Cross-layer schemes for performance optimization in wireless networks

Wireless networks are undergoing rapid progress and inspiring numerous applications. As the application of wireless networks becomes broader, they are expected to not only provide ubiquitous connectivity, but also support end users with certain service guarantees. End-to-end delay is an important Quality of Service (QoS) metric in multihop wireless networks. This dissertation addresses how to minimize end-to-end delay through joint optimization of network layer routing and link layer scheduling. Two cross-layer schemes, a loosely coupled cross-layer scheme and a tightly coupled cross-layer scheme, are proposed. The two cross-layer schemes involve interference modeling in multihop wireless networks with omnidirectional antenna. In addition, based on the interference model, multicast schedules are optimized to minimize the total end-to-end delay. Throughput is another important QoS metric in wireless networks. This dissertation addresses how to leverage the spatial multiplexing function of MIMO links to improve wireless network throughput. Wireless interference modeling of a half-duplex MIMO node is presented. Based on the interference model, routing, spatial multiplexing, and scheduling are jointly considered in one optimization model. The throughput optimization problem is first addressed in constant bit rate networks and then in variable bit rate networks. In a variable data rate network, transmitters can use adaptive coding and modulation schemes to change their data rates so that the data rates are supported by the Signal to Noise and Interference Ratio (SINR). The problem of achieving maximum throughput in a millimeter-wave wireless personal area network is studied --Abstract, page iv

Distributed Optimization in Energy Harvesting Sensor Networks with Dynamic In-network Data Processing

Energy Harvesting Wireless Sensor Networks (EH- WSNs) have been attracting increasing interest in recent years. Most current EH-WSN approaches focus on sensing and net- working algorithm design, and therefore only consider the energy consumed by sensors and wireless transceivers for sensing and data transmissions respectively. In this paper, we incorporate CPU-intensive edge operations that constitute in-network data processing (e.g. data aggregation/fusion/compression) with sens- ing and networking; to jointly optimize their performance, while ensuring sustainable network operation (i.e. no sensor node runs out of energy). Based on realistic energy and network models, we formulate a stochastic optimization problem, and propose a lightweight on-line algorithm, namely Recycling Wasted Energy (RWE), to solve it. Through rigorous theoretical analysis, we prove that RWE achieves asymptotical optimality, bounded data queue size, and sustainable network operation. We implement RWE on a popular IoT operating system, Contiki OS, and eval- uate its performance using both real-world experiments based on the FIT IoT-LAB testbed, and extensive trace-driven simulations using Cooja. The evaluation results verify our theoretical analysis, and demonstrate that RWE can recycle more than 90% wasted energy caused by battery overflow, and achieve around 300% network utility gain in practical EH-WSNs

Effective Node Clustering and Data Dissemination In Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Networks

The denseness and random distribution of large-scale WSNs makes it quite difficult to replace or recharge nodes. Energy efficiency and management is a major design goal in these networks. In addition, reliability and scalability are two other major goals that have been identified by researchers as necessary in order to further expand the deployment of such networks for their use in various applications. This thesis aims to provide an energy efficient and effective node clustering and data dissemination algorithm in large-scale wireless sensor networks. In the area of clustering, the proposed research prolongs the lifetime of the network by saving energy through the use of node ranking to elect cluster heads, contrary to other existing cluster-based work that selects a random node or the node with the highest energy at a particular time instance as the new cluster head. Moreover, a global knowledge strategy is used to maintain a level of universal awareness of existing nodes in the subject area and to avoid the problem of disconnected or forgotten nodes. In the area of data dissemination, the aim of this research is to effectively manage the data collection by developing an efficient data collection scheme using a ferry node and applying a selective duty cycle strategy to the sensor nodes. Depending on the application, mobile ferries can be used for collecting data in a WSN, especially those that are large in scale, with delay tolerant applications. Unlike data collection via multi-hop forwarding among the sensing nodes, ferries travel across the sensing field to collect data. A ferry-based approach thus eliminates, or minimizes, the need for the multi-hop forwarding of data, and as a result, energy consumption at the nodes will be significantly reduced. This is especially true for nodes that are near the base station as they are used by other nodes to forward data to the base station. MATLAB is used to design, simulate and evaluate the proposed work against the work that has already been done by others by using various performance criteria

Cross-layer design of multi-hop wireless networks

MULTI -hop wireless networks are usually defined as a collection of nodes equipped with radio transmitters, which not only have the capability to communicate each other in a multi-hop fashion, but also to route each others’ data packets. The distributed nature of such networks makes them suitable for a variety of applications where there are no assumed reliable central entities, or controllers, and may significantly improve the scalability issues of conventional single-hop wireless networks. This Ph.D. dissertation mainly investigates two aspects of the research issues related to the efficient multi-hop wireless networks design, namely: (a) network protocols and (b) network management, both in cross-layer design paradigms to ensure the notion of service quality, such as quality of service (QoS) in wireless mesh networks (WMNs) for backhaul applications and quality of information (QoI) in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for sensing tasks. Throughout the presentation of this Ph.D. dissertation, different network settings are used as illustrative examples, however the proposed algorithms, methodologies, protocols, and models are not restricted in the considered networks, but rather have wide applicability. First, this dissertation proposes a cross-layer design framework integrating a distributed proportional-fair scheduler and a QoS routing algorithm, while using WMNs as an illustrative example. The proposed approach has significant performance gain compared with other network protocols. Second, this dissertation proposes a generic admission control methodology for any packet network, wired and wireless, by modeling the network as a black box, and using a generic mathematical 0. Abstract 3 function and Taylor expansion to capture the admission impact. Third, this dissertation further enhances the previous designs by proposing a negotiation process, to bridge the applications’ service quality demands and the resource management, while using WSNs as an illustrative example. This approach allows the negotiation among different service classes and WSN resource allocations to reach the optimal operational status. Finally, the guarantees of the service quality are extended to the environment of multiple, disconnected, mobile subnetworks, where the question of how to maintain communications using dynamically controlled, unmanned data ferries is investigated

Improving the lifetime of two-tiered sensor networks using genetic algorithm

Wireless sensor networks have been envisioned to have a wide range of applications which consist of many inexpensive and low-powered wireless nodes which are used to sense, gather, and transmit the data towards the base station. In Two-Tiered wireless sensor networks, nodes are grouped into clusters, with a minimum of one cluster-head to distribute the work load among the member nodes. In the recent years, higher-powered relay nodes have been proposed to act as cluster heads and these relay nodes form a network among themselves in order to improve the lifetime of the sensor networks. Since the nodes are generally energy constrained, efficient management of the network data communication scheme can maximize the lifetime of the networks. A Genetic Algorithm is the technique for randomized search and optimization which is based on Darwin\u27s Principal of Natural Selection. In this paper, we have proposed a Genetic Algorithm based solution for scheduling the data gathering of relay nodes that can significantly extend the lifetime of the relay node network. We have simulated our method on 15 different sizes of networks and measured the lifetime of the network as the number of rounds, until the first relay node runs out of battery power. For smaller networks, where the global optimum can be determined, our genetic algorithm based approach is always able to find the optimal solution with a lesser program run-time. For larger networks, we have compared our approach with traditional routing schemes and shown that our method leads to significant improvements

Optimized Clustering Protocol for Balancing Energy in Wireless Sensor Networks

While wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are increasingly equipped to handle more complex functions and in-network processing may require these battery powered sensors to judiciously use their constrained energy to prolong the effective network lifetime. Cluster-based Hierarchical Routing Protocol using compressive sensing (CS) theory (CBHRP-CS) divides the network into several clusters, each managed by a set of CHs called a header. Each member of the header compresses the collected data using CS. This paper proposes an optimized clustering protocol using CS (OCP-CS) to improve the performance of WSNs by exploiting compressibility. In OCP-CS, each cluster is managed by a cluster head (CH). CHs are selected based on node concentration and sensor residual energy, and performs data aggregation using CS to reduce the energy consumed in the process of data sampling and transmission. Simulations show that our proposed protocol is effective in prolonging the network lifetime and supporting scalable data aggregation than existing protocols

Routing Design Issues in Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor Network

WSN has important applications such as habitat monitoring, structural health monitoring, target tracking in military and many more. This has evolved due to availability of sensors that are cheaper and intelligent but these are having battery support. So, one of the major issues in WSN is maximization of network life. Heterogeneous WSNs have the potential to improve network lifetime and also provide higher quality networking and system services than the homogeneous WSN. Routing is the main concern of energy consumption in WSN. Previous research shows that performance of the network can be improve significantly using protocol of hierarchical HWSN. However, the appropriateness of a particular routing protocol mainly depends on the capabilities of the nodes and on the application requirements. This study presents different aspects of Heterogeneous Wireless Sensor network and design issues for routing in heterogeneous environment. Different perspectives from different authors regarding energy efficiency based on resource heterogeneity for heterogeneous wireless sensor networks have been presented