Profit‐based exclusive‐or coding algorithm for data retransmission in DVB‐H with a recovery network

The digital video broadcasting‐handheld (DVB‐H) standard is developed by European Telecommunications Standards Institute to broadcast digital videos to handheld devices, but data loss is a critical issue due to the broadcast behavior. On the other hand, DVB‐Internet protocol datacasting (DVB‐IPDC) integrates DVB‐H with an Internet protocol‐based wireless network to provide bidirectional communication. We adopt this wireless network to deal with data retransmission and call it a recovery network. The paper argues that network coding can improve retransmission efficiency of the recovery network because DVB‐H packet loss often exhibits high correlation. In addition, DVB‐H packets may be heterogeneous in the sense that they have different importance. According to these two arguments, the paper considers that DVB‐H packets are associated with different profit depending on their importance and proposes an α‐maximum profit network coding problem. It asks the base station in the recovery network to use no more than α coded packets for handheld devices to retrieve the lost DVB‐H packets such that the overall profit is the maximum. An efficient exclusive‐or coding scheme, namely the profit‐based exclusive‐or network coding (PEN) algorithm, is proposed to solve this problem. Extensive simulation results also verify the effectiveness of the PEN algorithm. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Integrated alerting and system broadcast channel for a wirelessaccess system

A protocol is described which allows a wireless access system to dynamically multiplex the alerting, system information, and priority access request subchannels on its system-wide broadcast channel. These subchannels each have different requirements with respect to the message length and position within the framing structure; the described protocol meets each of their requirements. The protocol efficiently accommodates a wide range of alerting traffic levels and provides for efficient downloading of system information to subscriber units by using excess capacity when alerting traffic is low. It provides error detection capabilities above that provided by the radio channel alone and is easily extendible to accommodate other services such as paging and low bandwidth broadcast messaging. The flexibility provided by this protocol could permit a broad range of network architectures for wireless access     

Secure group communication in wireless mesh networks

Wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have emerged as a promising technology that offers low-cost community wireless services. The community-oriented nature of WMNs facilitates group applications, such as webcast, distance learning, online gaming, video conferencing, and multimedia broadcasting. Security is critical for the deployment of these services. Previous work focused primarily on MAC and routing protocol security, while application-level security has received relatively little attention. In this paper we focus on providing data confidentiality for group communication in WMNs. Compared to other network environments, WMNs present new challenges and opportunities in designing such protocols. We propose a new protocol framework, Secure Group Overlay Multicast (SeGrOM), that employs decentralized group membership, promotes localized communication, and leverages the wireless broadcast nature to achieve efficient and secure group communication. We analyze the performance and discuss the security properties of our protocols. We demonstrate through simulations that our protocols provide good performance and incur a significantly smaller overhead than a baseline centralized protocol optimized for WMNs.     

Performance Evaluation of Wireless Controller Area Network (WCAN) Using Token Frame Scheme

In this paper, a proposed new wireless protocol so-called wireless controller area network is introduced. WCAN is an adaptation of its wired cousin, controller area network protocol. The proposed WCAN uses token frame scheme in providing channel access to nodes in the system. This token frame method follows the example used in wireless token ring protocol which is a wireless network protocol that reduces the number of retransmissions as a result of collisions. This scheme based on CAN protocol allows nodes to share a common broadcast channel by taking turns in transmitting upon receiving the token frame that circulates around the network for a specified amount of time. The token frame allows nodes to access the network one at a time, giving ‘fair’ chance to all nodes instead of competing against one another. This method provides high throughput in a bounded latency environment. The proposed WCAN protocol has been developed and simulated by means of QualNet simulator. The performances of this proposed protocol are evaluated from the perspective of throughput, end-to-end delay and packet delivery ratio, and are compared against the IEEE 802.11 protocol. Simulation results show that the proposed WCAN outperforms IEEE 802.11 based protocol by 62.5 % in terms of throughput with increasing network size. Also, it shows an improvement of 6 % compared to IEEE 802.11 standard at a higher data interval rate.     

An efficient reliable broadcasting protocol for wireless mobile ad hoc networks

The mobile ad hoc network (MANET) has recently been recognized as an attractive network architecture for wireless communication. Reliable broadcast is an important operation in MANET (e.g., giving orders, searching routes, and notifying important signals). However, using a naive flooding to achieve reliable broadcasting may be very costly, causing a lot of contention, collision, and congestion, to which we refer as the broadcast storm problem. This paper proposes an efficient reliable broadcasting protocol by taking care of the potential broadcast storm problem that could occur in the medium-access level. Existing protocols are either unreliable, or reliable but based on a too costly approach. Our protocol differs from existing protocols by adopting a low-cost broadcast, which does not guarantee reliability, as a basic operation. The reliability is ensured by additional acknowledgement and handshaking. Simulation results do justify the efficiency of the proposed protocol.     

The Scheduling to Achieve Optimized Performance of Randomly Addressed Polling Protocol

A collision occurs in real network access if two or more packets are simultaneously transmitted. Hence, the contentioncollision must be resolved when applying a protocol in the wireless data network. In this paper,we adopt the concept of elimination and dynamic tree expansion in Randomly AddressedPolling (RAP) protocol to reduce the delay time and enhance the throughput. Analyses resultsindicate that the throughput performance of this algorithm is up to about 0.9 and thedelay time rapidly decays.     

Energy efficient broadcast routing in mobile ad hoc networks

In this paper, we address the problem of broadcast routing in mobile ad hoc networks from the viewpoint of energy efficiency. In an ad hoc wireless network, each node runs on a local energy source which has a limited energy lifespan. Thus, energy conservation is a critical issue in ad hoc networks. One approach for energy conservation is to establish routes which require lowest total energy consumption. This optimization problem is referred as the minimum‐energy broadcast routing problem (MEBRP). In this paper, we propose new efficient algorithms for the construction of energy‐efficient trees for broadcast in mobile ad hoc networks. These algorithms exploit the broadcast nature of the wireless channel, and address the need for energy‐efficient operations. Empirical studies show that our algorithms are able to achieve better performance than algorithms that have been developed for MEBRP. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Traffic load metrics for multihomed mobile IP and global connectivity

Support for host mobility an essential and necessary feature for roaming users who connect to wireless networks via access points. Access points may have different capabilities, be connected to different networks and be installed by different providers. A mobile host will discover multiple access points in this environment. In such an environment, a mobile host should be able to use the best available connection to communicate with a correspondent host and perhaps use multiple connections for different hosts. In areas with wireless local area network access, pockets with limited or no coverage could exist. Such restricted connectivity could be compensated by neighbor hosts who form an ad hoc network and relay packets until they reach an access point. This paper describes and discusses a proposed solution towards enabling and supporting connectivity in wireless networks. In the proposed solution the network layer software will evaluate and decide which wireless network connections to use. A Running Variance Metric (RVM) and a Relative Network Load(RNL) are used to measure the traffic load of access points in wireless access networks. RVM and RNL can be efficiently used for both infrastructure networks and ad hoc networks. Multihomed Mobile IP (M-MIP) is an extension of Mobile IP that enables mobile hosts to use multiple care-of addresses simultaneously. The extension enhances network connectivity by enabling the mobile host, the home agent and correspondent hosts to evaluate and select the best connection. A proposed gateway architecture using M-MIP that integrates wired IP networks with ad hoc networks is described. The M-MIP and gateway architecture using the RVM and RNL metrics have been validated with simulation studies and results are presented.     

R-Code: Network coding-based reliable broadcast in wireless mesh networks

Broadcast is an important communication primitive in wireless mesh networks (WMNs). Applications like network-wide software updates require reliable broadcast to ensure that every node in the network receives the information completely and correctly. With underlying unreliable wireless links, a key challenge in implementing reliable broadcast in WMNs is to achieve 100% information reception rate at every node with high communication efficiency and low latency. Recently, network coding has emerged as a promising coding scheme in terms of communication efficiency especially for one to many communication patterns. In this paper, we put forward R-Code, a network coding-based reliable broadcast protocol. We introduce a guardian–ward relationship between neighboring nodes that effectively distributes the responsibility of reliable information delivery – from the global responsibility of the source to the localized responsibilities of guardians to their corresponding wards. We use a link quality-based minimum spanning tree as a backbone to guide the selection of guardians adaptively and the transmission of coded packets accordingly. Opportunistic overhearing is also utilized to improve the performance of the protocol. Extensive simulation results show that R-Code achieves 100% packet delivery ratio (PDR), while enjoying significantly less transmission overhead and shorter broadcast latency, compared with a state-of-the-art reliable broadcast protocol, AdapCode.     

MR2RP: The Multi-Rate and Multi-Range Routing Protocol for IEEE 802.11 Ad Hoc Wireless Networks

This paper discusses the issue of routing packets over an IEEE 802.11 ad hoc wireless network with multiple data rates (1/2/5.5/11 Mb/s). With the characteristics of modulation schemes, the data rate of wireless network is inversely proportional with the transmission distance. The conventional shortest path of minimum-hops approach will be no longer suitable for the contemporary multi-rate/multi-range wireless networks (MR²WN). In this paper, we will propose an efficient delay-oriented multi-rate/multi-range routing protocol (MR²RP) for MR²WN to maximize the channel utilization as well as to minimize the network transfer delay from source to destination. By analyzing the medium access delay of the IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) protocol, the proposed MR²RP is capable of predicting the transfer delay of a routing path and finding the best one, which has the minimum transfer delay from source to destination. The proposed MR²RP may choose a longer path but with less contention competitors and buffer queuing delay. Simulation results show that MR²RP performs the load balancing and fast routing very well, and its call blocking probability is obviously lower than that of conventional minimum-hops approach with fixed transmission rate.An erratum to this article can be found at     

Local Group Communication-aware MAC Protocol in Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we investigate the problem of providing efficient communication primitives across domains of wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. We argue both qualitatively and quantitatively that group communication among sensors of geographic proximity is one of the basic building blocks of many WSN applications. Furthermore, group communication awareness needs to be embedded and implemented at the MAC layer due to the broadcast nature of wireless medium. We devise a MAC protocol, called LGC-MAC to enable efficient single-hop one-to-many and many-to-one communication. We present case studies of two example applications, acoustic target tracking and propagation of information with feedback using LGC-MAC and demonstrate that LGC-MAC can improve the response time, alleviate channel contention and provide better fault tolerance to packet collisions and wireless errors.

Lifetime optimization for reliable broadcast and multicast in wireless ad hoc networks

In this paper, we consider the reliable broadcast and multicast lifetime maximization problems in energy‐constrained wireless ad hoc networks, such as wireless sensor networks for environment monitoring and wireless ad hoc networks consisting of laptops or PDAs with limited battery capacities. In packet loss‐free networks, the optimal solution of lifetime maximization problem can be easily obtained by tree‐based algorithms. In unreliable networks, we formulate them as min–max tree problems and prove them NP‐complete by a reduction from a well‐known minimum degree spanning tree problem. A link quality‐aware heuristic algorithm called Maximum Lifetime Reliable Broadcast Tree (MLRBT) is proposed to build a broadcast tree that maximizes the network lifetime. The reliable multicast lifetime maximization problem can be solved as well by pruning the broadcast tree produced by the MLRBT algorithm. The time complexity analysis of both algorithms is also provided. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithms can significantly increase the network lifetime compared with the traditional algorithms under various distributions of error probability on lossy wireless links. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Opportunistic media access control and routing for delay-tolerant mobile ad hoc networks

In delay-tolerant mobile ad hoc networks, motion of network nodes, network sparsity and sporadic density can cause a lack of guaranteed connectivity. These networks experience significant link delay and their routing protocols must take a store-and-forward approach. In this paper, an opportunistic routing protocol is proposed, along with its compatible media access control, for non-real-time services in delay-tolerant networks. The scheme is mobility-aware such that each network node needs to know its own position and velocity. The media access control employs a four-fold handshake procedure to probe the wireless channel and cooperatively prioritize candidate nodes for packet replication. It exploits the broadcast characteristic of the wireless medium to utilize long-range but unreliable links. The routing process seizes opportunities of node contacts for data delivery. It takes a multiple-copy approach that is adaptive with node movements. Numerical results in mobile ad hoc networks and vehicular ad hoc networks show superior performance of the proposed protocol compared with other routing protocols. The mobility-aware media access control and routing scheme exhibits relatively small packet delivery delay and requires a modest amount of total packet replications/transmissions.     

<Emphasis Type="Italic">DSMeM Streaming</Emphasis>: distributed system to mitigate the effects of performance anomaly and user mobility on <Emphasis Type="Italic">IEEE 802.11 WLAN</Emphasis>s

On IEEE 802.11 wireless LANs (WLAN) the clients have control over the handoff procedure; a client decides the best AP (access point) to be associated to and when and where to change its association to a new AP. This simple handoff management technique can have negative effects for both static and mobile clients of the same cell, since some wireless clients remain associated with their current AP even when a better AP is reachable. Combined with handoff latencies, this mobility method can have a negative effect on various services with severe restrictions regarding delivery rate and delay. In this paper, a distributed and transparent system that monitors channel conditions, manages user data based on its knowledge and induces client handoffs when a better AP is reachable, is presented. One of the strongest points of the proposed solution is that it can work in currently deployed IEEE 802.11 WLANs without the server, clients or APs having to introduce new software.     

CoopMAC: A Cooperative MAC for Wireless LANs

Due to the broadcast nature of wireless signals, a wireless transmission intended for a particular destination station can be overheard by other neighboring stations. A focus of recent research activities in cooperative communications is to achieve spatial diversity gains by requiring these neighboring stations to retransmit the overheard information to the final destination. In this paper we demonstrate that such cooperation among stations in a wireless LAN (WLAN) can achieve both higher throughput and lower interference. We present the design for a medium access control protocol called CoopMAC, in which high data rate stations assist low data rate stations in their transmission by forwarding their traffic. In our proposed protocol, using the overheard transmissions, each low data rate node maintains a table, called a CoopTable, of potential helper nodes that can assist in its transmissions. During transmission, each low data rate node selects either direct transmission or transmission through a helper node in order to minimize the total transmission time. Using analysis, simulation and testbed experimentation, we quantify the increase in the total network throughput, and the reduction in delay, if such cooperative transmissions are utilized. The CoopMAC protocol is simple and backward compatible with the legacy 802.11 system. In this paper, we also demonstrate a reduction in the signal-to-interference ratio in a dense deployment of 802.11 access points, which in some cases is a more important consequence of cooperation     

“MeshUp”: Self-organizing mesh-based topologies for next generation radio access networks

The phenomenal growth in wireless technologies has brought about a slew of new services. Incumbent with the new technology is the challenge of providing flexible, reconfigurable, self-organizing architectures which are capable of catering to the dynamics of the network, while providing cost-effective solutions for the service providers. In this paper, we focus on mesh-based multi-hop access network architectures for next generation radio access networks. Using short, high bandwidth optical wireless links to interconnect the various network elements, we propose a non-hierarchical, multi-hop access network framework. We study two generic family of mesh-based topologies: GPeterNet, a graph theoretic framework, and FraNtiC, a fractal geometric architecture, for arbitrary access network deployments. The performance of these topologies is analyzed in terms of different system metrics – topological robustness and reliability, system costs and network exposure due to failure conditions. Our analysis shows that a combination of different mesh-based multi-hop access topologies, coupled with emerging wireless backhaul technologies, can cater carrier-class services for next generation radio access networks, providing significant advantages over existing access technologies.     

Statistical Estimation of Access Frequencies: Problems, Solutions and Consistencies

In a wireless environment, a server periodically broadcasts data to users under an assumption that accurate access frequencies are known. The server broadcasts frequently accessed data more often in a broadcast cycle. The difficulty of obtaining such access frequencies is that, in a wireless environment, mobile users are only listening to the channel they are interested in and do not request the data items from the server. An approach in the literature is to make use of broadcast misses to understand the access patterns. In brief, mobile users may decide whether to wait for the required item to arrive (with uncertainty whether it will arrive soon or not) or to make an explicit request for it even though it will be broadcasted soon. In this paper, we extend our early work on access frequency estimations. First, we consider two cases: (a) a mobile user will make an explicit request when he/she cannot access the information immediately, and (b) a mobile user will make an explicit request with an arbitrary probability if he/she cannot access the information immediately. We assume that the probability is unknown. Second, we provide solutions using maximum likelihood estimation. Third, we prove -consistencies and m-consistencies of our solutions. We report our simulation study that demonstrates the effectiveness of our approach.     

Pervasive data access in wireless and mobile computing environments

The rapid advance of wireless and portable computing technology has brought a lot of research interests and momentum to the area of mobile computing. One of the research focus is on pervasive data access. With wireless connections, users can access information at any place at any time. However, various constraints such as limited client capability, limited bandwidth, weak connectivity, and client mobility impose many challenging technical issues. In the past years, tremendous research efforts have been put forth to address the issues related to pervasive data access. A number of interesting research results were reported in the literature. This survey paper reviews important works in two important dimensions of pervasive data access: data broadcast and client caching. In addition, data access techniques aiming at various application requirements (such as time, location, semantics and reliability) are covered. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Broadcast Disks with Polynomial Cost Functions

In broadcast disks systems, information is broadcasted in a shared medium. When a client needs an item from the disk, it waits until that item is broadcasted. Broadcast disks systems are particularly attractive in settings where the potential customers have a highly-asymmetric communication capabilities, i.e., receiving is significantly cheaper than transmitting. This is the case with satellite networks, mobile hosts in wireless networks, and Teletext system.The fundamental algorithmic problem for such systems is to determine the broadcast schedule based on the demand probability of items, and the cost incurred to the system by clients waiting. The goal is to minimize the mean access cost of a random client. Typically, it was assumed that the access cost is proportional to the waiting time. In this paper, we ask what are the best broadcast schedules for access costs which are arbitrary polynomials in the waiting time. These may serve as reasonable representations of reality in many cases, where the patience of a client is not necessarily proportional to its waiting time.We present an asymptotically optimal algorithm for a fractional model, where the bandwidth may be divided to allow for fractional concurrent broadcasting. This algorithm, besides being justified in its own right, also serves as a lower bound against which we test known discrete algorithms. We show that the Greedy algorithm has the best performance in most cases. Then we show that the performance of other algorithms deteriorate exponentially with the degree of the cost polynomial and approaches the fractional solution for sub-linear cost. Finally, we study the quality of approximating the greedy schedule by a finite schedule.     

Saturation throughput analysis of multi‐rate IEEE 802.11 wireless networks

IEEE 802.11 protocol supports adaptive rate mechanism, which selects the transmission rate according to the condition of the wireless channel, to enhance the system performance. Thus, research of multi‐rate IEEE 802.11 medium access control (MAC) performance has become one of the hot research topics. In this paper, we study the performance of multi‐rate IEEE 802.11 MAC over a Gaussian channel. An accurate analytical model is presented to compute the system saturation throughput. We validate our model in both single‐rate and multi‐rate networks through various simulations. The results show that our model is accurate and channel error has a significant impact on system performance. In addition, our numerical results show that the performance of single‐rate IEEE 802.11 DCF with basic access method is better than that with RTS/CTS mechanism in a high‐rate and high‐load network and vice versa. In a multi‐rate network, the performance of IEEE 802.11 DCF with RTS/CTS mechanism is better than that with basic access method in a congested and error‐prone wireless environment. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.