéma (nazýváno jako TWNOMA protokol), ve kterém mezilehlý přenosový uzel napomáhá dvěma zdrojovým uzlům komunikovat mezi sebou. Výsledky simulace a analýzy ukazují, že navržený protokol TWNOMA vylepšuje dosaženou přenosovou rychlost v porovnání s konvenčním dvoucestným schématem používajícím DNC (TWDNC protokol), dvoucestným schématem bez použití DNC (TWNDNC protokol) a dvoucestným schématem v zesil-a-předej (amplify-and-forward) přenosových systémech (TWANC protokol). Nakonec jsme zvážili využití kombinace NOMA a zabezpečení fyzické vrstvy (Physical Layer Security–PLS) v podpůrné kooperativní kognitivní síti (Underlay Cooperative Cognitive Network–UCCN). Zde je zde zkoumán výběr nejlepšího přenosového uzlu, který užívá NOMA a bere v úvahu PLS pro efektivnější přenos a zabezpečení nové generace bezdrátových sítí.440 - Katedra telekomunikační technikyvyhově

Markov Decision Processes with Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of autonomous and resource-limited devices. The devices cooperate to monitor one or more physical phenomena within an area of interest. WSNs operate as stochastic systems because of randomness in the monitored environments. For long service time and low maintenance cost, WSNs require adaptive and robust methods to address data exchange, topology formulation, resource and power optimization, sensing coverage and object detection, and security challenges. In these problems, sensor nodes are to make optimized decisions from a set of accessible strategies to achieve design goals. This survey reviews numerous applications of the Markov decision process (MDP) framework, a powerful decision-making tool to develop adaptive algorithms and protocols for WSNs. Furthermore, various solution methods are discussed and compared to serve as a guide for using MDPs in WSNs

Completely Automated Public Physical test to tell Computers and Humans Apart: A usability study on mobile devices

A very common approach adopted to fight the increasing sophistication and dangerousness of malware and hacking is to introduce more complex authentication mechanisms. This approach, however, introduces additional cognitive burdens for users and lowers the whole authentication mechanism acceptability to the point of making it unusable. On the contrary, what is really needed to fight the onslaught of automated attacks to users data and privacy is to first tell human and computers apart and then distinguish among humans to guarantee correct authentication. Such an approach is capable of completely thwarting any automated attempt to achieve unwarranted access while it allows keeping simple the mechanism dedicated to recognizing the legitimate user. This kind of approach is behind the concept of Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA), yet CAPTCHA leverages cognitive capabilities, thus the increasing sophistication of computers calls for more and more difficult cognitive tasks that make them either very long to solve or very prone to false negatives. We argue that this problem can be overcome by substituting the cognitive component of CAPTCHA with a different property that programs cannot mimic: the physical nature. In past work we have introduced the Completely Automated Public Physical test to tell Computer and Humans Apart (CAPPCHA) as a way to enhance the PIN authentication method for mobile devices and we have provided a proof of concept implementation. Similarly to CAPTCHA, this mechanism can also be used to prevent automated programs from abusing online services. However, to evaluate the real efficacy of the proposed scheme, an extended empirical assessment of CAPPCHA is required as well as a comparison of CAPPCHA performance with the existing state of the art. To this aim, in this paper we carry out an extensive experimental study on both the performance and the usability of CAPPCHA involving a high number of physical users, and we provide comparisons of CAPPCHA with existing flavors of CAPTCHA

A Survey on Wireless Security: Technical Challenges, Recent Advances and Future Trends

This paper examines the security vulnerabilities and threats imposed by the inherent open nature of wireless communications and to devise efficient defense mechanisms for improving the wireless network security. We first summarize the security requirements of wireless networks, including their authenticity, confidentiality, integrity and availability issues. Next, a comprehensive overview of security attacks encountered in wireless networks is presented in view of the network protocol architecture, where the potential security threats are discussed at each protocol layer. We also provide a survey of the existing security protocols and algorithms that are adopted in the existing wireless network standards, such as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMAX, and the long-term evolution (LTE) systems. Then, we discuss the state-of-the-art in physical-layer security, which is an emerging technique of securing the open communications environment against eavesdropping attacks at the physical layer. We also introduce the family of various jamming attacks and their counter-measures, including the constant jammer, intermittent jammer, reactive jammer, adaptive jammer and intelligent jammer. Additionally, we discuss the integration of physical-layer security into existing authentication and cryptography mechanisms for further securing wireless networks. Finally, some technical challenges which remain unresolved at the time of writing are summarized and the future trends in wireless security are discussed.Comment: 36 pages. Accepted to Appear in Proceedings of the IEEE, 201

Security versus Reliability Analysis of Opportunistic Relaying

Physical-layer security is emerging as a promising paradigm of securing wireless communications against eavesdropping between legitimate users, when the main link spanning from source to destination has better propagation conditions than the wiretap link from source to eavesdropper. In this paper, we identify and analyze the tradeoffs between the security and reliability of wireless communications in the presence of eavesdropping attacks. Typically, the reliability of the main link can be improved by increasing the source's transmit power (or decreasing its date rate) to reduce the outage probability, which unfortunately increases the risk that an eavesdropper succeeds in intercepting the source message through the wiretap link, since the outage probability of the wiretap link also decreases when a higher transmit power (or lower date rate) is used. We characterize the security-reliability tradeoffs (SRT) of conventional direct transmission from source to destination in the presence of an eavesdropper, where the security and reliability are quantified in terms of the intercept probability by an eavesdropper and the outage probability experienced at the destination, respectively. In order to improve the SRT, we then propose opportunistic relay selection (ORS) and quantify the attainable SRT improvement upon increasing the number of relays. It is shown that given the maximum tolerable intercept probability, the outage probability of our ORS scheme approaches zero for $N \to \infty$, where $N$ is the number of relays. Conversely, given the maximum tolerable outage probability, the intercept probability of our ORS scheme tends to zero for $N \to \infty$.Comment: 9 pages. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, 201

Thirty Years of Machine Learning: The Road to Pareto-Optimal Wireless Networks

Future wireless networks have a substantial potential in terms of supporting a broad range of complex compelling applications both in military and civilian fields, where the users are able to enjoy high-rate, low-latency, low-cost and reliable information services. Achieving this ambitious goal requires new radio techniques for adaptive learning and intelligent decision making because of the complex heterogeneous nature of the network structures and wireless services. Machine learning (ML) algorithms have great success in supporting big data analytics, efficient parameter estimation and interactive decision making. Hence, in this article, we review the thirty-year history of ML by elaborating on supervised learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning and deep learning. Furthermore, we investigate their employment in the compelling applications of wireless networks, including heterogeneous networks (HetNets), cognitive radios (CR), Internet of things (IoT), machine to machine networks (M2M), and so on. This article aims for assisting the readers in clarifying the motivation and methodology of the various ML algorithms, so as to invoke them for hitherto unexplored services as well as scenarios of future wireless networks.Comment: 46 pages, 22 fig