515 research outputs found
Characterization of multi-channel interference
Multi-channel communication protocols in wireless networks usually assume perfect orthogonality between wireless channels or consider only the use of interference-free channels. The first approach may overestimate the performance whereas the second approach may fail to utilize the spectrum efficiently. Therefore, a more realistic approach would be the careful use of interfering channels by controlling the interference at an acceptable level. We present a methodology to estimate the packet error rate (PER) due to inter-channel interference in a wireless network. The methodology experimentally characterizes the multi-channel interference and analytically estimates it based on the observations from the experiments. Furthermore, the analytical estimation is used in simulations to derive estimates of the capacity in larger networks. Simulation results show that the achievable network capacity, which is defined as the number of simultaneous transmissions, significantly increases with realistic interfering channels compared with the use of only orthogonal channels. When we consider the same number of channels, the achievable capacity with realistic interfering channels can be close to the capacity of idealistic orthogonal channels. This shows that overlapping channels which constitute a much smaller band, provides more efficient use of the spectrum. Finally, we explore the correctness of channel orthogonality and show why this assumption may fail in a practical setting
Algorithms for Fast Aggregated Convergecast in Sensor Networks
Fast and periodic collection of aggregated data
is of considerable interest for mission-critical and continuous
monitoring applications in sensor networks. In the many-to-one
communication paradigm, referred to as convergecast, we focus
on applications wherein data packets are aggregated at each hop
en-route to the sink along a tree-based routing topology, and
address the problem of minimizing the convergecast schedule
length by utilizing multiple frequency channels. The primary
hindrance in minimizing the schedule length is the presence of
interfering links. We prove that it is NP-complete to determine
whether all the interfering links in an arbitrary network can
be removed using at most a constant number of frequencies.
We give a sufficient condition on the number of frequencies for
which all the interfering links can be removed, and propose a
polynomial time algorithm that minimizes the schedule length
in this case. We also prove that minimizing the schedule length
for a given number of frequencies on an arbitrary network is
NP-complete, and describe a greedy scheme that gives a constant
factor approximation on unit disk graphs. When the routing tree
is not given as an input to the problem, we prove that a constant
factor approximation is still achievable for degree-bounded trees.
Finally, we evaluate our algorithms through simulations and
compare their performance under different network parameters
Multi-Channel Scheduling for Fast Convergecast in Wireless Sensor Networks
We explore the following fundamental question -
how fast can information be collected from a wireless sensor
network? We consider a number of design parameters such
as, power control, time and frequency scheduling, and routing.
There are essentially two factors that hinder efficient data
collection - interference and the half-duplex single-transceiver
radios. We show that while power control helps in reducing the
number of transmission slots to complete a convergecast under a
single frequency channel, scheduling transmissions on different
frequency channels is more efficient in mitigating the effects of
interference (empirically, 6 channels suffice for most 100-node
networks). With these observations, we define a receiver-based
channel assignment problem, and prove it to be NP-complete on
general graphs. We then introduce a greedy channel assignment
algorithm that efficiently eliminates interference, and compare
its performance with other existing schemes via simulations.
Once the interference is completely eliminated, we show that
with half-duplex single-transceiver radios the achievable schedule
length is lower-bounded by max(2nk − 1,N), where nk is the
maximum number of nodes on any subtree and N is the number
of nodes in the network. We modify an existing distributed time
slot assignment algorithm to achieve this bound when a suitable
balanced routing scheme is employed. Through extensive simulations,
we demonstrate that convergecast can be completed within
up to 50% less time slots, in 100-node networks, using multiple
channels as compared to that with single-channel communication.
Finally, we also demonstrate further improvements that are
possible when the sink is equipped with multiple transceivers
or when there are multiple sinks to collect data
Seeking Optimum System Settings for Physical Activity Recognition on Smartwatches
Physical activity recognition (PAR) using wearable devices can provide valued
information regarding an individual's degree of functional ability and
lifestyle. In this regards, smartphone-based physical activity recognition is a
well-studied area. Research on smartwatch-based PAR, on the other hand, is
still in its infancy. Through a large-scale exploratory study, this work aims
to investigate the smartwatch-based PAR domain. A detailed analysis of various
feature banks and classification methods are carried out to find the optimum
system settings for the best performance of any smartwatch-based PAR system for
both personal and impersonal models. To further validate our hypothesis for
both personal (The classifier is built using the data only from one specific
user) and impersonal (The classifier is built using the data from every user
except the one under study) models, we tested single subject validation process
for smartwatch-based activity recognition.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, Accepted in CVC'1
Fusion of Smartphone Motion Sensors for Physical Activity Recognition
For physical activity recognition, smartphone sensors, such as an accelerometer and a gyroscope, are being utilized in many research studies. So far, particularly, the accelerometer has been extensively studied. In a few recent studies, a combination of a gyroscope, a magnetometer (in a supporting role) and an accelerometer (in a lead role) has been used with the aim to improve the recognition performance. How and when are various motion sensors, which are available on a smartphone, best used for better recognition performance, either individually or in combination? This is yet to be explored. In order to investigate this question, in this paper, we explore how these various motion sensors behave in different situations in the activity recognition process. For this purpose, we designed a data collection experiment where ten participants performed seven different activities carrying smart phones at different positions. Based on the analysis of this data set, we show that these sensors, except the magnetometer, are each capable of taking the lead roles individually, depending on the type of activity being recognized, the body position, the used data features and the classification method employed (personalized or generalized). We also show that their combination only improves the overall recognition performance when their individual performances are not very high, so that there is room for performance improvement. We have made our data set and our data collection application publicly available, thereby making our experiments reproducible
On-line Context Aware Physical Activity Recognition from the Accelerometer and Audio Sensors of Smartphones
International audienceActivity Recognition (AR) from smartphone sensors has be-come a hot topic in the mobile computing domain since it can provide ser-vices directly to the user (health monitoring, fitness, context-awareness) as well as for third party applications and social network (performance sharing, profiling). Most of the research effort has been focused on direct recognition from accelerometer sensors and few studies have integrated the audio channel in their model despite the fact that it is a sensor that is always available on all kinds of smartphones. In this study, we show that audio features bring an important performance improvement over an accelerometer based approach. Moreover, the study demonstrates the interest of considering the smartphone location for on-line context-aware AR and the prediction power of audio features for this task. Finally, an-other contribution of the study is the collected corpus that is made avail-able to the community for AR recognition from audio and accelerometer sensors
Multi-channel wireless sensor networks : protocols, design and evaluation
Pervasive systems, which are described as networked embedded systems integrated with everyday environments, are considered to have the potential to change our daily lives by creating smart surroundings and by their ubiquity, just as the Internet. In the last decade, “Wireless Sensor Networks” have appeared as one of the real-world examples of pervasive systems by combining automated sensing, embedded computing and wireless networking into tiny embedded devices.\ud
A wireless sensor network typically comprises a large number of spatially distributed, tiny, battery-operated, embedded sensor devices that are networked to cooperatively collect, process, and deliver data about a phenomenon that is of interest to the users. Traditionally, wireless sensor networks have been used for monitoring applications based on low-rate data collection with low periods of operation. Current wireless sensor networks are considered to support more complex operations ranging from target tracking to health care which require efficient and timely collection of large amounts of data. Considering the low-bandwidth, low-power operation of the radios on the sensor devices, interference and contention over the wireless medium and the energy-efficiency requirements due to the battery-operated devices, fulfilling the mentioned data-collection requirements in complex applications becomes a challenging task. This thesis focuses on the efficient delivery of large amounts of data in bandwidth-limited wireless sensor networks by making use of the multi-channel capability of the sensor radios and by using optimal routing topologies. We start with experimenting the operation of the sensor radios to characterize the behavior of multi-channel communication. We propose a set of algorithms to increase the throughput and timely delivery of the data and analyze the bounds on the data collection capacity of the wireless sensor networks
- …
