On uncoordinated wireless ad-hoc networks:data dissemination over WIFI and cross-layer optimization for ultra wide band impulse radio

Emerging pervasive wireless networks, pocket switched networks, Internet of things, vehicular networks and even sensor networks present very challenging communication circumstances. They might involve up to several hundreds of wireless devices with mobility and intermittent connectivity. Centralized coordination in such networks is practically unfeasible. We deal with these challenge using two potential technologies: WIFI and Ultra Wide Band (UWB) Impulse Radio (IR) for medium and short communication range, respectively. Our main goal is to improve the communication performance and to make these networks sustainable in the absence of a centralized coordination. With WIFI, the goal is to design an environment-oblivious data dissemination protocol that holds in highly dynamic unpredictable wireless ad-hoc networks. To this end, we propose a complete design for a scope limited, multi-hop broadcast middleware, which is adapted to the variability of the ad-hoc environment and works in unlimited ad-hoc networks such as a crowd in a city, or car passengers in a busy highway system. We address practical problems posed by: the impossibility of setting the TTL correctly at all times, the poor performance of multiple access protocols in broadcast mode, flow control when there is no acknowledgment and scheduling of multiple concurrent broadcasts. Our design, called "Self Limiting Epidemic Forwarding" (SLEF), automatically adapts its behavior from single hop MAC layer broadcast to epidemic forwarding when the environment changes from being extremely dense to sparse, sporadically connected. A main feature of SLEF is a non-classical manipulation of the TTL field, which combines the usual decrement-when-sending to many very small decrements when receiving. Then, we identify vulnerabilities that are specific to epidemic forwarding. We address broadcast applications over wireless ad-hoc networks. Epidemic forwarding employs several mechanisms such as forwarding factor control and spread control, and each of them can be implemented using alternative methods. Thus, the existence of vulnerabilities is highly dependent on the methods used. We examine the links between them. We classify vulnerabilities into two categories: malicious and rational. We examine the effect of the attacks according to the number of attackers and the different network settings such as density, mobility and congestion. We show that malicious attacks are hard to achieve and their effects are scenario-dependent. In contrast, rational attackers always obtain a significant benefit. The evaluation is carried out using detailed realistic simulations over networks with up to 1000 nodes. We consider static scenarios, as well as vehicular networks. In order to validate our simulation results, we build a solid and widely adaptable experimental testbed for wireless networks. It is composed of 57 mobile wireless nodes equipped with WIFI interface. The adopted platform is OpenWrt, a Linux-like firmware, which makes the testbed robust and easily configurable. With UWB IR, the main problem we deal with is the presence of uncontrolled interference. Indeed, similarly to Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, signal acquisition with UWB IR signaling requires power control in the presence of interferers, which is very expensive in an uncoordinated system. We solve this problem through a cross-layer optimization: We propose a new signal acquisition method that is independent of the received signal power and we adapt the MAC layer accordingly. Our signal acquisition method is designed to solve the IUI (Inter-User Interference) that occurs in some ad-hoc networks where concurrent transmissions are allowed with heterogeneous power levels. In such scenarios, the conventional detection method, which is based on correlating the received IR signal with a Template Pulse Train (TPT), does not always perform well. The complexity of our proposal is similar to that of the conventional method. We evaluate its performance with the Line Of Sight (LOS) and the Non-LOS (NLOS) office indoor-channel models proposed by the IEEE P802.15.4a study group and find that the improvement is significant. We also investigate the particular case where the concurrent transmissions have the same time-hopping code, and we show that it does not result in collision, such scenarios appear in ad-hoc networks that employ a common code for control or broadcast purposes. At the MAC level, we focus only on one component of a MAC layer, which is the sleeping mode that could be added to any MAC layer proposal adequate to UWB IR. We are motivated by the low power consumption constraint required by the potential applications. We identify the design elements that should be taken into account for an optimal design for a sleeping protocol for UWB-IR such as the possibility of transmitting concurrently without collision and the power consumption model of the hardware behind which is completely different than with the narrow-band signaling. Then, we design two sleeping protocols for centralized and decentralized ad-hoc networks, respectively. We evaluate their performance analytically with the adopted metric being the average life-time of the wireless nodes

MAC layer functions for SLEF

We develop three functions around the MAC layer: (1) Pseudo broadcast is a technique used to improve throughput of broadcast transmissions in case of congested networks. The mechanism consists in sending a packet in unicast to a station using RTS/CTS. Other stations will receive the packet by capturing all the frames that are transmitted on the network, even if they are not directed to them. (2) The injection rate of packets in the MAC layer has to be controlled. The application must not be allowed to deliver to the MAC layer more packets than the number that can be sent by the network adapter. It is also necessary to know the nominal rate of the network. (3) An indication of activity on the network has to be provided. This function has to detect the activity of other SLEF stations in the neighborhood. The address of the last transmitting station and the time of transmission have to be provided. The implementation is carried out using JAVA and native native code and it is portable across all operating systems and wireless cards

Synchronizing Method for Impulse Radio Network

In IR (Impulse Radio) network, the conventional synchronization (also called signal acquisition) method becomes inefficient and results in a certain failure of synchronization when concurrent transmissions are allowed without controlling their powers. The present invention aims to solve this problem by introducing a novel synchronization method. Moreover, the claimed method can replace the conventional one in all IR networks

A Robust Signal Detection Method for Ultra Wide Band (UWB) Networks with Uncontrolled Interference

We propose a novel detection method for non-coherent synchronization (signal acquisition) in multi-user UWB impulse radio (IR) networks. It is designed to solve the IUI (Inter-User Interference) that occurs in some ad-hoc networks where concurrent transmissions are allowed with heterogeneous power levels. In such scenarios, the conventional detection method, which is based on correlating the received IR signal with a Template Pulse Train (TPT), does not always perform well. The complexity of our proposal is similar to that of the conventional method. We evaluate its performance with the Line Of Sight (LOS) and the Non LOS (NLOS) office indoor channel models proposed by the IEEE P802.15.4a study group and find that the improvement is significant. We also investigate the particular case where the concurrent transmissions have the same time-hopping code, and we show that it does not result in collision, such scenarios appear in ad-hoc networks that employ common code for control or broadcast purposes

A Power Independent Detection Method for UltraWide Band (UWB) Impulse Radio Networks

We propose a novel detection method for non-coherent synchronization (signal acquisition) in multi-access UWB impulse radio (IR) networks. It is designed to solve the IUI (Inter-User Interference) that occurs in some ad-hoc networks where concurrent transmissions are allowed with heterogeneous power levels. In such scenarios, the conventional detection method, which is based on correlating the received IR signal with a Template Pulse Train (TPT), does not always perform well. Our proposal has similar complexity as the conventional method. We evaluate its performance with the Line Of Sight (LOS) office indoor channel model proposed by the IEEE P802.15.4a study group and find that the improvement is significant

Self-Limiting Epidemic Forwarding

We define a self-limiting epidemic service as a dissemination service for ad-hoc environments that is broadcast in nature, but is limited to a local scope around each source. Example applications are chatting or bulletin boards in a traffic jam, in an instant crowd in a campus or, in contrast, along a desert highway. Our goal is to support such a service across a wide range of conditions (dense or sparse). The main problems are to adaptively control scoping and traffic rates to avoid congestion. We propose a system design with the following elements: (1) manipulation of TTL by adaptive aging mechanisms; (2) control of forwarding factor by self-inhibition and inter-inhibition and (3) control of rate of injection by sources. We validate the design by an implementation in Java and analyze it using both simulation and ordinary differential equations. We show how it can be tuned to achieve an appropriate balance between limitation of scope and rate of information. Our design is entirely self-organized, and is free of any form of clustering or leader election

Coexistence of Multiple HomePlug AV Logical Networks: A Measurement Based Study

HomePlug AV (HPAV) was designed to provide high speed in-home communication with 200Mbps PHY rate, with the goal to overcome various noises over power wires and to jump from one phase to a neighboring one. A HomePlug AV Logical Networks (AVLN) is defined by cryptographic means, i.e. stations that share the same key and hear each other are in the same AVLN; however, AVLNs which coexist in a neighborhood cannot communicate but share the same physical layer. These points imply that people using HomePlug AV may share system throughput with neighbors without being aware of it. In order to assess the reality of this potential problem, we performed measurements on an experimental testbed with several AVLNs and equipment from different manufacturers. Our results are: 1. we verified that HomePlug AV stations can communicate even over physically separated wires, and thus neighboring stations in the same AVLN or in different AVLNs may share the same throughput; 2. when stations are placed in two different AVLNs, system performance is noticeably less compared to having the same stations at the same locations but in one single AVLN; 3. HPAV stations from different manufacturers do interoperate but experience heavy per-pair throughput outages. Our findings suggest that HPAV does not perform satisfactorily in large deployments. A possible solution to the problem would be to make different AVLNs quasi-orthogonal at the physical layer, perhaps using the cryptographic key to seed an OFDM hopping sequence

A

framework for network coding in challenged wireless networ