Wi‐Fi‐based modeling and hybrid routing scheme for delay‐tolerant public bus network

Delay‐ or Disruption‐Tolerant Networking (DTN) is a communications approach that is utilized in easily disrupted or delayed networks. Examples of such networks are often found in heterogeneous networks, mobile or extreme terrestrial networks, and planned networks in space. In this paper, we examine the metropolitan bus network as a research target of DTN for a public transport network. We analyze the metropolitan bus network through spatial and temporal modeling using an existing Bus Information System (BIS) database. On the basis of the results of our analysis, we propose and design an appropriate DTN routing scheme called Hybrid Position‐based DTN Routing. This scheme uses position‐based routing instead of address‐based routing by soliciting infrastructural help from nearby Access Points for the real‐time BIS location service. We simulated our scheme using a WLAN for the wideband DTN communication and evaluated it by comparing it with traditional Ad hoc flooding, Epidemic routing, and strategic protocol steps in our own algorithm. The results indicate that our scheme achieves reasonably high performance in terms of packet delivery ratio, latency, and resource usage. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A guaranteed minimum throughput service for TCP flows using measurement‐based admission control

We propose a new scheme for a network service that guarantees a minimum throughput to flows accepted by admission control (AC). The whole scheme only uses a small set of packet classes in a core‐stateless network. At the ingress of the network each flow packet is marked into one of the sets of classes, and within the network, each class is assigned a different discarding priority. The AC method is based on edge‐to‐edge per‐flow throughput measurements using the first packets of the flow, and it requires flows to send with a minimum rate. We evaluate the scheme through simulations in a simple bottleneck topology with different traffic loads consisting of TCP flows that carry files of varying sizes. We use a modified TCP source with a new algorithm that forces the source to send with a minimum rate. We compare our scheme with the best‐effort service and we study the influence of the measurement duration on the scheme's performance. The results prove that the scheme guarantees the requested throughput to accepted flows and achieves a high utilization of network resources. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Downlink media streaming with wireless fountain coding in wireline‐cum‐WiFi networks

This paper addresses the problem of streaming packetized media data in a combined wireline/802.11 network. Since the wireless channel is normally the bottleneck for media streaming in such a network, we propose that wireless fountain coding (WFC) be used over the wireless downlink in order to efficiently utilize the wireless bandwidth and exploit the broadcast nature of the channel. Forward error correction (FEC) is also used to combat errors at the application‐layer. We analytically obtain the moment generating function (MGF) for the wireless link‐layer delay incurred by WFC. With the MGF, the expected value of this wireless link‐layer delay is found and used by the access point (AP), who has no knowledge of the buffer contents of wireless receivers, to make a coding‐based decision. We then derive the end‐to‐end packet loss/late probability based on the MGF. We develop an integrated ns‐3/EvalVid simulator to evaluate our proposed system and compare it with the traditional 802.11e scheme which is without WFC capability but equipped with application‐ and link‐layer retransmission mechanisms. Through extensive simulations of video streaming, we show that streaming with WFC is able to support more concurrent video flows compared to the traditional scheme. When the deadlines imposed on video packets are relatively stringent, streaming with WFC also shows superior performance in terms of packet loss/late probability, video distortion, and video frame delay, over the traditional scheme. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Non‐cooperative game‐based packet ferry forwarding for sparse mobile wireless networks

In sparse mobile wireless networks, normally, the mobile nodes are carried by people, and the moving activity of nodes always happens in a specific area, which corresponds to some specific community. Between the isolated communities, there is no stable communication link. Therefore, it is difficult to ensure the effective packet transmission among communities, which leads to the higher packet delivery delay and lower successful delivery ratio. Recently, an additional ferry node was introduced to forward packets between the isolated communities. However, most of the existing algorithms are working on how to control the trajectory of only one ferry work in the network. In this paper, we consider multiple ferries working in the network scenario and put our main focus on the optimal packet selection strategy, under the condition of mutual influence between the ferries and the buffer limitation. We introduce a non‐cooperative Bayesian game to achieve the optimal packet selection strategy. By maximizing the individual income of a ferry, we optimize the network performance on packet delivery delay and successful delivery ratio. Simulation results show that our proposed packet selection strategy improves the network performance on packet delivery delay and successful delivery ratio. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Queue length aware power control for delay‐ constrained communication over fading channels

In this paper, we study efficient power control schemes for delay sensitive communication over fading channels. Our objective is to find a power control law that optimizes the link layer performance, specifically, minimizes the packet drop probability, subject to a long‐term average power constraint. We assume the buffer at the transmitter is finite; hence packet drop happens when the buffer is full. The fading channel under our study has a continuous state, e.g., Rayleigh fading. Since the channel state space is continuous, dynamic programming is not applicable for power control. In this paper, we propose a sub‐optimal power control law based on a parametric approach. The proposed power control scheme tries to minimize the packet drop probability by considering the queue length, i.e., reducing the probability of those queue‐length states that will cause full buffer. Simulation results show that our proposed power control scheme reduces the packet drop probability by one or two orders of magnitude, compared to the time domain water filling (TDWF) and the truncated channel inversion (TCI) power control. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

A novel MAC protocol for IDMA‐based multi‐beam satellite communication systems

Considering the limitations of satellite communication systems and advantages of new emerging interleave‐division multiple access (IDMA) technology, IDMA is introduced into the satellite systems, providing a new solution for multiple access techniques of satellite systems. To further validate the IDMA into satellite systems, a novel medium access control (MAC) scheme is proposed. In the random access channel, the interleave‐division slotted ALOHA method is adopted to alleviate the collision of access requests. Furthermore, a novel minimum power allocation scheme based on signal‐to‐interference‐plus‐noise ratio (SINR) evolution is proposed to maximize the capacity of such an interference‐sensitive system. By virtue of SINR evolution, our proposed scheme can accurately estimate multi‐user detection efficiency with low computational cost and further reduce the transmitted power, illustrating the high power efficiency of IDMA. To further enhance the performance of the MAC protocol, an effective call admission control scheme considering the effect of power control error is designed and combined into our MAC protocol. Analysis and simulation results show that, by taking full advantage of the chip‐by‐chip multi‐user detection technique, the proposed IDMA MAC protocol achieves high throughput and low average packet delay simultaneously, with low onboard processing complexity in the multi‐beam satellite communication systems. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An energy‐efficient asynchronous wake‐up scheme for underwater acoustic sensor networks

In addition to the requirements of the terrestrial sensor network where performance metrics such as throughput and packet delivery delay are often emphasized, energy efficiency becomes an even more significant and challenging issue in underwater acoustic sensor networks, especially when long‐term deployment is required. In this paper, we tackle the problem of energy conservation in underwater acoustic sensor networks for long‐term marine monitoring applications. We propose an asynchronous wake‐up scheme based on combinatorial designs to minimize the working duty cycle of sensor nodes. We prove that network connectivity can be properly maintained using such a design even with a reduced duty cycle. We study the utilization ratio of the sink node and the scalability of the network using multiple sink nodes. Simulation results show that the proposed asynchronous wake‐up scheme can effectively reduce the energy consumption for idle listening and can outperform other cyclic difference set‐based wake‐up schemes. More significantly, high performance is achieved without sacrificing network connectivity. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Constructing Strong Identity‐Based Designated Verifier Signatures with Self‐Unverifiability

An identity‐based strong designated verifier signature scheme provides restricted verifiability only for a verifier designated by a signer and proper privacy for the signer. In this paper, we show that strong designated verifier signature schemes do not satisfy the self‐unverifiability requirement in the sense that not only exposure of the verifier's secret key but also of the signer's secret key enables an attacker to verify signatures, which should have been the exclusive right of the verifier. We also present a generic method to construct a strong identity‐based designated verifier signature scheme with self‐unverifiability from identity‐based key encapsulation and identity‐based key sharing schemes. We prove that a scheme constructed from our method achieves unforgeability, non‐transferability, and self‐unverifiability if the two underlying components are secure. To show the advantage of our method, we present an example that outputs short signatures and we analyze its performance.     

Bounded‐delay and loss‐free guarantees for real‐time video in integrated services packet networks

In this paper, we analyse upper bounds on the end‐to‐end delay and the required buffer size at the leaky bucket and packet switches within the network in the context of the deterministic bandwidth allocation method in integrated services packet networks. Based on that formulation, we then propose a CAC method suitable to ISPN to guarantee the bounded end‐to‐end delay and loss‐free packet transmissions. As an example application, the GOP–CBR MPEG‐2 is considered. In that case, we also show tighter bounds by slightly modifying the coding method of GOP–CBR MPEG‐2. Using the actual traced data of GOP–CBR MPEG‐2, we discuss the applicabilities of our analytical results and proposed CAC by comparing with simulation. Numerical results show that the loose upper bounds can also achieve more utilization even in the context of deterministic bandwidth allocation compared with the peak bandwidth allocation strategy. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Packet‐level‐based traffic aggregation to optimize NDN content delivery

In recent years, named data networking (NDN) has been accepted as the most popular future paradigm and attracted much attention, of which the routing model contains interest forwarding and content delivery. However, interest forwarding is far from the bottleneck of routing optimization; instead, the study on content delivery can greatly promote routing performance. Although many proposals on content delivery have been investigated, they have not considered packet‐level caching and deep traffic aggregation, which goes against the performance optimization of content delivery. In this paper, we propose a packet‐level‐based traffic aggregation (PLTA) scheme to optimize NDN content delivery. At first, the packet format is devised, and data plane development kit (DPDK) is used to ensure same size for each packet. Then, the whole delivery scheme with traffic aggregation consideration is presented. The simulation is driven by the real YouTube dataset over Deltacom, NSFNET, and CERNET topologies, and the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed PLTA has better delivery performance than three baselines in terms of cache hit ratio, delivery delay, network load, and energy efficiency.     

Exploiting packet‐sampling measurements for traffic characterization and classification

The use of packet sampling for traffic measurement has become mandatory for network operators to cope with the huge amount of data transmitted in today's networks, powered by increasingly faster transmission technologies. Therefore, many networking tasks must already deal with such reduced data, more available but less rich in information. In this work we assess the impact of packet sampling on various network monitoring‐activities, with a particular focus on traffic characterization and classification. We process an extremely heterogeneous dataset composed of four packet‐level traces (representative of different access technologies and operational environments) with a traffic monitor able to apply different sampling policies and rates to the traffic and extract several features both in aggregated and per‐flow fashion, providing empirical evidences of the impact of packet sampling on both traffic measurement and traffic classification. First, we analyze feature distortion, quantified by means of two statistical metrics: most features appear already deteriorated under low sampling step, no matter the sampling policy, while only a few remain consistent under harsh sampling conditions, which may even cause some artifacts, undermining the correctness of measurements. Second, we evaluate the performance of traffic classification under sampling. The information content of features, even though deteriorated, still allows a good classification accuracy, provided that the classifier is trained with data obtained at the same sampling rate of the target data. The accuracy is also due to a thoughtful choice of a smart sampling policy which biases the sampling towards packets carrying the most useful information. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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 cross‐layer study for application‐aware multi‐hop cognitive radio networks

Satisfying the different requirements of applications is important in multi‐hop cognitive radio networks, because the spectrum resources change dynamically and the requirements for various applications could be very different. In this paper, we propose new schemes of channel allocation and route selection for real‐time and non‐real‐time applications to tackle this challenge. Our scheme is flexible so that it can adapt to the different application requirements, and it can provide enough throughput while maintaining the packet loss rate and transmission rate requirements. First, we give the network model in a cognitive radio network environment, and show how to calculate the capacity of the route in multi‐hop cognitive radio networks. Second, we formulate optimization problems to fulfill the rate requirements of different applications for each unicast session. We also consider the primary user activities, channel availability, interface and interference constraint. We propose the corresponding routing and channel allocation schemes for different application scenarios. Third, we propose an admission control scheme to study the impact of application requirements for multiple sessions in cognitive radio networks. Finally, we implement simulations to show the performance of our schemes and compare them with existing schemes. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Packet Loss Fair Scheduling Scheme for Real‐Time Traffic in OFDMA Systems

In this paper, we propose a packet scheduling discipline called packet loss fair scheduling, in which the packet loss of each user from different real‐time traffic is fairly distributed according to the quality of service requirements. We consider an orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) system. The basic frame structure of the system is for the downlink in a cellular packet network, where the time axis is divided into a finite number of slots within a frame, and the frequency axis is segmented into subchannels that consist of multiple subcarriers. In addition, to compensate for fast and slow channel variation, we employ a link adaptation technique such as adaptive modulation and coding. From the simulation results, our proposed packet scheduling scheme can support QoS differentiations while guaranteeing short‐term fairness as well as long‐term fairness for various real‐time traffic.     

Fast ping‐pong arbitration for input–output queued packet switches

Input–output queued switches have been widely considered as the most feasible solution for large capacity packet switches and IP routers. In this paper, we propose a ping‐pong arbitration scheme (PPA) for output contention resolution in input–output queued switches. The challenge is to develop a high speed and cost‐effective arbitration scheme in order to maximize the switch throughput and delay performance for supporting multimedia services with various quality‐of‐service (QoS) requirements. The basic idea is to divide the inputs into groups and apply arbitration recursively. Our recursive arbiter is hierarchically structured, consisting of multiple small‐size arbiters at each layer. The arbitration time of an n‐input switch is proportional to log₄?n/2? when we group every two inputs or every two input groups at each layer. We present a 256×256 terabit crossbar multicast packet switch using the PPA. The design shows that our scheme can reduce the arbitration time of the 256×256 switch to 11 gates delay, demonstrating the arbitration is no longer the bottleneck limiting the switch capacity. The priority handling in arbitration is also addressed. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Sub‐Nyquist rate ADC sampling‐based compressive channel estimation

To realize high‐speed communication, broadband transmission has become an indispensable technique in the next‐generation wireless communication systems. Broadband channel is often characterized by the sparse multipath channel model, and significant taps are widely separated in time, and thereby, a large delay spread exists. Accurate channel state information is required for coherent detection. Traditionally, accurate channel estimation can be achieved by sampling the received signal with large delay spread by analog‐to‐digital converter (ADC) at Nyquist rate and then estimate all of channel taps. However, as the transmission bandwidth increases, the demands of the Nyquist sampling rate already exceed the capabilities of current ADC. In addition, the high‐speed ADC is very expensive for ordinary wireless communication. In this paper, we present a novel receiver, which utilizes a sub‐Nyquist ADC that samples at much lower rate than the Nyquist one. On the basis of the sampling scheme, we propose a compressive channel estimation method using Dantzig selector algorithm. By comparing with the traditional least square channel estimation, our proposed method not only achieves robust channel estimation but also reduces the cost because low‐speed ADC is much cheaper than high‐speed one. Computer simulations confirm the effectiveness of our proposed method. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

QoS‐based space‐frequency prefiltering for TDD MC‐CDMA systems in slowly time‐varying channels

This work presents a space‐frequency prefiltering scheme for slowly time‐varying TDD MC‐CDMA downlink communications with multiple antennas at the base station (BS). Unlike the conventional spatially uncorrelated block fading channel model, both channel variation in each packet and spatial correlation are considered in the design. In the TDD mode, the mobile terminals (MTs) transmit training signals at the end of each uplink packet. In the following downlink packet, the BS computes the signal weights on different antennas and subcarriers for each MT in each symbol period based on the channel state predicted from the received training signals. The goal is to minimize the total required transmit power while keeping the received signal‐to‐interference‐plus‐noise ratio (SINR) as the target for each MT. Moreover, the maximum packet length for satisfying the SINR requirements has been determined. The results indicate that the total required transmit power can be reduced by a lower mobile speed or more BS antennas. As a result, the maximum packet length can be extended in virtue of the power reduction. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Virtual‐coordinate‐based delivery‐guaranteed routing protocol in three‐dimensional wireless sensor networks

Because of the wide range of applications, many geographic routing protocols have been proposed in three‐dimensional (3D) wireless sensor networks. However, all the methods require assistance from a global positioning system (GPS), which is not always available. In this paper, we propose a method of constructing an axis‐based virtual coordinate assignment in 3D wireless sensor networks (ABVCap_3D) that requires no GPS assistance. We also propose a routing protocol based on ABVCap_3D, which guarantees packet delivery in 3D networks. Using simulations, we evaluate the performance of ABVCap_3D routing and other well‐known routing protocols, such as greedy‐random‐greedy routing, greedy‐hull‐greedy routing, and the routing based on axis‐based virtual coordinate assignment in 2D wireless sensor networks (ABVCap routing). Simulations show that ABVCap_3D routing requires significantly relative lower cost for guaranteeing packet delivery in comparison with ABVCap routing. Simulations also demonstrate that ABVCap_3D routing ensures a moderate ratio for routing path length to the shortest (ideal) path length. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Tree‐based channel assignment schemes for multi‐channel wireless sensor networks

Many sensor node platforms used for establishing wireless sensor networks (WSNs) can support multiple radio channels for wireless communication. Therefore, rather than using a single radio channel for whole network, multiple channels can be utilized in a sensor network simultaneously to decrease overall network interference, which may help increase the aggregate network throughput and decrease packet collisions and delays. This method, however, requires appropriate schemes to be used for assigning channels to nodes for multi‐channel communication in the network. Because data generated by sensor nodes are usually delivered to the sink node using routing trees, a tree‐based channel assignment scheme is a natural approach for assigning channels in a WSN. We present two fast tree‐based channel assignment schemes (called bottom up channel assignment and neighbor count‐based channel assignment) for multi‐channel WSNs. We also propose a new interference metric that is used by our algorithms in making decisions. We validated and evaluated our proposed schemes via extensive simulation experiments. Our simulation results show that our algorithms can decrease interference in a network, thereby increasing performance, and that our algorithms are good alternatives for static channel assignment in WSNs. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.