Showing papers in "Wireless Networks in 2007"
TL;DR: This work is the first to provide an analytical evaluation in terms of probabilities of the extent to which a method prevents wormholes, and proposes a cryptographic mechanism based on local broadcast keys in order to prevent wormholes.
Abstract: Wireless ad hoc networks are envisioned to be randomly deployed in versatile and potentially hostile environments. Hence, providing secure and uninterrupted communication between the un-tethered network nodes becomes a critical problem. In this paper, we investigate the wormhole attack in wireless ad hoc networks, an attack that can disrupt vital network functions such as routing. In the wormhole attack, the adversary establishes a low-latency unidirectional or bi-directional link, such as a wired or long-range wireless link, between two points in the network that are not within communication range of each other. The attacker then records one or more messages at one end of the link, tunnels them via the link to the other end, and replays them into the network in a timely manner. The wormhole attack is easily implemented and particularly challenging to detect, since it does not require breach of the authenticity and confidentiality of communication, or the compromise of any host. We present a graph theoretic framework for modeling wormhole links and derive the necessary and sufficient conditions for detecting and defending against wormhole attacks. Based on our framework, we show that any candidate solution preventing wormholes should construct a communication graph that is a subgraph of the geometric graph defined by the radio range of the network nodes. Making use of our framework, we propose a cryptographic mechanism based on local broadcast keys in order to prevent wormholes. Our solution does not need time synchronization or time measurement, requires only a small fraction of the nodes to know their location, and is decentralized. Hence, it is suitable for networks with the most stringent constraints such as sensor networks. Finally, we believe our work is the first to provide an analytical evaluation in terms of probabilities of the extent to which a method prevents wormholes.
251 citations
TL;DR: This paper characterise the key performance measures, mean handover rate and mean sojourn time from the point of view of an arbitrary cell, as well as the mean hand over rate in the network, and presents an exact analytical formula for the mean arrival rate across an arbitrary curve.
Abstract: In this paper we study the so-called random waypoint (RWP) mobility model in the context of cellular networks. In the RWP model the nodes, i.e., mobile users, move along a zigzag path consisting of straight legs from one waypoint to the next. Each waypoint is assumed to be drawn from the uniform distribution over the given convex domain. In this paper we characterise the key performance measures, mean handover rate and mean sojourn time from the point of view of an arbitrary cell, as well as the mean handover rate in the network. To this end, we present an exact analytical formula for the mean arrival rate across an arbitrary curve. This result together with the pdf of the node location, allows us to compute all other interesting measures. The results are illustrated by several numerical examples. For instance, as a straightforward application of these results one can easily adjust the model parameters in a simulation so that the scenario matches well with, e.g., the measured sojourn times in a cell.
211 citations
TL;DR: The results and real-life walk-troughs indicate that RSSI readings from a single access point in an indoor environment are sufficient to derive good location estimates of users with sub-room precision.
Abstract: This paper describes research towards a system for locating wireless nodes in a home environment requiring merely a single access point. The only sensor reading used for the location estimation is the received signal strength indication (RSSI) as given by an RF interface, e.g., Wi-Fi. Wireless signal strength maps for the positioning filter are obtained by a two-step parametric and measurement driven ray-tracing approach to account for absorption and reflection characteristics of various obstacles. Location estimates are then computed using Bayesian filtering on sample sets derived by Monte Carlo sampling. We outline the research leading to the system and provide location performance metrics using trace-driven simulations and real-life experiments. Our results and real-life walk-troughs indicate that RSSI readings from a single access point in an indoor environment are sufficient to derive good location estimates of users with sub-room precision.
196 citations
TL;DR: This paper proposes efficient algorithms using which one can quickly determine, after deploying the sensors, whether the deployment region is k-barrier covered, and derives critical conditions for a weaker notion of barrier coverage, called weak k- barrier coverage.
Abstract: When a sensor network is deployed to detect objects penetrating a protected region, it is not necessary to have every point in the deployment region covered by a sensor. It is enough if the penetrating objects are detected at some point in their trajectory. If a sensor network guarantees that every penetrating object will be detected by at least k distinct sensors before it crosses the barrier of wireless sensors, we say the network provides k-barrier coverage. In this paper, we develop theoretical foundations for k-barrier coverage. We propose efficient algorithms using which one can quickly determine, after deploying the sensors, whether the deployment region is k-barrier covered. Next, we establish the optimal deployment pattern to achieve k-barrier coverage when deploying sensors deterministically. Finally, we consider barrier coverage with high probability when sensors are deployed randomly. The major challenge, when dealing with probabilistic barrier coverage, is to derive critical conditions using which one can compute the minimum number of sensors needed to ensure barrier coverage with high probability. Deriving critical conditions for k-barrier coverage is, however, still an open problem. We derive critical conditions for a weaker notion of barrier coverage, called weak k-barrier coverage.
162 citations
TL;DR: This work proposes a credit-based Secure Incentive Protocol (SIP) to stimulate cooperation among mobile nodes with individual interests and is immune to a wide range of attacks and is of low communication overhead by using a Bloom filter.
Abstract: The proper functioning of mobile ad hoc networks depends on the hypothesis that each individual node is ready to forward packets for others. This common assumption, however, might be undermined by the existence of selfish users who are reluctant to act as packet relays in order to save their own resources. Such non-cooperative behavior would cause the sharp degradation of network throughput. To address this problem, we propose a credit-based Secure Incentive Protocol (SIP) to stimulate cooperation among mobile nodes with individual interests. SIP can be implemented in a fully distributed way and does not require any pre-deployed infrastructure. In addition, SIP is immune to a wide range of attacks and is of low communication overhead by using a Bloom filter. Detailed simulation studies have confirmed the efficacy and efficiency of SIP.
144 citations
TL;DR: This paper proposes MAP, a Medial Axis based naming and routing Protocol that does not require geographical locations, makes routing decisions locally, and achieves good load balancing, and is very robust to variations in the network model.
Abstract: One of the challenging tasks in the deployment of dense wireless networks (like sensor networks) is in devising a routing scheme for node to node communication. Important consideration includes scalability, routing complexity, quality of communication paths and the load sharing of the routes. In this paper, we show that a compact and expressive abstraction of network connectivity by the medial axis enables efficient and localized routing. We propose MAP, a Medial Axis based naming and routing Protocol that does not require geographical locations, makes routing decisions locally, and achieves good load balancing. In its preprocessing phase, MAP constructs the medial axis of the sensor field, defined as the set of nodes with at least two closest boundary nodes. The medial axis of the network captures both the complex geometry and non-trivial topology of the sensor field. It can be represented succinctly by a graph whose size is in the order of the complexity of the geometric features (e.g., the number of holes). Each node is then given a name related to its position with respect to the medial axis. The routing scheme is derived through local decisions based on the names of the source and destination nodes and guarantees delivery with reasonable and natural routes. We show by both theoretical analysis and simulations that our medial axis based geometric routing scheme is scalable, produces short routes, achieves excellent load balancing, and is very robust to variations in the network model.
124 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that end-client experience could be significantly improved by making chaotic wireless networks self-managing, and automated power control and rate adaptation algorithms to minimize interference among neighboring APs, while ensuring robust end- client performance are designed and evaluated.
Abstract: Over the past few years, wireless networking technologies have made vast forays into our daily lives. Today, one can find 802.11 hardware and other personal wireless technology employed at homes, shopping malls, coffee shops and airports. Present-day wireless network deployments bear two important properties: they are unplanned, with most access points (APs) deployed by users in a spontaneous manner, resulting in highly variable AP densities; and they are unmanaged, since manually configuring and managing a wireless network is very complicated. We refer to such wireless deployments as being chaotic.
In this paper, we present a study of the impact of interference in chaotic 802.11 deployments on end-client performance. First, using large-scale measurement data from several cities, we show that it is not uncommon to have tens of APs deployed in close proximity of each other. Moreover, most APs are not configured to minimize interference with their neighbors. We then perform trace-driven simulations to show that the performance of end-clients could suffer significantly in chaotic deployments. We argue that end-client experience could be significantly improved by making chaotic wireless networks self-managing. We design and evaluate automated power control and rate adaptation algorithms to minimize interference among neighboring APs, while ensuring robust end-client performance.
123 citations
TL;DR: Corsac is presented, a cooperation-optimal protocol which consists of a routing protocol and a forwarding protocol which integrates VCG with a novel cryptographic technique to address the challenge in wireless ad-hoc networks that a link’s cost is determined by two nodes together.
Abstract: In many applications, wireless ad-hoc networks are formed by devices belonging to independent users. Therefore, a challenging problem is how to provide incentives to stimulate cooperation. In this paper, we study ad-hoc games--the routing and packet forwarding games in wireless ad-hoc networks. Unlike previous work which focuses either on routing or on forwarding, this paper investigates both routing and forwarding. We first uncover an impossibility result--there does not exist a protocol such that following the protocol to always forward others' traffic is a dominant action. Then we define a novel solution concept called cooperation-optimal protocols. We present Corsac, a cooperation-optimal protocol which consists of a routing protocol and a forwarding protocol. The routing protocol of Corsac integrates VCG with a novel cryptographic technique to address the challenge in wireless ad-hoc networks that a link's cost (i.e., its type) is determined by two nodes together. Corsac also applies efficient cryptographic techniques to design a forwarding protocol to enforce the routing decision, such that fulfilling the routing decision is the optimal action of each node in the sense that it brings the maximum utility to the node. We evaluate our protocols using simulations. Our evaluations demonstrate that our protocols provide incentives for nodes to forward packets. Additionally, we discuss the challenging issues in designing incentive-compatible protocols in ad hoc networks.
116 citations
TL;DR: The SENDROM architecture is explained as well as the new task and data dissemination, localization of a detected person, and end-to-end reliable event transfer schemes introduced for SENDRom are evaluated analytically and through simulation.
Abstract: SENDROM is a new sensor network architecture to manage the rescue operations after large scale disasters. This architecture mainly consists of sensor nodes deployed prior to a disaster and central nodes that can query sensor nodes. Central nodes are stored nearby the emergency operation centers and airports before a disaster. Following a disaster rescue teams are assigned one mobile central node and guided to a region based on the data in the SENDROM database. This paper explains the SENDROM architecture as well as our new task and data dissemination, localization of a detected person, and end-to-end reliable event transfer schemes introduced for SENDROM. Then it evaluates the performance of these schemes analytically and through simulation.
115 citations
TL;DR: Simulations reveal that the lifetime of the network increases significantly by optimal routing, and including delay constraint in energy efficient routing improves the network performance since the delay of thenetwork keeps increasing as the delay constraint is relaxed beyond the value at which the optimal lifetime is achieved.
Abstract: The paper presents a routing algorithm that maximizes the lifetime of a sensor network in which all data packets are destined for a single collection node. Lifetime is maximized by adjusting the number of packets traversing each node. The adjustment is carried out by transmitting over alternative routes. The first part of the paper assumes that the worst case delay resulting from energy efficient routing is less than the maximum tolerable value. Ignoring the delay constraint of the network, the routes are selected as the solution to a linear programming (LP) problem in which the objective is to maximize the minimum lifetime of each node. The solution is implemented in a centralized algorithm, and then approximated by an iterative algorithm based on least cost path routing, in which each step is implemented efficiently in a distributed manner. The second part of the paper incorporates delay guarantee into energy efficient routing by constraining the length of the routing paths from each sensor node to the collection node. Simulations reveal that the lifetime of the network increases significantly by optimal routing, and including delay constraint in energy efficient routing improves the network performance since the delay of the network keeps increasing as the delay constraint is relaxed beyond the value at which the optimal lifetime is achieved.
108 citations
TL;DR: It is found that, in a proportional fair allocation, the same share of channel time is given to high and low bit rate stations, and, as a result, high bit Rate stations obtain more throughput.
Abstract: Under heterogeneous radio conditions, Wireless LAN stations may use different modulation schemes, leading to a heterogeneity of bit rates. In such a situation, 802.11 DCF allocates the same throughput to all stations independently of their transmitting bit rate; as a result, the channel is used by low bit rate stations most of the time, and efficiency is low. In this paper, we propose a more efficient throughput allocation criterion based on proportional fairness. We find out that, in a proportional fair allocation, the same share of channel time is given to high and low bit rate stations, and, as a result, high bit rate stations obtain more throughput. We propose two schemes of the upcoming 802.11e standard to achieve this allocation, and compare their delay and throughput performance.
TL;DR: This paper considers the problem of selecting a set of active sensors of minimum cardinality so that sensing coverage and network connectivity are maintained and presents algorithms that provide approximate coverage while the number of nodes selected is a constant factor far from the optimal solution.
Abstract: Wireless sensor networks have recently posed many new system building challenges. One of the main problems is energy conservation since most of the sensors are devices with limited battery life and it is infeasible to replenish energy via replacing batteries. An effective approach for energy conservation is scheduling sleep intervals for some sensors, while the remaining sensors stay active providing continuous service. In this paper we consider the problem of selecting a set of active sensors of minimum cardinality so that sensing coverage and network connectivity are maintained. We show that the greedy algorithm that provides complete coverage has an approximation factor no better than Ω(log n), where n is the number of sensor nodes. Then we present algorithms that provide approximate coverage while the number of nodes selected is a constant factor far from the optimal solution. Finally, we show how to connect a set of sensors that already provides coverage.
TL;DR: This work proposes UPASS, the first known secure authentication and billing architecture for large-scale WMNs, which features a novel user-broker-operator trust model built upon the conventional certificate-based cryptography and the emerging ID- based cryptography.
Abstract: Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are gaining growing interest as a promising technology for ubiquitous high-speed network access. While much effort has been made to address issues at physical, data link, and network layers, little attention has been paid to the security aspect central to the realistic deployment of WMNs. We propose UPASS, the first known secure authentication and billing architecture for large-scale WMNs. UPASS features a novel user-broker-operator trust model built upon the conventional certificate-based cryptography and the emerging ID-based cryptography. Based on the trust model, each user is furnished with a universal pass whereby to realize seamless roaming across WMN domains and get ubiquitous network access. In UPASS, the incontestable billing of mobile users is fulfilled through a lightweight realtime micropayment protocol built on the combination of digital signature and one-way hash-chain techniques. Compared to conventional solutions relying on a home-foreign-domain concept, UPASS eliminates the need for establishing bilateral roaming agreements and having realtime interactions between potentially numerous WMN operators. Our UPASS is shown to be secure and lightweight, and thus can be a practical and effective solution for future large-scale WMNs.
TL;DR: This paper investigates the capacity of ad hoc wireless networks using directional antennas and argues that in the limit, when the beam-width goes to zero the wireless network behaves like the wired network.
Abstract: The capacity of wireless ad hoc networks is constrained by the interference caused by the neighboring nodes. Gupta and Kumar have shown that the throughput for such networks is only Θ(W/√n) bits per second per node in a unit area domain when omnidirectional antennas are used [1]. In this paper we investigate the capacity of ad hoc wireless networks using directional antennas. Using directional antennas reduces the interference area caused by each node, thus increases the capacity of the network. We will give an expression for the capacity gain and we argue that in the limit, when the beam-width goes to zero the wireless network behaves like the wired network. In our analysis we consider both arbitrary networks and random networks where nodes are assumed to be static. We have also analyzed hybrid beam-form patterns that are a mix of omnidirectional/directional and a better model of real directional antennas. Simulations are conducted for validation of our analytical results.
TL;DR: This paper proposes a dynamic proxy tree-based framework, model the problem as on-line constructing a minimum Steiner tree in an Euclidean plane, and proposes centralized schemes to solve it, which show that the distributed schemes have similar performance as the centralized ones, and among the distributed scheme, the SR scheme outperforms the SP scheme.
Abstract: In wireless sensor networks, efficiently disseminating data from a dynamic source to multiple mobile sinks is important for the applications such as mobile target detection and tracking. The tree-based multicasting scheme can be used. However, because of the short communication range of each sensor node and the frequent movement of sources and sinks, a sink may fail to receive data due to broken paths, and the tree should be frequently reconfigured to reconnect sources and sinks. To address the problem, we propose a dynamic proxy tree-based framework in this paper. A big challenge in implementing the framework is how to efficiently reconfigure the proxy tree as sources and sinks change. We model the problem as on-line constructing a minimum Steiner tree in an Euclidean plane, and propose centralized schemes to solve it. Considering the strict energy constraints in wireless sensor networks, we further propose two distributed on-line schemes, the shortest path-based (SP) scheme and the spanning range-based (SR) scheme. Extensive simulations are conducted to evaluate the schemes. The results show that the distributed schemes have similar performance as the centralized ones, and among the distributed schemes, the SR scheme outperforms the SP scheme.
TL;DR: This paper presents Scalable Position-Based Multicast (SPBM), a multicast routing protocol for ad-hoc networks that uses the geographic position of nodes to provide a highly scalable group membership scheme and to forward data packets in a way that is very robust to changes in the topology of the network.
Abstract: In this paper we present Scalable Position-Based Multicast (SPBM), a multicast routing protocol for ad-hoc networks. SPBM uses the geographic position of nodes to provide a highly scalable group membership scheme and to forward data packets in a way that is very robust to changes in the topology of the network. SPBM bases the forwarding decision on whether or not there are group members located in a given direction, allowing a hierarchical aggregation of membership information. The farther away a region is from an intermediate node, the higher the level of aggregation for this region should be. Because of aggregation, the overhead for group membership management scales logarithmically with the number of nodes and is independent of the number of multicast senders for a given multicast group. Furthermore, we show that group management overhead is bounded by a constant if the frequency of membership updates is scaled down with the aggregation level. This scaling of the update frequency is reasonable since the higher the level of aggregation is, the lower the number of membership changes for the aggregate will be. The performance of SPBM is investigated by means of simulation, including a comparison with ODMRP, and through mathematical analysis. We also describe an open source kernel implementation of SPBM that has been successfully deployed on hand-held computers.
TL;DR: A medium access control (MAC) protocol (NULLHOC) for ad hoc networks of nodes with antenna arrays is presented with the purpose of increasing spatial reuse by directing nulls at active transmitters and receivers in the neighborhood.
Abstract: A medium access control (MAC) protocol (NULLHOC) for ad hoc networks of nodes with antenna arrays is presented. The antenna array is used for transmit and receive beamforming with the purpose of increasing spatial reuse by directing nulls at active transmitters and receivers in the neighborhood. In contrast to previous work with directional antennas, our approach is applicable to multipath channels, such as occur indoors or in other rich scattering environments. The MAC protocol is designed to support the control information exchange needed to direct nulls toward other users involved in existing communication sessions. Knowledge of the channel coefficients between a transmitter or receiver and its neighbors is used to design transmit or receive beamformer weights that implement the requisite nulling. Simulations are used to demonstrate the improvements in throughput and transmit powers that are obtained in this approach relative to the IEEE 802.11 MAC protocol. We also analyze the effects of channel estimation errors on our protocol and propose a simple modification of the basic NULLHOC protocol to minimize their impact.
TL;DR: A stochastic model for Bluetooth device discovery is introduced and it is proved that a protocol based on very simple local rules generates a topology that, with high probability, is connected and, crucially, has constant maximum degree.
Abstract: In this paper we introduce a novel and unified approach to the problems of device discovery and scatternet formation for the Bluetooth standard. We introduce a stochastic model for Bluetooth device discovery and prove that a protocol based on very simple local rules generates a topology that, with high probability, is connected and, crucially, has constant maximum degree. Based on this, we develop a new protocol for device discovery and scatternet formation for multi-hop BlueTooth networks. By means of extensive ns2 simulations we show that our solution is simple to implement, fast and requires low overhead, both for the device discovery and the scatternet formation phases, and leads to better performance when compared to the major approaches so far proposed in the literature.
TL;DR: A Markov model and its solution for steady state distributions to determine the operation of a single node is presented and a non-linear optimization problem to minimize the power consumption is constructed.
Abstract: This work considers a multi-hop sensor network and addresses the problem of minimizing power consumption in each sensor node locally while ensuring two global (i.e., network wide) properties: (i) communication connectivity, and (ii) sensing coverage. A sensor node saves energy by suspending its sensing and communication activities according to a Markovian stochastic process. We show that a power level to induce a coverage radius w(n)/n is sufficient for connectivity provided that w(n) → ∞. The paper presents a Markov model and its solution for steady state distributions to determine the operation of a single node. Given the steady state probabilities, we construct a non-linear optimization problem to minimize the power consumption. Simulation studies to examine the collective behavior of large number of sensor nodes produce results that are predicted by the analytical model.
TL;DR: Results show that connection level performance, including both average number of connections and connection blocking probability, can be greatly improved using the proposed mechanism compared to other admission control schemes.
Abstract: In this paper we study connection admission control (CAC) in IEEE 802.11-based ESS mesh networks. An analytical model is developed for studying the effects of CAC on mesh network capacity. A distributed CAC scheme is proposed, which incorporates load balancing when selecting a mesh path for new connections. Our results show that connection level performance, including both average number of connections and connection blocking probability, can be greatly improved using the proposed mechanism compared to other admission control schemes.
TL;DR: The Deficit Transmission Time (DTT) scheduler is proposed, guaranteeing each station a fair medium usage in terms of transmission time and allows to ideally achieve exact isolation among the traffic flows addressed to different stations.
Abstract: Wireless systems based on the IEEE 802.11 standard are known to suffer a performance degradation when just a single station in the network experiences bad channel conditions toward the Access Point (AP). This phenomenon, known as the "performance anomaly", is mainly due to the max-min throughput fairness of the CSMA/CA algorithm of the 802.11 MAC. The simple FIFO scheduling policy usually implemented in the AP also contributes to this problem. In order to overcome the performance anomaly, we propose the Deficit Transmission Time (DTT) scheduler. The aim of DTT is guaranteeing each station a fair medium usage in terms of transmission time. This feature, directly related to the proportional fairness concept, allows to ideally achieve exact isolation among the traffic flows addressed to different stations. DTT achieves this goal taking advantage of measurements of actual frame transmission times. Experiments carried out using a prototype implementation of DTT are compared with analogous tests performed with a classic FIFO queue of a commercial AP and a recently proposed traffic shaping scheme aimed at solving the same 802.11 performance anomaly.
TL;DR: An efficient overlay multicast protocol to tackle the efficiency problem in MANET environment that gradually adapts to the changes in underlying network topology in a fully distributed manner is proposed.
Abstract: Overlay multicast protocol builds a virtual mesh spanning all member nodes of a multicast group. It employs standard unicast routing and forwarding to fulfill multicast functionality. The advantages of this approach are robustness and low overhead. However, efficiency is an issue since the generated multicast trees are normally not optimized in terms of total link cost and data delivery delay. In this paper, we propose an efficient overlay multicast protocol to tackle this problem in MANET environment. The virtual topology gradually adapts to the changes in underlying network topology in a fully distributed manner. To save control overhead, the participating nodes only keep a fisheye view of the dynamic mesh. The multicast tree is progressively adjusted according to the latest local topology information. Simulations are conducted to evaluate the tree quality. The results show that our approach solves the efficiency problem effectively.
TL;DR: Two approaches to enable SIP-based session setup in ad hoc networks are proposed, a loosely coupled approach where the SIP endpoint discovery is decoupled from the routing procedure and a tightly coupled approach which integrates the endpoint discovery with a fully distributed cluster based routing protocol that builds a virtual topology for efficient routing.
Abstract: The deployment of infrastructure-less ad hoc networks is suffering from the lack of applications in spite of active research over a decade. This problem can be solved to a certain extent by porting successful legacy Internet applications and protocols to the ad hoc network domain. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is designed to provide the signaling support for multimedia applications such as Internet telephony, Instant Messaging, Presence etc. SIP relies on the infrastructure of the Internet and an overlay of centralized SIP servers to enable the SIP endpoints discover each other and establish a session by exchanging SIP messages. However, such an infrastructure is unavailable in ad hoc networks. In this paper, we propose two approaches to solve this problem and enable SIP-based session setup in ad hoc networks (i) a loosely coupled approach, where the SIP endpoint discovery is decoupled from the routing procedure and (ii) a tightly coupled approach, which integrates the endpoint discovery with a fully distributed cluster based routing protocol that builds a virtual topology for efficient routing. Simulation experiments show that the tightly coupled approach performs better for (relatively) static multihop wireless networks than the loosely coupled approach in terms of the latency in SIP session setup. The loosely coupled approach, on the other hand, generally performs better in networks with random node mobility. The tightly coupled approach, however, has lower control overhead in both the cases.
TL;DR: An adaptation framework is presented that dynamically adjusts the polling-based access mechanism and associates flows to different modes of access, according to the current needs of the application, as opposed to solely relying on the reservation parameters.
Abstract: With the increased popularity of wireless broad-band networks and the growing demand for multimedia applications, such as streaming video and teleconferencing, there is a need to support diverse multimedia services over the wireless medium. In order to efficiently address these diverse needs, efforts have been pursued to provide Quality of Service (QoS) mechanisms for medium access, resulting in a standard called IEEE 802.11e. One of the enhancements proposed in IEEE 802.11e is a polling-based access mechanism, which is targeted for real-time multimedia flows. In this polling-based scheme, scheduling and time allocation are based on flow reservations. Hence, the effectiveness of the mechanism is heavily dependent on the accuracy of the flow requirements in the reservation. Flow requirements, however, can vary over time and an allocation based on fixed reservations cannot address this variability. This limitation, which is present in the reference scheduler of IEEE 802.11e, leads to degraded multimedia quality for flows with variable requirements, even when channel resources are available.
In order to address the above limitation, we present an adaptation framework that dynamically adjusts the polling-based access mechanism and associates flows to different modes of access (polling-based/contention-based), according to the current needs of the application, as opposed to solely relying on the reservation parameters. We demonstrate that with our adaptation, the achieved QoS for real-time multimedia streams, in terms of delay and throughput metrics, can be significantly improved compared to other known mechanisms. Additionally, we show the benefits of our adaptation framework on overall multimedia quality and system capacity.
TL;DR: It is argued that energy expenditure is a scarce resource for the energy-limited ad hoc network devices and a cross-layer approach for designing energy-efficient, balanced key distribution trees to perform key management is introduced.
Abstract: As group-oriented services become the focal point of ad hoc network applications, securing the group communications becomes a default requirement. In this paper, we address the problem of group access in secure multicast communications for wireless ad hoc networks. We argue that energy expenditure is a scarce resource for the energy-limited ad hoc network devices and introduce a cross-layer approach for designing energy-efficient, balanced key distribution trees to perform key management. To conserve energy, we incorporate the network topology (node location), the "power proximity" between network nodes and the path loss characteristics of the medium in the key distribution tree design. We develop new algorithms for homogeneous as well as heterogeneous environments and derive their computational complexity. We present simulation studies showing the improvements achieved for three different but common environments of interest, thus illustrating the need for cross-layer design approaches for security in wireless networks.
TL;DR: A MAC protocol based on slotted ALOHA that allows neighbors of a transmitter to act as relays and forward a packet toward its final destination when the transmission to the intended recipient fails.
Abstract: We propose a cooperative-diversity technique for ad hoc networks based on the decode-and-forward relaying strategy. We develop a MAC protocol based on slotted ALOHA that allows neighbors of a transmitter to act as relays and forward a packet toward its final destination when the transmission to the intended recipient fails. The proposed technique provides additional robustness against fading, packet collisions and radio mobility. Network simulations confirm that under heavy traffic conditions, in which every radio always has packets to send, the proposed cooperative-diversity slotted-ALOHA protocol can provide a higher one-hop and end-to-end throughput than the standard slotted-ALOHA protocol can. A similar advantage in end-to-end delay can be obtained when the traffic is light. As a result, the proposed cooperative-diversity ALOHA protocol can be used to improve these measures of Quality of Service (QoS) in ad hoc wireless networks.
TL;DR: A Java-based platform based on an integration of a cross-media link server and an object-oriented framework for advanced content publishing, along with a Client Controller and Context Engine is developed to support the rapid prototyping of multi-channel, multi-modal, context-aware applications.
Abstract: Interaction design is a major issue for mobile information systems in terms of not only the choice of input/output channels and presentation of information, but also the application of context-awareness. To support experimentation with these factors, we have developed platforms to support the rapid prototyping of multi-channel, multi-modal, context-aware applications. The Java-based platform presented here is based on an integration of a cross-media link server and an object-oriented framework for advanced content publishing, along with a Client Controller and Context Engine. We also describe how this platform was used to develop a mobile tourist information system for an international arts festival where interaction was based on a combination of interactive paper and speech output.
TL;DR: This paper proposes a simple and easy to implement modification of the base station’s behavior with the purpose of increasing the TCP throughput reducing useless MAC protocol overheads and designing a resource allocation protocol aimed at maximizing the success probability of the uplink transmissions by dynamically adapting the burst length to the collision probability estimated by the base stations.
Abstract: In the last years, the number of Wi-Fi hotspots at public venues has undergone a substantial growth, promoting the WLAN technologies as the ubiquitous solution to provide high-speed wireless connectivity in public areas. However, the adoption of a random access CSMA-based paradigm for the 802.11 MAC protocol makes difficult to ensure high throughput and a fair allocation of radio resources in 802.11- based WLANs. In this paper we evaluate extensively via simulations the interaction between the flow control mechanisms implemented at the TCP layer and the contention avoidance techniques used at the 802.11 MAC layer. We conducted our study considering initially M wireless stations performing downloads from the Internet. From our results, we observed that the TCP downlink throughput is not limited by the collision events, but by the inability of the MAC protocol to assign a higher chance of accessing the channel to the base station. We propose a simple and easy to implement modification of the base station's behavior with the purpose of increasing the TCP throughput reducing useless MAC protocol overheads. With our scheme, the base station is allowed to transmit periodically bursts of data frames towards the mobile hosts. We design a resource allocation protocol aimed at maximizing the success probability of the uplink transmissions by dynamically adapting the burst length to the collision probability estimated by the base station. By its design, our scheme is also beneficial to achieve a fairer allocation of the channel bandwidth among the downlink and uplink flows, and among TCP and UDP flows. Simulation results confirm both the improvement in the TCP downlink throughput and the reduction of system unfairness.
TL;DR: An extended depth-first-search (EDFS) algorithm is proposed to solve the multi-constrained path (MCP) problem in Quality-of-Service (QoS) routing, which is NP-Complete when the number of independent routing constraints is more than one.
Abstract: An extended depth-first-search (EDFS) algorithm is proposed to solve the multi-constrained path (MCP) problem in Quality-of-Service (QoS) routing, which is NP-Complete when the number of independent routing constraints is more than one. EDFS solves the general k- constrained MCP problem with pseudo-polynomial time complexity O(m2 ċ EN + N2), where m is the maximum number of non-dominated paths maintained for each destination, E and N are the number of links and nodes of a graph, respectively. This is achieved by deducing potential feasible paths from knowledge of previous explorations, without reexploring finished nodes and their descendants in the process of the DFS search. One unique property of EDFS is that the tighter the constraints are, the better the performance it can achieve, w.r.t. both time complexity and routing success ratio. This is valuable to highly dynamic environment such as wireless ad hoc networks in which network topology and link state keep changing, and real-time or multimedia applications that have stringent service requirements. EDFS is an independent feasible path searching algorithm and decoupled from the underlying routing protocol, and as such can work together with either proactive or on-demand ad hoc routing protocols as long as they can provide sufficient network state information to each source node.
Analysis and extensive simulation are conducted to study the performance of EDFS in finding feasible paths that satisfy multiple QoS constraints. The main results show that EDFS is insensitive to the number of constraints, and outperforms other popular MCP algorithms when the routing constraints are tight or moderate. The performance of EDFS is comparable with that of the other algorithms when the constraints are loose.
TL;DR: The results indicate that with moderate cluster overlapping and low traffic loading, SRSA can significantly reduce inter-cluster TDMA interference while delivering TDMA-over-CDMA like energy efficiency, at the cost of higher delivery latency.
Abstract: This paper presents a Self-Reorganizing Slot Allocation (SRSA) mechanism for TDMA based Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols in wireless sensor networks With TDMA, a node can achieve significant energy savings by remaining active only during allocated slots for transmissions and receptions In multi-cluster networks, it is often necessary for nodes to use either CDMA or FDMA for preventing interference across neighbor clusters The goal of this paper is to provide an alternative design that can reduce inter-cluster TDMA interference without having to use spectrum expensive CDMA or FDMA The primary contribution of this paper is to demonstrate that with adaptive slot allocation, it is possible to reduce such interference under low loading conditions, which is often the case for sensor networks with monitoring applications The second contribution is to design a feedback based adaptive allocation protocol that can significantly reduce those interferences without relying on any global synchronization mechanisms We present the design of SRSA and provide a simulation based characterization of the protocol in comparison with TDMA-over-CDMA, TDMA with random slot allocation and CSMA MAC protocols The results indicate that with moderate cluster overlapping and low traffic loading, SRSA can significantly reduce inter-cluster TDMA interference while delivering TDMA-over-CDMA like energy efficiency, at the cost of higher delivery latency Assuming its low complexity and narrow-band operation, SRSA can be an ideal sensor MAC protocol for applications that can tolerate relatively larger delivery latency but not frequent packet drops