Muhammad Omer Farooq

Bio: Muhammad Omer Farooq is an academic researcher from Carleton University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Routing protocol & Network packet. The author has an hindex of 13, co-authored 49 publications receiving 775 citations. Previous affiliations of Muhammad Omer Farooq include Center for Advanced Studies in Engineering & University College Cork.

MR-LEACH: Multi-hop Routing with Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy

Abstract: In this paper, we present a Multi-hop Routing with Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (MR-LEACH) protocol. In order to prolong the lifetime of Wireless Sensor Network (WSN), MR-LEACH partitions the network into different layers of clusters. Cluster heads in each layer collaborates with the adjacent layers to transmit sensor’s data to the base station. Ordinary sensor nodes join cluster heads based on the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI). The transmission of nodes is controlled by a Base Station (BS) that defines the Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) schedule for each cluster-head. BS selects the upper layers cluster heads to act as super cluster heads for lower layer cluster heads. Thus, MR-LEACH follows multi-hop routing from cluster-heads to a base station to conserve energy, unlike the LEACH protocol. Performance evaluation has shown that MR-LEACH achieves significant improvement in the LEACH protocol and provides energy efficient routing for WSN.

Operating systems for wireless sensor networks: a survey.

Abstract: This paper presents a survey on the current state-of-the-art in Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) Operating Systems (OSs). In recent years, WSNs have received tremendous attention in the research community, with applications in battlefields, industrial process monitoring, home automation, and environmental monitoring, to name but a few. A WSN is a highly dynamic network because nodes die due to severe environmental conditions and battery power depletion. Furthermore, a WSN is composed of miniaturized motes equipped with scarce resources e.g., limited memory and computational abilities. WSNs invariably operate in an unattended mode and in many scenarios it is impossible to replace sensor motes after deployment, therefore a fundamental objective is to optimize the sensor motes’ life time. These characteristics of WSNs impose additional challenges on OS design for WSN, and consequently, OS design for WSN deviates from traditional OS design. The purpose of this survey is to highlight major concerns pertaining to OS design in WSNs and to point out strengths and weaknesses of contemporary OSs for WSNs, keeping in mind the requirements of emerging WSN applications. The state-of-the-art in operating systems for WSNs has been examined in terms of the OS Architecture, Programming Model, Scheduling, Memory Management and Protection, Communication Protocols, Resource Sharing, Support for Real-Time Applications, and additional features. These features are surveyed for both real-time and non-real-time WSN operating systems.

Analyzing LoRa: A use case perspective

Abstract: Low-power wide-area networking (LPWAN) technologies are capable of supporting a large number of Internet of Things (IoT) use cases. While several LPWAN technologies exist, Long Range (LoRa) and its network architecture LoRaWAN, is currently the most adopted technology. LoRa provides a range of physical layer communication settings, such as bandwidth, spreading factor, coding rate, and transmission frequency. These settings impact throughput, reliability, and communication range. As IoT use cases result in varying communication patterns, it is essential to analyze how LoRa's different communication settings impact on real IoT use cases. In this paper, we analyze the impact of LoRa's communication settings on four IoT use cases, e.g. smart metering, smart parking, smart street lighting, and vehicle fleet tracking. Our results demonstrate that the setting corresponding to the fastest data rate achieves up to 380% higher packet delivery ratio and uses 0.004 times the energy compared to other evaluated settings, while being suitable to support the IoT use cases presented here. However, the setting covers a smaller communication area compared to the slow data rate settings. Moreover, we modified the Aloha-based channel access mechanism used by LoRaWAN and our results demonstrate that the modified channel access positively impacts the performance of the different communication settings.

Design and analysis of RPL objective functions for multi-gateway ad-hoc low-power and lossy networks

Abstract: RPL is a standard routing framework for low-power and lossy networks (LLNs). LLNs usually operate in challenged conditions, therefore RPL can be adapted to satisfy requirements of a particular LLN. RPL facilitates this through objective functions (OFs). An OF is used to discover and maintain data forwarding paths based on the requirements of LLNs. In RPL, different OFs can use different routing metrics in different ways. In this paper, we design different OFs and analyse their impact on RPL performance in multi-gateway ad-hoc LLNs. In conjunction with the shortest hop-count, our designed OFs also use the following tie-breaking metrics: available bandwidth, delay, buffer occupancy, and ETX. Our OFs use the tie-breaking metrics on a greedy or an end-to-end basis. In our experimental analysis, we consider the impact of duty-cycling, number of gateways, and data traffic load on the OFs’ performance. Our results demonstrate that, generally speaking, the performance improves with an increase in the number of gateways. In the absence of duty-cycling, the greedy approach is better compared to the end-to-end approach, and using delay, buffer occupancy, and ETX metrics as the tie-breaking metrics in conjunction with the shortest hop-count metric yield the best performance. In a relatively high data traffic load, all OFs perform similarly. In duty-cycling mode, frequent changes in the parent node incur extra synchronization time between a sender and receiver. OFs that use the tie-breaking metrics on an end-to-end basis do not frequently change parent nodes, hence they demonstrate better performance. Furthermore, in duty-cycling mode, the shortest hop-count metric demonstrates the best performance compared to the other metrics.

A Survey on Smart Grid CommunicationInfrastructures: Motivations, Requirements andChallenges

Abstract: A communication infrastructure is an essential part to the success of the emerging smart grid. A scalable and pervasive communication infrastructure is crucial in both construction and operation of a smart grid. In this paper, we present the background and motivation of communication infrastructures in smart grid systems. We also summarize major requirements that smart grid communications must meet. From the experience of several industrial trials on smart grid with communication infrastructures, we expect that the traditional carbon fuel based power plants can cooperate with emerging distributed renewable energy such as wind, solar, etc, to reduce the carbon fuel consumption and consequent green house gas such as carbon dioxide emission. The consumers can minimize their expense on energy by adjusting their intelligent home appliance operations to avoid the peak hours and utilize the renewable energy instead. We further explore the challenges for a communication infrastructure as the part of a complex smart grid system. Since a smart grid system might have over millions of consumers and devices, the demand of its reliability and security is extremely critical. Through a communication infrastructure, a smart grid can improve power reliability and quality to eliminate electricity blackout. Security is a challenging issue since the on-going smart grid systems facing increasing vulnerabilities as more and more automation, remote monitoring/controlling and supervision entities are interconnected.

A Survey on 5G Networks for the Internet of Things: Communication Technologies and Challenges

Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) is a promising technology which tends to revolutionize and connect the global world via heterogeneous smart devices through seamless connectivity. The current demand for machine-type communications (MTC) has resulted in a variety of communication technologies with diverse service requirements to achieve the modern IoT vision. More recent cellular standards like long-term evolution (LTE) have been introduced for mobile devices but are not well suited for low-power and low data rate devices such as the IoT devices. To address this, there is a number of emerging IoT standards. Fifth generation (5G) mobile network, in particular, aims to address the limitations of previous cellular standards and be a potential key enabler for future IoT. In this paper, the state-of-the-art of the IoT application requirements along with their associated communication technologies are surveyed. In addition, the third generation partnership project cellular-based low-power wide area solutions to support and enable the new service requirements for Massive to Critical IoT use cases are discussed in detail, including extended coverage global system for mobile communications for the Internet of Things, enhanced machine-type communications, and narrowband-Internet of Things. Furthermore, 5G new radio enhancements for new service requirements and enabling technologies for the IoT are introduced. This paper presents a comprehensive review related to emerging and enabling technologies with main focus on 5G mobile networks that is envisaged to support the exponential traffic growth for enabling the IoT. The challenges and open research directions pertinent to the deployment of massive to critical IoT applications are also presented in coming up with an efficient context-aware congestion control mechanism.

Energy-Efficient Wireless Sensor Networks for Precision Agriculture: A Review.

Abstract: Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can be used in agriculture to provide farmers with a large amount of information. Precision agriculture (PA) is a management strategy that employs information technology to improve quality and production. Utilizing wireless sensor technologies and management tools can lead to a highly effective, green agriculture. Based on PA management, the same routine to a crop regardless of site environments can be avoided. From several perspectives, field management can improve PA, including the provision of adequate nutrients for crops and the wastage of pesticides for the effective control of weeds, pests, and diseases. This review outlines the recent applications of WSNs in agriculture research as well as classifies and compares various wireless communication protocols, the taxonomy of energy-efficient and energy harvesting techniques for WSNs that can be used in agricultural monitoring systems, and comparison between early research works on agriculture-based WSNs. The challenges and limitations of WSNs in the agricultural domain are explored, and several power reduction and agricultural management techniques for long-term monitoring are highlighted. These approaches may also increase the number of opportunities for processing Internet of Things (IoT) data.

RIOT OS: Towards an OS for the Internet of Things

Abstract: The Internet of Things (IoT) is characterized by heterogeneous devices. They range from very lightweight sensors powered by 8-bit microcontrollers (MCUs) to devices equipped with more powerful, but energy-efficient 32-bit processors. Neither traditional operating systems (OS) currently running on Internet hosts, nor a typical OS for sensor networks are capable to fulfill the diverse requirements of such a wide range of devices. To leverage the IoT, redundant development should be avoided and maintenance costs should be reduced. In this paper we revisit the requirements for an OS in the IoT. We introduce RIOT OS, an OS that explicitly considers devices with minimal resources but eases development across a wide range of devices. RIOT OS allows for standard C and C++ programming, provides multi- threading as well as real-time capabilities, and needs only a minimum of 1.5 kB of RAM.