Ultra Low Power Communication Protocols for UWB Impulse Radio Wireless Sensor Networks

This thesis evaluates the potential of Ultra Wideband Impulse Radio for wireless sensor network applications. Wireless sensor networks are collections of small electronic devices composed of one or more sensors to acquire information on their environment, an energy source (typically a battery), a microcontroller to control the measurements, process the information and communicate with its peers, and a radio transceiver to enable these communications. They are used to regularly collect information within their deployment area, often for very long periods of time (up to several years). The large number of devices often considered, as well as the long deployment durations, makes any manual intervention complex and costly. Therefore, these networks must self-configure, and automatically adapt to changes in their electromagnetic environment (channel variations, interferers) and network topology modifications: some nodes may run out of energy, or suffer from a hardware failure. Ultra Wideband Impulse Radio is a novel wireless technology that, thanks to its extremely large bandwidth, is more robust to frequency dependent propagation effects. Its impulsional nature makes it robust to multipath fading, as the short duration of the pulses leads most multipath components to arrive isolated. This technology should also enable high precision ranging through time of flight measurements, and operate at ultra low power levels. The main challenge is to design a system that reaches the same or higher degree of energy savings as existing narrowband systems considering all the protocol layers. As these radios are not yet widely available, the first part of this thesis presents Maximum Pulse Amplitude Estimation, a novel approach to symbol-level modeling of UWB-IR systems that enabled us to implement the first network simulator of devices compatible with the UWB physical layer of the IEEE 802.15.4A standard for wireless sensor networks. In the second part of this thesis, WideMac, a novel ultra low power MAC protocol specifically designed for UWB-IR devices is presented. It uses asynchronous duty cycling of the radio transceiver to minimize the power consumption, combined with periodic beacon emissions so that devices can learn each other's wake-up patterns and exchange packets. After an analytical study of the protocol, the network simulation tool presented in the first part of the thesis is used to evaluate the performance of WideMac in a medical body area network application. It is compared to two narrowband and an FM-UWB solutions. The protocol stack parameters are optimized for each solution, and it is observed that WideMac combined to UWB-IR is a credible technology for such applications. Similar simulations, considering this time a static multi-hop network are performed. It is found that WideMac and UWB-IR perform as well as a mature and highly optimized narrowband solution (based on the WiseMAC ULP MAC protocol), despite the lack of clear channel assessment functionality on the UWB radio. The last part of this thesis studies analytically a dual mode MAC protocol named WideMac-High Availability. It combines the Ultra Low PowerWideMac with the higher performance Aloha protocol, so that ultra low power consumption and hence long deployment times can be combined with high performance low latency communications when required by the application. The potential of this scheme is quantified, and it is proposed to adapt it to narrowband radio transceivers by combining WiseMAC and CSMA under the name WiseMAC-HA

Radio Communications

In the last decades the restless evolution of information and communication technologies (ICT) brought to a deep transformation of our habits. The growth of the Internet and the advances in hardware and software implementations modified our way to communicate and to share information. In this book, an overview of the major issues faced today by researchers in the field of radio communications is given through 35 high quality chapters written by specialists working in universities and research centers all over the world. Various aspects will be deeply discussed: channel modeling, beamforming, multiple antennas, cooperative networks, opportunistic scheduling, advanced admission control, handover management, systems performance assessment, routing issues in mobility conditions, localization, web security. Advanced techniques for the radio resource management will be discussed both in single and multiple radio technologies; either in infrastructure, mesh or ad hoc networks

Distributed multi-hop reservation scheme for wireless personal area ultra-wideband networks

Ultra-wideband (UWB) technology is a promising technology for multimedia applications in wireless personal area networks (WPANs) that supports very high data rates with lower power transmission for short range communication. The limitation of coverage radius of UWB network necessitates for multihop transmissions. Unfortunately, as the number of hops increases, the quality of service (QoS) degrades rapidly in multihop network. The main goal of this research is to develop and enhance multihop transmission that ensures QoS of real time traffic through the proposed distributed multihop reservation (DMR) scheme. The DMR scheme consists of two modules; distributed multihop reservation protocol (DMRP) and path selection. DMRP incorporates resource reservation, routing and connection setup that are extended on the existing WiMedia Media Access Control protocol (MAC). On the other hand, the path selection determines the optimal path that makes up the multihop route. The path selection selects nodes based on the highest Signal to Interference and Noise Ratio (SINR). The performance of DMR scheme has been verified based on the performance of the video traffic transmission. The main metrics of QoS are measured in terms of Peak Signal- to- Noise ratio (PSNR), End-to-End (E2E) delay, and throughput. The results show that DMRP compared to Multiple Resources Reservation Scheme (MRRS) in six (6) hops transmission has enhanced the average PSNR by 16.5%, reduced the average E2E delay by 14.9% and has increased the throughput by 11.1%. The DMR scheme which is the inclusion of path selection in DMRP has been compared to Link Quality Multihop Relay (LQMR). DMR scheme has improved the video quality transmission by 17.5%, reduced the average E2E delay by 18.6% and enhanced the average throughput by 20.3%. The QoS of six (6) hops transmission employing DMR scheme is almost sustained compared to two hops transmission with the QoS experiencing only slight degradation of about 2.0%. This is a considerable achievement as it is well known that as the number of hops increases the QoS in multihop transmission degrades very rapidly. Thus DMR scheme has shown to significantly improve the performance of real time traffic on UWB multihop network. In general, DMR can be applied to any WPAN network that exploit multihop transmission

A critical analysis of research potential, challenges and future directives in industrial wireless sensor networks

In recent years, Industrial Wireless Sensor Networks (IWSNs) have emerged as an important research theme with applications spanning a wide range of industries including automation, monitoring, process control, feedback systems and automotive. Wide scope of IWSNs applications ranging from small production units, large oil and gas industries to nuclear fission control, enables a fast-paced research in this field. Though IWSNs offer advantages of low cost, flexibility, scalability, self-healing, easy deployment and reformation, yet they pose certain limitations on available potential and introduce challenges on multiple fronts due to their susceptibility to highly complex and uncertain industrial environments. In this paper a detailed discussion on design objectives, challenges and solutions, for IWSNs, are presented. A careful evaluation of industrial systems, deadlines and possible hazards in industrial atmosphere are discussed. The paper also presents a thorough review of the existing standards and industrial protocols and gives a critical evaluation of potential of these standards and protocols along with a detailed discussion on available hardware platforms, specific industrial energy harvesting techniques and their capabilities. The paper lists main service providers for IWSNs solutions and gives insight of future trends and research gaps in the field of IWSNs

Energy-aware medium access control protocols for wireless sensors network applications

The main purpose of this thesis was to investigate energy efficient Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols designed to extend the lifetime of a wireless sensor network application, such as tracking, environment monitoring, home security, patient monitoring, e.g., foetal monitoring in the last weeks of pregnancy. From the perspective of communication protocols, energy efficiency is one of the most important issues, and can be addressed at each layer of the protocol stack; however, our research only focuses on the medium access control (MAC) layer. An energy efficient MAC protocol was designed based on modifications and optimisations for a synchronized power saving Sensor MAC (SMAC) protocol, which has three important components: periodic listen and sleep, collision and overhearing avoidance and message passing. The Sensor Block Acknowledgement (SBACK) MAC protocol is proposed, which combines contention-based, scheduling-based and block acknowledgement-based schemes to achieve energy efficiency. In SBACK, the use of ACK control packets is reduced since it will not have an ACK packet for every DATA packet sent; instead, one special packet called Block ACK Response will be used at the end of the transmission of all data packets. This packet informs the sender of how many packets were received by the receiver, reducing the number of ACK control packets we intended to reduce the power consumption for the nodes. Hence more useful data packets can be transmitted. A comparison study between SBACK and SMAC protocol is also performed. Considering 0% of packet losses, SBACK decreases the energy consumption when directly compared with S-MAC, we will have always a decrease of energy consumption. Three different transceivers will be used and considering a packet loss of 10% we will have a decrease of energy consumption between 10% and 0.1% depending on the transceiver. When there are no retransmissions of packets, SBACK only achieve worst performance when the number of fragments is less than 12, after that the decrease of average delay increases with the increase of the fragments sent. When 10% of the packets need retransmission only for the TR1000 transceiver worst results occurs in terms of energy waste, all other transceivers (CC2420 and AT86RF230) achieve better results. In terms of delay if we need to retransmit more than 10 packets the SBACK protocol always achieves better performance when comparing with the other MAC protocols that uses ACK

Modelling, analysis and design of MAC and routing protocols for wireless body area sensor networks.

The main contribution of the thesis is to provide modeling, analysis, and design for Medium Access Control (MAC) and link-quality based routing protocols of Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks (WBASNs) for remote patient monitoring applications by considering saturated and un-saturated traffic scenarios. The design of these protocols has considered the stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of patient monitoring systems. Moreover, the thesis also provides intelligent routing metrics for packet forwarding mechanisms while considering the integration of WBASNs with the Internet of Things (IoTs). First, we present the numerical modeling of the slotted Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (CSMA/CA) for the IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.15.6 standards. By using this modelling, we proposed a MAC layer mechanism called Delay, Reliability and Throughput (DRT) profile for the IEEE 802.15.4 and IEEE 802.15.6, which jointly optimize the QoS in terms of limited delay, reliability, efficient channel access and throughput by considering the requirements of patient monitoring system under different frequency bands including 420 MHz, 868 MHz and 2.4 GHz. Second, we proposed a duty-cycle based energy efficient adaptive MAC layer mechanism called Tele-Medicine Protocol (TMP) by considering the limited delay and reliability for patient monitoring systems. The proposed energy efficient protocol is designed by combining two optimizations methods: MAC layer parameter tuning and duty cycle-based optimization. The duty cycle is adjusted by using three factors: offered network traffic load, DRT profile and superframe duration. Third, a frame aggregation scheme called Aggregated-MAC Protocol Data Unit (A- MPDU) is proposed for the IEEE 802.15.4. A-MPDU provides high throughput and efficient channel access mechanism for periodic data transmission by considering the specified QoS requirements of the critical patient monitoring systems. To implement the scheme accurately, we developed a traffic pattern analysis to understand the requirements of the sensor nodes in patient monitoring systems. Later, we mapped the requirements on the existing MAC to find the performance gap. Fourth, empirical reliability assessment is done to validate the wireless channel characteristics of the low-power radios for successful deployment of WBASNs/IoTs based link quality routing protocols. A Test-bed is designed to perform the empirical experiments for the identification of the actual link quality estimation for different hospital environments. For evaluation of the test-bed, we considered parameters including Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI), Link Quality Indicator (LQI), packet reception and packet error rate. Finally, there is no standard under Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) which provides the integration of the IEEE 802.15.6 with IPv6 networks so that WBASNs could become part of IoTs. For this, an IETF draft is proposed which highlights the problem statement and solution for this integration. The discussion is provided in Appendix B

Wireless multimedia sensor networks, security and key management

Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks (WMSNs) have emerged and shifted the focus from the typical scalar wireless sensor networks to networks with multimedia devices that are capable to retrieve video, audio, images, as well as scalar sensor data. WMSNs are able to deliver multimedia content due to the availability of inexpensive CMOS cameras and microphones coupled with the significant progress in distributed signal processing and multimedia source coding techniques. These mentioned characteristics, challenges, and requirements of designing WMSNs open many research issues and future research directions to develop protocols, algorithms, architectures, devices, and testbeds to maximize the network lifetime while satisfying the quality of service requirements of the various applications. In this thesis dissertation, we outline the design challenges of WMSNs and we give a comprehensive discussion of the proposed architectures and protocols for the different layers of the communication protocol stack for WMSNs along with their open research issues. Also, we conduct a comparison among the existing WMSN hardware and testbeds based on their specifications and features along with complete classification based on their functionalities and capabilities. In addition, we introduce our complete classification for content security and contextual privacy in WSNs. Our focus in this field, after conducting a complete survey in WMSNs and event privacy in sensor networks, and earning the necessary knowledge of programming sensor motes such as Micaz and Stargate and running simulation using NS2, is to design suitable protocols meet the challenging requirements of WMSNs targeting especially the routing and MAC layers, secure the wirelessly exchange of data against external attacks using proper security algorithms: key management and secure routing, defend the network from internal attacks by using a light-weight intrusion detection technique, protect the contextual information from being leaked to unauthorized parties by adapting an event unobservability scheme, and evaluate the performance efficiency and energy consumption of employing the security algorithms over WMSNs

On feedback-based rateless codes for data collection in vehicular networks

The ability to transfer data reliably and with low delay over an unreliable service is intrinsic to a number of emerging technologies, including digital video broadcasting, over-the-air software updates, public/private cloud storage, and, recently, wireless vehicular networks. In particular, modern vehicles incorporate tens of sensors to provide vital sensor information to electronic control units (ECUs). In the current architecture, vehicle sensors are connected to ECUs via physical wires, which increase the cost, weight and maintenance effort of the car, especially as the number of electronic components keeps increasing. To mitigate the issues with physical wires, wireless sensor networks (WSN) have been contemplated for replacing the current wires with wireless links, making modern cars cheaper, lighter, and more efficient. However, the ability to reliably communicate with the ECUs is complicated by the dynamic channel properties that the car experiences as it travels through areas with different radio interference patterns, such as urban versus highway driving, or even different road quality, which may physically perturb the wireless sensors. This thesis develops a suite of reliable and efficient communication schemes built upon feedback-based rateless codes, and with a target application of vehicular networks. In particular, we first investigate the feasibility of multi-hop networking for intra-car WSN, and illustrate the potential gains of using the Collection Tree Protocol (CTP), the current state of the art in multi-hop data aggregation. Our results demonstrate, for example, that the packet delivery rate of a node using a single-hop topology protocol can be below 80% in practical scenarios, whereas CTP improves reliability performance beyond 95% across all nodes while simultaneously reducing radio energy consumption. Next, in order to migrate from a wired intra-car network to a wireless system, we consider an intermediate step to deploy a hybrid communication structure, wherein wired and wireless networks coexist. Towards this goal, we design a hybrid link scheduling algorithm that guarantees reliability and robustness under harsh vehicular environments. We further enhance the hybrid link scheduler with the rateless codes such that information leakage to an eavesdropper is almost zero for finite block lengths. In addition to reliability, one key requirement for coded communication schemes is to achieve a fast decoding rate. This feature is vital in a wide spectrum of communication systems, including multimedia and streaming applications (possibly inside vehicles) with real-time playback requirements, and delay-sensitive services, where the receiver needs to recover some data symbols before the recovery of entire frame. To address this issue, we develop feedback-based rateless codes with dynamically-adjusted nonuniform symbol selection distributions. Our simulation results, backed by analysis, show that feedback information paired with a nonuniform distribution significantly improves the decoding rate compared with the state of the art algorithms. We further demonstrate that amount of feedback sent can be tuned to the specific transmission properties of a given feedback channel