Cross‐layer technique for boosting base‐station anonymity in wireless sensor networks

A wireless sensor network (WSN) principally is composed of many sensor nodes and a single in situ base station (BS), which are randomly distributed in a given area of interest. These sensor nodes transmit their measurements to the BS over multihop wireless paths. In addition to collecting and processing the sensed data, the BS performs network management operations. Because of the importance of the BS to the WSN, it is the most attractive target of attacks for an adversary. Basically, the adversary opts to locate the BS and target it with denial‐of‐service attack to temporarily or indefinitely disrupt the WSN operation. The adversary can intercept the data packet transmissions and use traffic analysis techniques such as evidence theory to uncover the routing topology. To counter such an attack, this paper presents a novel technique for boosting the BS anonymity by grouping nodes into clusters and creating multiple mesh‐based routing topologies among the cluster heads (CHs). By applying the closed space‐filling curves such as the Moore curve, for forming a mesh, the CHs are offered a number of choices for disseminating aggregated data to the BS through inter‐CH paths. Then, the BS forwards the aggregated data as well so that it appears as one of the CHs. The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed technique in boosting the anonymity of the BS.     

A novel fault detection and recovery technique for cluster‐based underwater wireless sensor networks

The performance of underwater wireless sensor network gets affected by the working of a cluster in the network. The cluster head (CH) or cluster member (CM) fails because of energy depletion or hardware errors that increase delay and message overhead of the network. To recover the affected cluster, a technique is required to identify the failed CH or CM. We propose a fault detection and recovery technique (FDRT) for a cluster‐based network in this paper. Primarily, while selecting the CH, a backup cluster head (BCH) is selected using fuzzy logic technique based on parameters such as node density, residual energy, load, distance to sink, and link quality. Then, failure of CH, BCH, and CM is detected. If fault is detected at CH, then the BCH will start performing the task of failed CH. Simultaneously, when BCH failed, any other CM will be elected as BCH. If any of the CM appears to be nonperforming, then CH will detect the communication failure and request BCH to transfer the data from the failed CM to CH. The comparison of proposed FDRT is performed with existing FDRTs EDETA, RCH, and SDMCGC on the basis of packet drop, end‐to‐end delay, energy consumption, and delivery ratio of data packets. By simulation results, it is shown that FDRT for cluster‐based underwater wireless sensor network results in quicker detection of failures and recovery of the network along with the reduction in energy consumption, thereby increasing the lifespan of the network.     

Managing QoS requirements for video streaming: from intra‐node to inter‐node

Streaming video over IP networks has become increasingly popular; however, compared to traditional data traffic, video streaming places different demands on quality of service (QoS) in a network, particularly in terms of delay, delay variation, and data loss. In response to the QoS demands of video applications, network techniques have been proposed to provide QoS within a network. Unfortunately, while efficient from a network perspective, most existing solutions have not provided end‐to‐end QoS that is satisfactory to users. In this paper, packet scheduling and end‐to‐end QoS distribution schemes are proposed to address this issue. The design and implementation of the two schemes are based on the active networking paradigm. In active networks, routers can perform user‐driven computation when forwarding packets, rather than just simple storing and forwarding packets, as in traditional networks. Both schemes thus take advantage of the capability of active networks enabling routers to adapt to the content of transmitted data and the QoS requirements of video users. In other words, packet scheduling at routers considers the correlation between video characteristics, available local resources and the resulting visual quality. The proposed QoS distribution scheme performs inter‐node adaptation, dynamically adjusting local loss constraints in response to network conditions in order to satisfy the end‐to‐end loss requirements. An active network‐based simulation shows that using QoS distribution and packet scheduling together increases the probability of meeting end‐to‐end QoS requirements of networked video. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hybrid offset‐time and burst assembly algorithm (H‐OTBA) for delay sensitive applications over optical burst switching networks

Optical burst switching (OBS) is the most favourable switching paradigm for future all‐optical networks. Burst assembly is the first process in OBS and it consists of aggregating clients packets into bursts. Assembled bursts wait for an offset time before being transmitted to their intended destinations. Offset time is used to allow burst control packet reserve required resources prior to burst arrival. Burst assembly process and offset‐time create extra delay in OBS networks. To make OBS suitable for real time applications, this extra latency needs to be controlled. This paper proposes and evaluates a novel offset time and burst assembly scheme to address this issue. Constant bit rate (CBR) traffic that has stringent end‐to‐end delay QoS requirements is used in this study. The proposed scheme is called hybrid offset‐time and burst assembly algorithm (H‐OTBA). The objective of the paper is achieved by controlling maximum burst transfer delay parameters of CBR. The proposed scheme was evaluated via network simulation. Simulation results demonstrate that, H‐OTBA has effectively reduced end‐to‐end delay for CBR traffic compared with current solutions. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Load‐balanced data gathering in Internet of Things using an energy‐aware cuckoo‐search algorithm

This paper deals with the lifetime problem in the Internet of Things. We first propose an efficient cluster‐based scheme named “Cuckoo‐search Clustering with Two‐hop Routing Tree (CC‐TRT)” to develop a two‐hop load‐balanced data aggregation routing tree in the network. CC‐TRT uses a modified energy‐aware cuckoo‐search algorithm to fairly select the best cluster head (CH) for each cluster. The applied cuckoo‐search algorithm makes the CH role to rotate between different sensors round by round. Subsequently, we extend the CC‐TRT scheme to present two methods for constructing multi‐hop data aggregation routing trees, named “Cuckoo‐search Clustering with Multi‐Hop Routing Tree (CC‐MRT)” and “Cuckoo‐search Clustering with Weighted Multi‐hop Routing Tree (CC‐WMRT).” Both CC‐MRT and CC‐WMRT rely on a two‐level structure; they not only use an energy‐aware cuckoo‐search algorithm to fairly select the best CHs but also adopt a load‐balanced high‐level routing tree to route the aggregated data of CHs to the sink node. However, CC‐WMRT slightly has a better performance thanks to its low‐level routing strategy. As an advantage, the proposed schemes balance the energy consumption among different sensors. Numerical results show the efficiency of the CC‐TRT, CC‐MRT, and CC‐WMRT algorithms in terms of the number of transmissions, remaining energy, energy consumption variance, and network lifetime.     

Mini‐Slot‐Based Transmission Scheme for Local Customer Internetworking in PONs

We propose a new mini‐slot transmission scheme for a passive optical network (PON) in which each customer can be switched either to access mode or to internetworking mode dynamically. In this paper, we present the system implementation (called LAN‐PON) as well as the performance of the proposed transmission scheme to illustrate its feasibility and benefits. A mini‐slot scheme can rapidly reduce the queuing delay, which increases due to the flooding of the deflected packets in a deflection scheme. We evaluate the impact of mode switching time on the bandwidth gain (throughput) and delay of local area network (LAN) traffic in the LAN‐PON with a mini‐slot scheme. We also analyze a theoretical delay model of the proposed scheme. The simulation results demonstrate that switching time has an impact on LAN performance, and the average packet delay of the proposed scheme is significantly improved compared to that of the deflection scheme.     

Increasing lifetime of wireless sensor networks using controllable mobile cluster heads

In a static wireless sensor network (WSN), sensors close to the base station (BS) run out of energy at a much faster rate than sensors in other parts of the network. This is because the sensor close to the BS always relays the data for other sensors, resulting in an unequal distribution of network residual energy. In this paper, we propose a scheme for enhancing the network lifetime using multiple mobile cluster heads (CHs) that can move in the WSN in a controllable manner. The CH controllably moves toward the energy‐rich sensors or the event area, offering the benefits of maintaining the remaining energy more evenly, or eliminating multihop transmission. Therefore, the proposed scheme increases the network lifetime. We theoretically analyze the energy consumption in our scheme and propose three heuristical mobility strategies. We further study the collaboration among CHs in order to maintain their connectivity to the BS to ensure the delay requirement for real‐time applications. Simulation shows that network lifetime is increased by upto 75% over existing approach by making CHs always move toward a stable equilibrium point. Our connectivity algorithm provides a best case improvement of 40% in transmission delays over existing schemes. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Flower pollination algorithm‐based energy‐efficient stable clustering approach for WSNs

The advances in the size, cost of deployment, and user‐friendly interface of wireless sensor devices have given rise to many wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. WSNs need to use protocols for transmitting data samples from event regions to sink through minimum cost links. Clustering is a commonly used method of data aggregation in which nodes are organized into groups to reduce energy consumption. Nonetheless, cluster head (CH) has to bear an additional load in clustering protocols to organize different activities within the cluster. Proper CH selection and load balancing using efficient routing protocol is therefore a critical aspect for WSN's long‐term operation. In this paper, a threshold‐sensitive energy‐efficient cluster‐based routing protocol based on flower pollination algorithm (FPA) is proposed to extend the network's stability period. Using FPA, multihop communication between CHs and base station is used to achieve optimal link costs for load balancing distant CHs and energy minimization. Analysis and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm significantly outperforms competitive clustering algorithms in terms of energy consumption, stability period, and system lifetime.     

Link stability‐aware reliable packet transmitting mechanism in mobile ad hoc network

To guarantee the QoS of multimedia applications in a mobile ad hoc network (MANET), a reliable packet transmitting mechanism in MANET is proposed. In this paper, we introduce an effective link lifetime estimation scheme. According to the current network topology and corresponding estimated link lifetime, the end‐to‐end connection is established adaptively in the best effort manner. Consequently, utilizing the network coding method the relay node combines and forwards the packets on the working path. Furthermore, to keep the balance between the gain in reliability and the amount of redundant packets, the time for sending the redundant packets on the backup path is determined for the link stability intelligently. Simulations show that our mechanisms can provide reliable transmissions for data packets and enhance the performance of the entire network, such as the packet delivery ratio, the end‐to‐end delay and the number of control messages. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Queue‐based multiple path load balancing routing protocol for MANETs

Congestion in the network is the main cause for packet drop and increased end‐to‐end transmission delay of packet between source and destination nodes. Congestion occurs because of the simultaneous contention for network resources. It is very important to efficiently utilize the available resources so that a load can be distributed efficiently throughout the network. Otherwise, the resources of heavily loaded nodes may be depleted very soon, which ultimately affects network performances. In this paper, we have proposed a new routing protocol named queue‐based multiple path load balancing routing protocol. This protocol discovers several node‐disjoint paths from source to destination nodes. It also finds minimum queue length with respect to individual paths, sorts the node‐disjoint paths based on queue length, and distributes the packets through these paths based on the minimum queue length. Simulation results show that the proposed routing protocol distributes the load efficiently and achieves better network performances in terms of packet delivery ratio, end‐to‐end delay, and routing overhead. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An efficient routing protocol for the QoS support of large‐scale MANETs

The hierarchical routing algorithm is categorized as a kind of routing method using node clustering to create a hierarchical structure in large‐scale mobile ad hoc network (LMANET). In this paper, we proposed a new hierarchical clustering algorithm (HCAL) and a corresponded protocol for hierarchical routing in LMANET. The HCAL is designed based on a cost metric in the form of the link expiration time and node's relative degree. Correspondingly, the routing protocol for HCAL adopts a reactive protocol to control the existing cluster head (CH) nodes and handle proactive nodes to be considered as a cluster in LMANET. Hierarchical clustering algorithm jointly utilizes table‐driven and on‐demand routing by using a combined weight metric to search dominant set of nodes. This set is composed by link expiration time and node's relative degree to establish the intra/intercommunication paths in LMANET. The performance of the proposed algorithm and protocol is numerically evaluated in average end‐to‐end delay, number of CH per round, iteration count between the CHs, average CH keeping time, normalized routing overhead, and packet delivery ratio over a number of randomly generated benchmark scenarios. Furthermore, to corroborate the actual effectiveness of the HCAL algorithm, extensive performance comparisons are carried out with some state‐of‐the‐art routing algorithms, namely, Dynamic Doppler Velocity Clustering, Signal Characteristic‐Based Clustering, Dynamic Link Duration Clustering, and mobility‐based clustering algorithms.     

SPEECH‐MAC: Special purpose energy‐efficient contention‐based hybrid MAC protocol for WSN and Zigbee network

Energy‐efficient Zigbee‐based wireless sensor network (WSN) occupies a major role in emergency‐based applications. The foremost drawback of such applications is maintaining the battery power because frequent changing is not possible in those conditions. In the earlier days, several researches created new model MAC protocols in terms of increase the lifetime of the WSN. But still, there is a research gap particularly in emergency applications. In order to improve the lifetime of such applications, we introduced a novel hybrid MAC protocol, namely, special purpose energy‐efficient contention‐based hybrid MAC (SPEECH‐MAC) protocol. This protocol includes dual hop concept considerably to save the energy. Both the single hop network and the dual hop networks are developed, and the results are analyzed. Prioritization mechanism for SPEECH‐MAC protocol is introduced to analyze the emergency conditions in detail. In summary, according to the simulation, the calculated parameters are total residual energy, end‐to‐end delay, packet drop, packet delivery ratio, and network throughput.     

Improving mobile network performance with two queueing buffer allocations of priority-based queueing scheme

As current mobile core network systems are expected to evolve into all-IP networks, packet switching will be a prerequisite for all mobile applications. Next-generation mobile networks, as envisioned by ITU-T, are packet-based networks capable of providing consistent and ubiquitous service to end users, independent of the network, access technology, and device used. This study discusses the differentiated packet forwarding performance of four major types of mobile network traffic under the proposed mobile network priority-based queueing (MPQ) scheme with two queueing buffer allocations, namely dynamic queueing buffer (DQB) allocation and overflow queueing buffer (OQB) allocation. As different queueing buffer allocations are adopted to store arriving packets in DQB and OQB, the MPQ scheme shows different packet forwarding performance under these two methods. In this study, we use ns2 (Network Simulator version 2) as the simulation platform to simulate several scenarios. The simulation results show that the MPQ scheme is able to support differentiated packet forwarding behavior for mobile traffic with both DQB and OQB allocations in a mobile core network. Some issues were identified in the MPQ scheme with both DQB and OQB allocation, which will need to be addressed.     

Protocol for the application of cooperative MIMO based on clustering in sparse wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) using cooperative multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication are effective tools to collect data in several environments. However, how to apply cooperative MIMO in WSN remains a critical challenge, especially in sparse WSN. In this article, a novel clustering scheme is proposed for the application of cooperative MIMO in sparse WSN by extending the traditional low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) protocol. This clustering scheme solves the problem that the cluster heads (CH) cannot find enough secondary cluster heads (SCH), which are used to cooperate and inform multiple-antenna transmitters with CHs. On the basis of this protocol, the overall energy consumption of the networks model is developed, and the optimal number of CHs is obtained. The simulation results show that this protocol is feasible for the sparse WSN. The simulation results also illustrate that this protocol provides significant energy efficiencies, even after allowing for additional overheads.     

A green cluster‐based routing scheme for large‐scale wireless sensor networks

In wireless sensor networks (WSNs), clustering has been shown to be an efficient technique to improve scalability and network lifetime. In clustered networks, clustering creates unequal load distribution among cluster heads (CHs) and cluster member (CM) nodes. As a result, the entire network is subject to premature death because of the deficient active nodes within the network. In this paper, we present clustering‐based routing algorithms that can balance out the trade‐off between load distribution and network lifetime “green cluster‐based routing scheme.” This paper proposes a new energy‐aware green cluster‐based routing algorithm to preventing premature death of large‐scale dense WSNs. To deal with the uncertainty present in network information, a fuzzy rule‐based node classification model is proposed for clustering. Its primary benefits are flexibility in selecting effective CHs, reliability in distributing CHs overload among the other nodes, and reducing communication overhead and cluster formation time in highly dense areas. In addition, we propose a routing scheme that balances the load among sensors. The proposed scheme is evaluated through simulations to compare our scheme with the existing algorithms available in the literature. The numerical results show the relevance and improved efficiency of our scheme.     

A hybrid beaconless geographic routing for different packets in WSN

The localized operation and stateless features of geographic routing make it become an attractive routing scheme for wireless sensor network (WSN). In this paper, we proposed a novel routing protocol, hybrid beaconless geographic routing (HBGR), which provides different mechanisms for different packets. Based on the requirement of application on latency, we divide the packets of WSN into delay sensitive packets and normal packets. HBGR uses two kinds of Request-To-Send/Clear-To-Send handshaking mechanisms for delay sensitive packets and normal packets, and assigns them different priority to obtain the channel. The simplified analysis is given, which proves that delay sensitive packets have lower latency and higher priority to obtain the channel than normal packets. Moreover, forwarding area division scheme is proposed to optimize the forwarder selection. Simulation results show that HBGR achieves higher packet delivery ratio, lower End-to-End latency and lower energy consumption than existing protocols under different packet generation rates in stationary and mobility scenario. Besides, compared with normal packets, delay sensitive packets have at least 10 % (9 %) improvement in terms of End-to-End latency. The improvement increases with the increasing of packet generation rate, and achieves 58 % (73 %) when the packet generation rate is 24 packets per second in stationary (mobility) scenario.     

An energy‐saving‐centric downlink scheduling scheme for WiMAX networks

This study proposes an energy‐saving‐centric downlink scheduling scheme to support efficient power utilization and to satisfy the QoS requirements. The base station considers the queue lengths of mobile stations with real‐time and non‐real‐time connections and considers their QoS requirements to determine the sleeping parameters when the mobile stations issue sleep requests. The proposed scheme appropriately reschedules the sleep‐requesting mobile station to transmit its queued packets for optimal power‐saving efficiency. The QoS requirement is considered as the constraint during traffic rescheduling. The treatment of real‐time connections generally requires a trade‐off of the delay requirement and the longer sleep window, and the non‐real‐time connections must concern the packet drop and minimum data rates when performing the energy‐centric scheduling. Two rescheduling algorithms, that is, whole and partial reschedules, are proposed and analyzed in this paper. The whole‐reschedule scheme provides improved energy‐saving performance at the cost of tolerable longer delay and computing complexity when compared with the partial‐reschedule scheme. Our simulation results indicated that both schemes not only guarantee the desired QoS but also achieve superior energy‐saving efficiency to that of traditional scheduling. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Interleaved coding and sequential transmission scheme for packet‐level forward error correction over burst loss channels

Burst packet loss is a common problem over wired and wireless networks and leads to a significant reduction in the performance of packet‐level forward error correction (FEC) schemes used to recover packet losses during transmission. Traditional FEC interleaving methods adopt the sequential coding‐interleaved transmission (SCIT) process to encode the FEC packets sequentially and reorder the packet transmission sequence. Consequently, the burst loss effect can be mitigated at the expense of an increased end‐to‐end delay. Alternatively, the reversed interleaving scheme, namely, interleaved coding‐sequential transmission (ICST), performs FEC coding in an interleaved manner and transmits the packets sequentially based on their generation order in the application. In this study, the analytical FEC model is constructed to evaluate the performance of the SCIT and ICST schemes. From the analysis results, it can be observed that the interleaving delay of ICST FEC is reduced by transmitting the source packets immediately as they arrive from the application. Accordingly, an Enhanced ICST scheme is further proposed to trade the saved interleaving time for a greater interleaving capacity, and the corresponding packet loss rate can be minimized under a given delay constraint. The simulation results show that the Enhanced ICST scheme achieves a lower packet loss rate and a higher peak signal‐to‐noise‐ratio than the traditional SCIT and ICST schemes for video streaming applications.     

Small‐block interleaving for low‐delay cross‐packet forward error correction over burst‐loss channels

By adding the redundant packets into source packet block, cross‐packet forward error correction (FEC) scheme performs error correction across packets and can recover both congestion packet loss and wireless bit errors accordingly. Because cross‐packet FEC typically trades the additional latency to combat burst losses in the wireless channel, this paper presents a FEC enhancement scheme using the small‐block interleaving technique to enhance cross‐packet FEC with the decreased delay and improved good‐put. Specifically, adopting short block size is effective in reducing FEC processing delay, whereas the corresponding effect of lower burst‐error correction capacity can be compensated by deliberately controlling the interleaving degree. The main features include (i) the proposed scheme that operates in the post‐processing manner to be compatible with the existing FEC control schemes and (ii) to maximize the data good‐put in lossy networks; an analytical FEC model is built on the interleaved Gilbert‐Elliott channel to determine the optimal FEC parameters. The simulation results show that the small‐block interleaved FEC scheme significantly improves the video streaming quality in lossy channels for delay‐sensitive video. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A gradient‐based multiple‐path routing protocol for low duty‐cycled wireless sensor networks

Routing in a low duty‐cycled wireless sensor network (WSN) has attracted much attention recently because of the challenge that low duty‐cycled sleep scheduling brings to the design of efficient distributed routing protocols for such networks. In a low duty‐cycled WSN, a big problem is how to design an efficient distributed routing protocol, which uses only local network state information while achieving low end‐to‐end (E2E) packet delivery delay and also high packet delivery efficiency. In this paper, we study low duty‐cycled WSNs wherein sensor nodes adopt pseudorandom sleep scheduling for energy saving. The objective of this paper is to design an efficient distributed routing protocol with low overhead. For this purpose, we design a simple but efficient hop‐by‐hop routing protocol, which integrates the ideas of multipath routing and gradient‐based routing for improved routing performance. We conduct extensive simulations, and the results demonstrate the high performance of the proposed protocol in terms of E2E packet delivery latency and packet delivery efficiency as compared with existing protocols. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.