From MANET to people-centric networking: Milestones and open research challenges

In this paper, we discuss the state of the art of (mobile) multi-hop ad hoc networking with the aim to present the current status of the research activities and identify the consolidated research areas, with limited research opportunities, and the hot and emerging research areas for which further research is required. We start by briefly discussing the MANET paradigm, and why the research on MANET protocols is now a cold research topic. Then we analyze the active research areas. Specifically, after discussing the wireless-network technologies, we analyze four successful ad hoc networking paradigms, mesh networks, opportunistic networks, vehicular networks, and sensor networks that emerged from the MANET world. We also present an emerging research direction in the multi-hop ad hoc networking field: people centric networking, triggered by the increasing penetration of the smartphones in everyday life, which is generating a people-centric revolution in computing and communications

Device-Aware Routing and Scheduling in Multi-Hop Device-to-Device Networks

The dramatic increase in data and connectivity demand, in addition to heterogeneous device capabilities, poses a challenge for future wireless networks. One of the promising solutions is Device-to-Device (D2D) networking. D2D networking, advocating the idea of connecting two or more devices directly without traversing the core network, is promising to address the increasing data and connectivity demand. In this paper, we consider D2D networks, where devices with heterogeneous capabilities including computing power, energy limitations, and incentives participate in D2D activities heterogeneously. We develop (i) a device-aware routing and scheduling algorithm (DARS) by taking into account device capabilities, and (ii) a multi-hop D2D testbed using Android-based smartphones and tablets by exploiting Wi-Fi Direct and legacy Wi-Fi connections. We show that DARS significantly improves throughput in our testbed as compared to state-of-the-art

Maximum mutual information design for amplify-and-forward multi-hop MIMO relaying systems under channel uncertainties

Conference Theme: PHY and FundamentalsIn this paper, we investigate maximum mutual information design for multi-hop amplify-and-forward (AF) multiple-input multiple-out (MIMO) relaying systems with imperfect channel state information, i.e., Gaussian distributed channel estimation errors. The robust design is formulated as a matrix-variate optimization problem. Exploiting the elegant properties of Majorization theory and matrix-variate functions, the optimal structures of the forwarding matrices at the relays and precoding matrix at the source are derived. Based on the derived structures, a water-filling solution is proposed to solve the remaining unknown variables. © 2012 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe 2012 IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), Paris, France, 1-4 April 2012. In IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference Proceedings, 2012, p. 781-78

Mobility effects of wireless multi-hop networks in indoor scenarios

A Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of wireless mobile terminals that are able to dynamically form a temporary network without any aid from fixed infrastructure or centralized administration. In recent years, MANETs are continuing to attract the attention for their potential use in several fields such as military activities, rescue operations and time-critical applications. In this paper, we present the implementation and analysis of our implemented wireless multi-hop network testbed considering the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol for wireless multi-hop networking. We investigate the effect of mobility and topology changing in MANET. We study the impact of best-effort traffic for non line of sight communication. In this work, we consider three models: stationary, mobility and non line of sight communication models. We assess the performance of our testbed in terms of throughput and packet loss. From the experimental results, we found that OLSR has not a good performance when the relay node is moving. Also, the performance deteriorates when the CBR is higher.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Experimentation with MANETs of Smartphones

Mobile AdHoc NETworks (MANETs) have been identified as a key emerging technology for scenarios in which IEEE 802.11 or cellular communications are either infeasible, inefficient, or cost-ineffective. Smartphones are the most adequate network nodes in many of these scenarios, but it is not straightforward to build a network with them. We extensively survey existing possibilities to build applications on top of ad-hoc smartphone networks for experimentation purposes, and introduce a taxonomy to classify them. We present AdHocDroid, an Android package that creates an IP-level MANET of (rooted) Android smartphones, and make it publicly available to the community. AdHocDroid supports standard TCP/IP applications, providing real smartphone IEEE 802.11 MANET and the capability to easily change the routing protocol. We tested our framework on several smartphones and a laptop. We validate the MANET running off-the-shelf applications, and reporting on experimental performance evaluation, including network metrics and battery discharge rate.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, 1 tabl

PluralisMAC: a generic multi-MAC framework for heterogeneous, multiservice wireless networks, applied to smart containers

Developing energy-efficient MAC protocols for lightweight wireless systems has been a challenging task for decades because of the specific requirements of various applications and the varying environments in which wireless systems are deployed. Many MAC protocols for wireless networks have been proposed, often custom-made for a specific application. It is clear that one MAC does not fit all the requirements. So, how should a MAC layer deal with an application that has several modes (each with different requirements) or with the deployment of another application during the lifetime of the system? Especially in a mobile wireless system, like Smart Monitoring of Containers, we cannot know in advance the application state (empty container versus stuffed container). Dynamic switching between different energy-efficient MAC strategies is needed. Our architecture, called PluralisMAC, contains a generic multi-MAC framework and a generic neighbour monitoring and filtering framework. To validate the real-world feasibility of our architecture, we have implemented it in TinyOS and have done experiments on the TMote Sky nodes in the w-iLab.t testbed. Experimental results show that dynamic switching between MAC strategies is possible with minimal receive chain overhead, while meeting the various application requirements (reliability and low-energy consumption)