Communication models for monitoring and mobility verification in mission critical wireless networks

Recent technological advances have seen wireless sensor networks emerge as an interesting research topic because of its ability to realize mission critical applications like in military or wildfire detection. The first part of the thesis focuses on the development of a novel communication scheme referred here as a distributed wireless critical information-aware maintenance network (DWCIMN), which is presented for preventive maintenance of network-centric dynamic systems. The proposed communication scheme addresses quality of service (QoS) issues by using a combination of a head-of-the-line queuing scheme, efficient bandwidth allocation, weight-based backoff mechanism, and a distributed power control scheme. A thorough analysis of a head-of-the-line priority queuing scheme is given for a single-server, finite queue with a batch arrival option and user priorities. The scheme is implemented in the Network Simulator (NS-2), and the results demonstrate reduced queuing delays and efficient bandwidth allocation for time-critical data over non time critical data. In the second part, we introduce a unique mobility verification problem in wireless sensor networks wherein the objective is to verify the claimed mobility path of a node in a co-operating mission critical operation between two allies. We address this problem by developing an efficient power-control based mobility verification model. The simulation framework is implemented in Matlab and the results indicate successful detection of altered claimed paths within a certain error bound --Abstract, page iii

Towards a System Theoretic Approach to Wireless Network Capacity in Finite Time and Space

In asymptotic regimes, both in time and space (network size), the derivation of network capacity results is grossly simplified by brushing aside queueing behavior in non-Jackson networks. This simplifying double-limit model, however, lends itself to conservative numerical results in finite regimes. To properly account for queueing behavior beyond a simple calculus based on average rates, we advocate a system theoretic methodology for the capacity problem in finite time and space regimes. This methodology also accounts for spatial correlations arising in networks with CSMA/CA scheduling and it delivers rigorous closed-form capacity results in terms of probability distributions. Unlike numerous existing asymptotic results, subject to anecdotal practical concerns, our transient one can be used in practical settings: for example, to compute the time scales at which multi-hop routing is more advantageous than single-hop routing

Drone Mobile Networks: Performance Analysis Under 3D Tractable Mobility Models

Reliable wireless communication networks are a significant but challenging mission for post-disaster areas and hotspots in the era of information. However, with the maturity of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology, drone mobile networks have attracted considerable attention as a prominent solution for facilitating critical communications. This paper provides a system-level analysis for drone mobile networks on a finite three-dimensional (3D) space. Our aim is to explore the fundamental performance limits of drone mobile networks taking into account practical considerations. Most existing works on mobile drone networks use simplified mobility models (e.g., fixed height), but the movement of the drones in practice is significantly more complicated, which leads to difficulties in analyzing the performance of the drone mobile networks. Hence, to tackle this problem, we propose a stochastic geometry-based framework with a number of different mobility models including a random Brownian motion approach. The proposed framework allows to circumvent the extremely complex reality model and obtain upper and lower performance bounds for drone networks in practice. Also, we explicitly consider certain constraints, such as the small-scale fading characteristics relying on line-of-sight (LOS) and non line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation, and multi-antenna operations. The validity of the mathematical findings is verified via Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations for various network settings. In addition, the results reveal some design guidelines and important trends for the practical deployment of drone networks

Spatial networks with wireless applications

Many networks have nodes located in physical space, with links more common between closely spaced pairs of nodes. For example, the nodes could be wireless devices and links communication channels in a wireless mesh network. We describe recent work involving such networks, considering effects due to the geometry (convex,non-convex, and fractal), node distribution, distance-dependent link probability, mobility, directivity and interference.Comment: Review article- an amended version with a new title from the origina