ON THE INTEGRATION OF VEHICULAR AD-HOC NETWORKS AND VISION-BASED DRIVER ASSISTANCE

Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) allow for short range wireless communication to share information between vehicles. Vision-based driver assistance (VBDA) uses computer vision to obtain information about nearby objects. The goal of both systems is to create a model of the environment surrounding the vehicle in order to make decisions. With unique strengths and weaknesses the two systems complement each other well. A simulation environment for both VANETs and VBDA is created to test both systems alongside one another. They are evaluated and then combined to build the best possible model of the environment with the goal of improving vehicle safety under adverse condition

Distributed management and coordination of UAV swarms based on infrastructureless wireless networks

[ES] Los Vehículos Aéreos no Tripulados (o drones) ya han demostrado su utilidad en una gran variedad de aplicaciones. Hoy en día, se utilizan para fotografía, cinematografía, inspecciones y vigilancia, entre otros. Sin embargo, en la mayoría de los casos todavía son controlados por un piloto, que como máximo suele estar volando un solo dron cada vez. En esta tesis, tratamos de avanzar en paso más allá en esta tecnología al permitir que múltiples drones con capacidad para despegue y aterrizaje vertical trabajen de forma sincronizada, como una sola entidad. La principal ventaja de realizar vuelos en grupo, comúnmente denominado enjambre, es que se pueden realizar tareas más complejas que utilizando un solo dron. De hecho, un enjambre permite cubrir más área en el mismo tiempo, ser más resistente, tener una capacidad de carga más alta, etc. Esto puede habilitar el uso de nuevas aplicaciones, o una mejor eficiencia para las aplicaciones existentes. Sin embargo, una parte clave es que los miembros del enjambre deben organizarse correctamente, ya que, durante el vuelo, diferentes perturbaciones pueden provocar que sea complicado mantener el enjambre como una unidad coherente. Una vez que se pierde esta coherencia, todos los beneficios previamente mencionados de un enjambre se pierden también. Incluso, aumenta el riesgo de colisiones entre los elementos del enjambre. Por lo tanto, esta tesis se centra en resolver algunos de estos problemas, proporcionando un conjunto de algoritmos que permitan a otros desarrolladores crear aplicaciones de enjambres de drones. Para desarrollar los algoritmos propuestos hemos incorporado mejoras al llamado ArduSim. Este simulador nos permite simular tanto la física de un dron como la comunicación entre drones con un alto grado de precisión. ArduSim nos permite implementar protocolos y algoritmos (bien probados) en drones reales con facilidad. Durante toda la tesis, ArduSim ha sido utilizado ampliamente. Su utilización ha permitido que las pruebas fueran seguras, y al mismo tiempo nos permitió ahorrar mucho tiempo, dinero y esfuerzo de investigación. Comenzamos nuestra investigación sobre enjambres asignando posiciones aéreas para cada dron en el suelo. Suponiendo que los drones están ubicados aleatoriamente en el suelo, y que necesitan alcanzar una formación aérea deseada, buscamos una solución que minimice la distancia total recorrida por todos los drones. Para ello se empezó con un método de fuerza bruta, pero rápidamente nos dimos cuenta de que, dada su alta complejidad, este método funciona mal cuando el número de drones aumenta. Por lo tanto, propusimos una heurística. Como en todas las heurísticas, se realizó un compromiso entre complejidad y precisión. Al simplificar el problema, encontramos que nuestra heurística era capaz de calcular una solución muy rápidamente sin aumentar sustancialmente la distancia total recorrida. Además, implementamos el algoritmo de Kuhn-Munkres (KMA), un algoritmo que ha demostrado proporcionar la respuesta exacta (es decir, reducir la distancia total recorrida) en el menor tiempo posible. Después de muchos experimentos, llegamos a la conclusión de que nuestra heurística es más rápida, pero que la solución proporcionada por el KMA es ligeramente más eficiente. En particular, aunque la diferencia en la distancia total recorrida es pequeña, el uso de KMA reduce el número de trayectorias de vuelo que se cruzan entre sí, lo cual es una métrica importante para las siguientes propuestas.[...][CA] Els vehicles aeris no tripulats (o drons) ja han demostrat la seua utilitat en una gran varietat d'aplicacions. Avui dia, s'utilitzen per a fotografia, cinematografia, inspeccions i vigilància, entre altres. No obstant això, en la majoria dels casos encara són controlats per un pilot, que com a màxim sol controlar el vol d'un sol dron cada vegada. En aquesta tesi, tractem d'avançar un pas més enllà en aquesta tecnologia, en permetre que múltiples drons amb capacitat per a l'enlairament i l'aterratge vertical treballen de forma sincronitzada, com una sola entitat. El principal avantatge de realitzar vols en grup, comunament denominats eixam, és que es poden fer tasques més complexes que utilitzant un sol dron. De fet, un eixam permet cobrir més àrea en el mateix temps, ser més resistent, tenir una capacitat de càrrega més alta, etc. Això pot habilitar l'ús de noves aplicacions, o una millor eficiència per a les aplicacions existents. No obstant això, una punt clau és que els membres de l'eixam han d'organitzar-se correctament, ja que, durant el vol, diferents pertorbacions poden provocar que siga complicat mantenir l'eixam com una unitat coherent. Una vegada que es perd aquesta coherència, tots els beneficis prèviament esmentats d'un eixam es perden també. Fins i tot, augmenta el risc de col·lisions entre els elements de l'eixam. Per tant, aquesta tesi se centra a resoldre alguns d'aquests problemes, proporcionant un conjunt d'algorismes que permeten a altres desenvolupadors crear aplicacions d'eixams de drons. Per a desenvolupar els algorismes proposats hem incorporat millores a l'anomenat ArduSim. Aquest simulador ens permet simular tant la física d'un dron com la comunicació entre drons amb un alt grau de precisió. ArduSim ens permet implementar protocols i algorismes (ben provats) en drons reals amb facilitat. Durant tota la tesi, ArduSim s'ha utilitzat àmpliament. El seu ús ha permès que les proves foren segures, i al mateix temps ens va permetre estalviar molt de temps, diners i esforç d'investigació. Per tant, es va utilitzar ArduSim per a cada bloc de construcció que vam desenvolupar. Comencem la nostra recerca sobre eixams assignant posicions aèries per a cada dron en terra. Suposant que els drons estan situats aleatòriament en terra i que necessiten assolir la formació aèria desitjada, cerquem una solució que minimitze la distància total recorreguda per tots els drons. Per a això, es va començar amb un mètode de força bruta, però ràpidament ens vam adonar que, atesa l'alta complexitat, aquest mètode funciona malament quan el nombre de drons augmenta. Per tant, vam proposar una heurística. Com en totes les heurístiques, es va fer un compromís entre complexitat i precisió. En simplificar el problema, trobem que la nostra heurística era capaç de calcular una solució molt ràpidament sense augmentar substancialment la distància total recorreguda. A més, vam implementar l'algorisme de Kuhn-Munkres (KMA), un algorisme que ha demostrat proporcionar la resposta exacta (és a dir, reduir la distància total recorreguda) en el menor temps possible. Després de molts experiments, arribem a la conclusió que la nostra heurística és més ràpida, però que la solució proporcionada pel KMA és lleugerament més eficient. En particular, encara que la diferència en la distància total recorreguda és xicoteta, l'ús de KMA redueix el nombre de trajectòries de vol que s'encreuen entre si, la qual cosa és una mètrica important per a les propostes següents.[...][EN] Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have already proven to be useful in many different applications. Nowadays, they are used for photography, cinematography, inspections, and surveillance. However, in most cases they are still controlled by a pilot, who at most is flying one UAV at a time. In this thesis, we try to take this technology one step further by allowing multiple Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL) UAVs to work together as one entity. The main advantage of this group, commonly referred to as a swarm, is that it can perform more complex tasks than a single UAV. When organized correctly, a swarm allows for: more area to be covered in the same time, more resilience, higher load capability, etc. A swarm can lead to new applications, or a better efficiency for existing applications. A key part, however, is that they should be organized correctly. During the flight, different disturbances will make it complicated to keep the swarm as one coherent unit. Once this coherency is lost, all the previously mentioned benefits of a swarm are lost as well. Even worse, the chance of a hazard increases. Therefore, this thesis focuses on solving some of these issues by providing a baseline of building blocks that enable other developers to create UAV swarm applications. In order to develop these building blocks, we improve a multi-UAV simulator called ArduSim. This simulator allows us to simulate both the physics of a UAV, and the communication between UAVs with a high degree of accuracy. This is a crucial part because it allows us to deploy (well tested) protocols and algorithms on real UAVs with ease. During the entirety of this thesis, ArduSim has been used extensively. It made testing safe, and allowed us to save a lot of time, money and research effort. We started by assigning airborne positions for each UAV on the ground. Assuming that the UAVs, are placed randomly on the ground, and that they need to reach a desired aerial formation, we searched for a solution that minimizes the total distance travelled by all the UAVs. We started with a brute-force method, but quickly realized that, given its high complexity, this method performs badly when the number of UAVs grows. Hence, we created a heuristic. As for all heuristics, a trade-off was made between complexity and accuracy. By simplifying the problem, we found that our heuristic was able to calculate a solution very quickly without increasing the total distance travelled substantially. Furthermore, we implemented the \ac{KMA}, an algorithm that has been proven to provide the exact answer (i.e. minimal total distance travelled) in the shortest time possible. After many experiments, we came to the conclusion that our heuristic is faster, but that the solution provided by the \ac{KMA} is slightly better. In particular, although the difference in total distance travelled is small, the \ac{KMA} reduces the numbers of flight paths crossing each other, which is an important metric in our next building block. Once we developed algorithms to assign airborne positions to each UAV on the ground, we started developing algorithms to take off all those UAVs. The objective of these algorithms is to reduce the time it takes for all the UAVs to reach their aerial position, while ensuring that all UAVs maintain a safe distance. The easiest solution is a sequential take-off procedure, but this is also the slowest approach. Hence, we improved it by first proposing a semi-sequential and later a semi-simultaneous take-off procedure. With this semi-simultaneous take-off procedure, we are able to reduce the takeoff time drastically without introducing any risk to the aircraft. [..]Wubben, J. (2023). Distributed management and coordination of UAV swarms based on infrastructureless wireless networks [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/19888

Multi-Technology Cooperative Driving: An Analysis Based on PLEXE

Cooperative Driving requires ultra-reliable communications, and it is now clear that no single technology will ever be able to satisfy such stringent requirements, if only because active jamming can kill (almost) any wireless technology. Cooperative driving with multiple communication technologies which complement each other opens new spaces for research and development, but also poses several challenges. The work we present tackles the fallback and recovery mechanisms that the longitudinal controlling system of a platoon of vehicles can implement as a distributed system with multiple communication interfaces. We present a protocol and procedure to correctly compute the safe transition between different controlling algorithms, down to autonomous (or manual) driving when no communication is possible. To empower the study, we also develop a new version of PLEXE, which is an integral part of this contribution as the only Open Source, free simulation tool that enables the study of such systems with a modular approach, and that we deem offers the community the possibility of boosting research in this field. The results we present demonstrate the feasibility of safe fallback, but also highlight that such complex systems require careful design choices, as naive approaches can lead to instabilities or even collisions, and that such design can only be done with appropriate in-silico experiments

Energy-efficient MAC protocol for wireless sensor networks

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is a collection of tiny devices called sensor nodes which are deployed in an area to be monitored. Each node has one or more sensors with which they can measure the characteristics of their surroundings. In a typical WSN, the data gathered by each node is sent wirelessly through the network from one node to the next towards a central base station. Each node typically has a very limited energy supply. Therefore, in order for WSNs to have acceptable lifetimes, energy efficiency is a design goal that is of utmost importance and must be kept in mind at all levels of a WSN system. The main consumer of energy on a node is the wireless transceiver and therefore, the communications that occur between nodes should be carefully controlled so as not to waste energy. The Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol is directly in charge of managing the transceiver of a node. It determines when the transceiver is on/off and synchronizes the data exchanges among neighbouring nodes so as to prevent collisions etc., enabling useful communications to occur. The MAC protocol thus has a big impact on the overall energy efficiency of a node. Many WSN MAC protocols have been proposed in the literature but it was found that most were not optimized for the group of WSNs displaying very low volumes of traffic in the network. In low traffic WSNs, a major problem faced in the communications process is clock drift, which causes nodes to become unsynchronized. The MAC protocol must overcome this and other problems while expending as little energy as possible. Many useful WSN applications show low traffic characteristics and thus a new MAC protocol was developed which is aimed at this category of WSNs. The new protocol, Dynamic Preamble Sampling MAC (DPS-MAC) builds on the family of preamble sampling protocols which were found to be most suitable for low traffic WSNs. In contrast to the most energy efficient existing preamble sampling protocols, DPS-MAC does not cater for the worst case clock drift that can occur between two nodes. Rather, it dynamically learns the actual clock drift experienced between any two nodes and then adjusts its operation accordingly. By simulation it was shown that DPS-MAC requires less protocol overhead during the communication process and thus performs more energy efficiently than its predecessors under various network operating conditions. Furthermore, DPS-MAC is less prone to become overloaded or unstable in conditions of high traffic load and high contention levels respectively. These improvements cause the use of DPS-MAC to lead to longer node and network lifetimes, thus making low traffic WSNs more feasible.Dissertation (MEng)--University of Pretoria, 2008.Electrical, Electronic and Computer EngineeringMEngUnrestricte

Synthesising TCP data traffic from industrial networks for simulations

In this paper, authors deal with a problem of an impaired TCP stream reconstruction from a real-world captured data. The goal is to obtain an original application data. The data are synthesized to be used as an input for a traffic generator. Authors describe a way to solve specific problems at transport and application layers during the reconstruction of an impaired TCP stream. The traffic reconstruction is oriented to IEC 60870-5-104 protocol on top of TCP. The evaluation of proposed algorithms shows that it is possible to estimate original time dependencies between received and dispatched messages with high accuracy

Simulating Opportunistic Networks: Survey and Future Directions

(c) 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works[EN] Simulation is one of the most powerful tools we have for evaluating the performance of opportunistic networks (OppNets). In this paper, we focus on available tools and mod- els, compare their performance and precision and experimentally show the scalability of different simulators. We also perform a gap analysis of state-of-the-art OppNet simulations and sketch out possible further development and lines of research. This paper is targeted at students starting work and research in this area while also serving as a valuable source of information for experienced researchers.This work was supported in part by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad, Programa Estatal de Investigacion, Desarrollo e Innovacion Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad, Proyectos I+D+I 2014, Spain, under Grant TEC2014-52690-R, in part by the Universidad Laica Eloy Alfaro de Manabi, and in part by the Secretaria Nacional de Educacion Superior, Ciencia, Tecnologia e Innovacion, Ecuador. (Corresponding author: Jens Dede.)Dede, J.; Förster, A.; Hernández-Orallo, E.; Herrera-Tapia, J.; Kuladinithi, K.; Kuppusamy, V.; Manzoni, P.... (2018). Simulating Opportunistic Networks: Survey and Future Directions. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials. 20(2):1547-1573. https://doi.org/10.1109/COMST.2017.2782182S1547157320

Towards reliable geographic broadcasting in vehicular networks

In Vehicular ad hoc Networks (VANETs), safety-related messages are broadcasted amongst cars, helping to improve drivers' awareness of the road situation. VANETs’ reliability are highly affected by channel contention. This thesis first addresses the issue of channel use efficiency in geographical broadcasts (geocasts). Constant connectivity changes inside a VANET make the existing routing algorithms unsuitable. This thesis presents a geocast algorithm that uses a metric to estimate the ratio of useful to useless packet received. Simulations showed that this algorithm is more channel-efficient than the farthest-first strategy. It also exposes a parameter, allowing it to adapt to channel load. Second, this thesis presents a method of estimating channel load for providing feedback to moderate the offered load. A theoretical model showing the relationship between channel load and the idle time between transmissions is presented and used to estimate channel contention. Unsaturated stations on the network were shown to have small but observable effects on this relationship. In simulations, channel estimators based on this model show higher accuracy and faster convergence time than by observing packet collisions. These estimators are also less affected by unsaturated stations than by observing packet collisions. Third, this thesis couples the channel estimator to the geocast algorithm, producing a closed-loop load-reactive system that allows geocasts to adapt to instantaneous channel conditions. Simulations showed that this system is not only shown to be more efficient in channel use and be able to adapt to channel contention, but is also able to self-correct suboptimal retransmission decisions. Finally, this thesis demonstrates that all tested network simulators exhibit unexpected behaviours when simulating broadcasts. This thesis describes in depth the error in ns-3, leading to a set of workarounds that allows results from most versions of ns-3 to be interpreted correctly

A Hierarchy of Scheduler Classes for Stochastic Automata

Stochastic automata are a formal compositional model for concurrent stochastic timed systems, with general distributions and non-deterministic choices. Measures of interest are defined over schedulers that resolve the nondeterminism. In this paper we investigate the power of various theoretically and practically motivated classes of schedulers, considering the classic complete-information view and a restriction to non-prophetic schedulers. We prove a hierarchy of scheduler classes w.r.t. unbounded probabilistic reachability. We find that, unlike Markovian formalisms, stochastic automata distinguish most classes even in this basic setting. Verification and strategy synthesis methods thus face a tradeoff between powerful and efficient classes. Using lightweight scheduler sampling, we explore this tradeoff and demonstrate the concept of a useful approximative verification technique for stochastic automata