Wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs) refer to a group of sensors and actors linked by wireless medium to perform distributed sensing and acting tasks. The realization of wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs) needs to satisfy the requirements introduced by the coexistence of sensors and actors. In WSANs, sensors gather information about the physical world, while actors take decisions and then perform appropriate actions upon the environment, which allows a user to effectively sense and act from a distance. In order to provide effective sensing and acting, coordination mechanisms are required among sensors and actors. Moreover, to perform right and timely actions, sensor data must be valid at the time of acting. This paper explores sensor-actor and actor-actor coordination and describes research challenges for coordination and communication problems.

Wireless sensor and actor networks: research challenges

The IEEE 802.16 WiMax standard provides a mechanism for creating multi-hop mesh, which can be deployed as a high speed wide-area wireless network To realize the full potential of such high-speed IEEE 802.16 mesh networks, two efficient wireless radio resource allocation extensions were developed The objective of this paper is to propose an efficient approach for increasing the utilization of WiMax mesh through appropriate design of multi-hop routing and scheduling. As multiple-access interference is a major limiting factor for wireless communication systems, we adopt here an interference-aware cross-layer design to increase the throughput of the wireless mesh network. In particular, our scheme creates a tree-based routing framework, which along with scheduling is interference aware and results in a much higher spectral efficiency. Performance evaluation results show that the proposed interference-aware scheme achieves significant throughput enhancement over the basic IEEE 802.16 mesh network.

/pdf/interference-aware-ieee-802-16-wimax-mesh-networks-1p4qbavbst.pdf

Interference-aware IEEE 802.16 WiMax mesh networks

https://www.lk.cs.ucla.edu/data/files/Gerla/Vehicular%20networks%20by%20gerla%20and%20kleinrock%202011.pdf

Vehicular networks and the future of the mobile internet

Mobile peer-to-peer systems have recently got in the lime-light of the research community that is striving to build efficient and effective mobile content addressable networks. Along this line of research, we propose a network coding based file swarming protocol targeting vehicular ad hoc net-works (VANET). We argue that file swarming protocols in VANET should deal with typical mobile network issues such as dynamic topology and intermittent connectivity as well as various other issues that have been disregarded in previous mobile peer-to-peer researches such as addressing, node/user density, non-cooperativeness, and unreliable channel. Through simulation, we show that the efficiency and effectiveness of our protocol allows shorter file downloading time compared to an existing VANET file swarming protocol.

/pdf/code-torrent-content-distribution-using-network-coding-in-34n1o09652.pdf

Code torrent: content distribution using network coding in VANET

In this article we show that, although pure general-purpose MANET (mobile ad hoc networks) does not yet exist in the real world, the multihop ad hoc networking paradigm was successfully applied in several classes of networks that are penetrating the mass market. We present as examples mesh, opportunistic, vehicular, and sensor networks, where the multi-hop ad hoc paradigm is applied in a pragmatic way to extend the Internet and/or to support well-defined application requirements. We contrast these successful areas of ad hoc networking to the lack of impact of pure general-purpose MANET, demonstrating how a more pragmatic approach is a winner

Multihop Ad Hoc Networking: The Reality

Mobile ad hoc network researchers face the challenge of achieving full functionality with good performance while linking the new technology to the rest of the Internet. A strict layered design is not flexible enough to cope with the dynamics of manet environments, however, and will prevent performance optimizations. The MobileMan cross-layer architecture offers an alternative to the pure layered approach that promotes stricter local interaction among protocols in a manet node.

http://senseslab.di.uniroma1.it/administrator/components/com_jresearch/files/publications/Cross-LayeringInMobileAdHocNetworkDesign.pdf

Cross-layering in mobile ad hoc network design

In recent years, the Internet has witnessed the introduction of many peer-to-peer systems designed to realize large-scale data sharing. These platforms exhibit interesting features like self-configuration, self-healing and complete decentralization, which make them appealing for employment in ad hoc environments as well. However, the impact of ad hoc dynamics on the performance of these protocols, and the different set of constraints which this emerging networking paradigm imposes, haven't been yet carefully evaluated. This paper investigates the performance of Gnutella, one of the most widely used peer-to-peer systems, when put through typical ad hoc conditions like node mobility, frequent network partitioning, etc.. We show that a straightforward implementation of the protocol is not satisfactory under the point of view of the produced overhead and the average overlay connectivity. Finally, we propose a cross-layer optimization of Gnutella, which enhances its performance up to the expectations and makes it more suitable to the degree of self-organization and self-healing required in ad hoc environments.

A cross-layer optimization of gnutella for mobile ad hoc networks

In mobile ad hoc networks, nodes interact peer-to-peer. They self-organize, share workloads and provide services that they also use. There are middleware platforms, designed for the Internet, which support the development of peer-to-peer distributed systems, providing an interface for subject-based data routing. These platforms put emphasis on decentralization and resilience, and guarantee bounded lookup costs. Hence, we consider these platforms appealing for ad hoc environments. We show how a cross-layer protocol stack design for ad hoc nodes, simplifies the tasks of a subject-based routing substrate in ad hoc environments. We give details for a platform like Pastry, emphasizing the cross-layer interaction with a pro-active routing protocol at the network layer.

Towards scalable P2P computing for mobile ad hoc networks

MobileMAN is a project funded by the Future and Emerging Technologies arm of the IST Programme of the the European Commission. This project investigates the potentialities of the Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANET’s) paradigm. Specifically, the project aims at defining and developing a metropolitan area, self-organizing, and totally wireless network, called Mobile Metropolitan Ad hoc Network (MobileMAN). The main technical output of this proposal can be summarized as follow. i) Development, validation, implementation and testing of the architecture, and related protocols, for configuring and managing a MobileMAN. ii) Physical implementation of this architecture for lowers layers (i.e., wireless technologies). iii) Integration of applications on top of our self-organized network. iv) Validation of the self-organizing paradigm from the social and economic standpoint.

/pdf/mobileman-mobile-metropolitan-ad-hoc-networks-52sn1sj8zp.pdf

MobileMAN: Mobile Metropolitan Ad Hoc Networks

In the context of ubiquitous and pervasive computing, publish/subscribe middleware is gaining momentum due to its loosely coupled communication scheme. In this paper we present Q, a publish/subscribe service conceived to operate over mobile ad hoc networks. With Q, the overlay network that routes events from publishers to subscribers dynamically adapts to topology changes by means of cross-layer interaction. Q also supports content-based filtering of events through mobile code: subscribers can specify in detail the notifications they wish to receive by defining proper filter classes, then binary code of filters is exchanged during runtime by participating nodes.

Giovanni Turi

Papers

Cross-layering in mobile ad hoc network design

A cross-layer optimization of gnutella for mobile ad hoc networks

Towards scalable P2P computing for mobile ad hoc networks

MobileMAN: Mobile Metropolitan Ad Hoc Networks

A cross-layer approach for publish/subscribe in mobile ad hoc networks