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.     

Carrier sensing range analysis in a general IEEE 802.11 network with physical‐layer network coding

In this paper, we investigate the carrier sensing range (CSR) of a general 802.11 network with physical‐layer network coding (PNC). We aim to derive a sufficient CSR that can prevent the hidden‐node collisions in a general 802.11 PNC network. The analysis includes two steps. First, we analyze the six link‐to‐link interference cases in an 802.11 PNC network to show that the mutual interference will be most severe when each node in the network initiates a two‐hop end node link. Second, we consider the worst interference case that all concurrently transmitting links in the network are two‐hop end node links and placed in the densest manner and develop a closed‐form expression of a sufficient CSR that prevents the hidden‐node collisions in a PNC network. From the analysis results, we find that to prevent the hidden‐node collisions, the CSR in PNC network should be bigger than the one in traditional non‐network‐coding network. Furthermore, we carry out extensive simulations to find out the throughput gain of PNC scheme in a general wireless network when considering the impact of CSR. Simulation results show that compared with the non‐network‐coding scheme, PNC scheme has throughput gain when a large proportion (i.e., 90%) of links in the network are two‐hop links and the link density has little effect on the throughput gain of PNC scheme. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the performance of two‐user full‐duplex network‐coded cooperation

In this paper, we propose two schemes based on a full‐duplex network‐coded cooperative communication (FD‐NCC) strategy, namely, full‐duplex dynamic network coding (FD‐DNC) and full‐duplex generalized dynamic network coding (FD‐GDNC). The use of full‐duplex communication aims at improving the spectrum efficiency of a two‐user network where the users cooperatively transmit their independent information to a common destination. In the proposed FD‐NCC schemes, the self‐interference imposed by full‐duplexing is modeled as a fading channel, whose harmful effect can be partially mitigated by interference cancellation techniques. Nevertheless, our results show that, even in the presence of self‐interference, the proposed FD‐NCC schemes can outperform (in terms of outage probability) the equivalent half‐duplex network‐coded cooperative (HD‐NCC) schemes, as well as traditional cooperation techniques. Moreover, the ?‐outage capacity, that is, the maximum information rate achieved by the users given a target outage probability, is evaluated. Finally, we examine the use of multiple antennas at the destination node, which increases the advantage of the FD‐NCC (in terms of the diversity‐multiplexing trade‐off and ?‐outage capacity).     

Interference minimum network topologies for ad hoc networks

This paper investigates the topology control problem with the goal of minimizing mutual interferences in wireless ad hoc networks. It is known that interference is considered as a relationship between link and node in previous works. In this paper, we attempt to capture the physical situation of space‐division multiplex more realistically by defining interference as a relationship between any two bidirectional links. We formulate the pair‐wise interference condition between any two bidirectional links, and demonstrate that the interference condition is equivalent by employing the equal‐power allocation strategy and by employing the minimum‐power allocation strategy. Then we further study the typical interference relationship between a link and its surrounding links. To characterize the extent of the interference between a link and its surrounding links, a new metric, the interference coefficient, is given, and its property is explored in detail by means of analysis and simulation. Based on the insight obtained, a centralized algorithm, BIMA, and a distributed algorithm, LIMA, are proposed to control the network interference. Our simulation indicates that BIMA can minimize the network interference while conserving energy and maintaining good spanner property, and LIMA has relatively good interference performance while keeping low node degree, compared with some well‐known algorithms. Besides, both BIMA and LIMA show good robustness to additive noises in terms of interference performance. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fault‐tolerance in wireless ad hoc networks: bi‐connectivity through movement of removable nodes

For a wireless ad hoc network to achieve fault‐tolerance, it is desired that the network is bi‐connected. This means that each pair of nodes in the network have at least two node‐disjoint paths between them, and thus, failure at any single node does not partition the network. In other words, in a bi‐connected network, there is no cut‐node (defined as a node such that the removal of it partitions the network). To make a connected but not bi‐connected network become bi‐connected, actions should be taken such that all cut‐nodes become non‐cut‐nodes. In this research, we propose to deal with cut‐nodes from a new perspective. Specifically, we first introduce a new concept of removable node, defined as a non‐cut‐node such that the removal of it does not generate any new cut‐node in the network. Then, we propose to move a removable node to a new location around a cut‐node. In this way, the cut‐node becomes a non‐cut‐node, that is, the failure of it does not partition the network anymore. Algorithms are provided (i) to identify removable nodes; (ii) to match cut‐nodes with a feasible set of removable nodes, in which all nodes can be simultaneously removed from the network without generating any new cut‐node in the network; and (iii) to derive the final location of a removable node such that its movement distance is the shortest and the associated cut‐node becomes a non‐cut‐node. The proposed algorithms do not guarantee the final bi‐connectivity but have the merits of a large success rate (almost 100% in the simulation), a small number of moved nodes, and a short total movement distance. In addition, the proposed algorithms are shown to be effective even when there are a large portion of fixed nodes in the network. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Optimal placement and routing strategies for resilient two‐tiered sensor networks

In hierarchical sensor networks using relay nodes, sensor nodes are arranged in clusters and higher powered relay nodes can be used as cluster heads. The lifetime of such a network is determined primarily by the lifetime of the relay nodes. In this paper, we propose two new integer linear programs (ILPs) formulations for optimal data gathering, which maximize the lifetime of the upper tier relay node network. Unlike most previous approaches considered in the literature, our formulations can generate optimal solutions under the non‐flow‐splitting model. Experimental results demonstrate that our approach can significantly extend network lifetime, compared to traditional routing schemes, for the non‐flow‐splitting model. The lifetime can be further enhanced by periodic updates of the routing strategy based on the residual energy at each relay node. The proposed rescheduling scheme can be used to handle single or multiple relay node failures. We have also presented a very simple and straightforward algorithm for the placement of relay nodes. The placement algorithm guarantees that all the sensor nodes can communicate with at least one relay node and that the relay node network is at least 2‐connected. This means that failure of a single relay node will not disconnect the network, and data may be routed around the failed node. The worst case performance of the placement algorithm is bounded by a constant with respect to any optimum placement algorithm. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A power efficient solution to the large interference range problem in ad hoc networks

Due to the mismatch between the transmission range and interference‐vulnerable range, the reception at a receiving node in a wireless network could still be interfered by a sending node beyond the coverage of its clear‐to‐send (CTS). This is the so‐called large interference range problem. It is a common problem in real environments but overlooked by the standards and related studies. The large interference range problem could lead to transmission control protocol (TCP) instability and TCP unfairness, especially in case of multi‐hop transmission. There exist research works devoted to this issue. However, more power consumption was incurred at the same time. For a power‐efficient solution to this problem, a novel scheme, named power control interference avoidance (PCIA), is developed and presented in this article. The proposed scheme decouples control channel from data channel and use different power level in the transmission of control frames and data frames. By doing so, the large interference problem can be effectively avoided, while retaining a high level of power efficiency. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed scheme had been validated by an analytic study on a simplified model and a series of simulations. As revealed in the simulation results, the proposed PCIA scheme outperforms conservative CTS reply (CCR) and IEEE 802.11 in many aspects, including data corruption ratio and power efficiency. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Secured routing in wireless sensor networks using fault‐free and trusted nodes

Wireless sensor network (WSN) should be designed such that it is able to identify the faulty nodes, rectify the faults, identify compromised nodes from various security threats, and transmit the sensed data securely to the sink node under faulty conditions. In this paper, we propose an idea of integrating fault tolerance and secured routing mechanism in WSN named as fault tolerant secured routing: an integrated approach (FASRI) that establishes secured routes from source to sink node even under faulty node conditions. Faulty nodes are identified using battery power and interference models. Trustworthy nodes (non‐compromised) among fault‐free nodes are identified by using agent‐based trust model. Finally, the data are securely routed through fault‐free non‐compromised nodes to sink. Performance evaluation through simulation is carried out for packet delivery ratio, hit rate, computation overhead, communication overhead, compromised node detection ratio, end‐to‐end delay, memory overhead, and agent overhead. We compared simulation results of FASRI with three schemes, namely multi‐version multi‐path (MVMP), intrusion/fault tolerant routing protocol (IFRP) in WSN, and active node‐based fault tolerance using battery power and interference model (AFTBI) for various measures and found that there is a performance improvement in FASRI compared with MVMP, IFRP, and AFTBI. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Location‐aided medium access control for low data rate UWB wireless sensor networks

This paper presents a distributed medium access control (MAC) protocol for low data rate ultra‐wideband (UWB) wireless sensor networks (WSNs), named LA‐MAC. Current MAC proposal is closely coupled to the IEEE 802.15.4a physical layer and it is based on its Impulse‐Radio (IR) paradigm. LA‐MAC protocol amplifies its admission control mechanism with location‐awareness, by exploiting the ranging capability of the UWB signals. The above property leads to accurate interference predictions and blocking assessments that each node in the network can perform locally, limiting at the same time the actions needed to be performed towards the admission phase. LA‐MAC is evaluated through extensive simulations, showing a significant improvement in many critical parameters, such as throughput, admission ratio, energy consumption, and delay, under different traffic load conditions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Parallel relay‐assisted three‐phase MIMO space division multiple access transmission for multi‐hop throughput improvement

Multi‐hop communications equipped with parallel relay nodes is an emerging network scenario visible in environments with high node density. Conventional interference‐free medium access control (MAC) has little capability in utilizing such parallel relays because it essentially prohibits the existence of co‐channel interference and limits the feasibility of concurrent communications. This paper aims at presenting a cooperative multi‐input multi‐output (MIMO) space division multiple access (SDMA) design that uses each hop's parallel relay nodes to improve multi‐hop throughput performance. Specifically, we use MIMO and SDMA to enable concurrent transmissions (from multiple Tx nodes to single/multiple Rx nodes) and suppress simultaneous links' co‐channel interference. As a joint physical layer (MAC/PHY) solution, our design has multiple MAC modules including load balancing that uniformly splits traffic packets at parallel relay nodes and multi‐hop scheduling taking co‐channel interference into consideration. Meanwhile, our PHY layer modules include distributive channel sounding that exchanges channel information in a decentralized manner and link adaptation module estimating instantaneous link rate per time frame. Simulation results validate that compared with interference‐free MAC or existing Mitigating Interference using Multiple Antennas (MIMA‐MAC), our proposed design can improve end‐to‐end throughput by around 30% to 50%. In addition, we further discuss its application on extended multi‐hop topology. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Reduction of Outage Probability due to Handover by Mitigating Inter‐cell Interference in Long‐Term Evolution Networks

The burgeoning growth of real‐time applications, such as interactive video and VoIP, places a heavy demand for a high data rate and guarantee of QoS from a network. This is being addressed by fourth generation networks such as Long‐Term Evolution (LTE). But, the mobility of user equipment that needs to be handed over to a new evolved node base‐station (eNB) while maintaining connectivity with high data rates poses a significant challenge that needs to be addressed. Handover (HO) normally takes place at cell borders, which normally suffers high interference. This inter‐cell interference (ICI) can affect HO procedures, as well as reduce throughput. In this paper, soft frequency reuse (SFR) and multiple preparations (MP), so‐called SFRAMP, are proposed to provide a seamless and fast handover with high throughput by keeping the ICI low. Simulation results using LTE‐Sim show that the outage probability and delay are reduced by 24.4% and 11.9%, respectively, over the hard handover method — quite a significant result.     

Distributed spectrum assignment for cognitive networks with heterogeneous spectrum opportunities

This paper presents a distributed and localized interference‐aware channel assignment framework for multi‐radio wireless mesh networks in a cognitive network environment. The availability of multiple interfaces and channels in wireless devices is expected to enhance network throughput in wireless mesh networks. A notable design issue in such networks is how to dynamically assign available channels to multiple radio interfaces for maximizing effective network throughput by minimizing interference. The proposed framework uses a novel interference estimation method by utilizing distributed conflict graphs on a per‐interface basis. Presented results obtained via simulation studies in 802.11 based multi‐radio mesh networks indicate that for both homogeneous and heterogeneous primary networks, the proposed protocol can facilitate a large increase in network throughput in comparison with a Common Channel Assignment mechanism that is used as a benchmark in the literature. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

IAMMAC: an interference‐aware multichannel MAC protocol for wireless sensor–actor networks

In this paper, we discuss an interference aware multichannel MAC (IAMMAC) protocol assign channels for communication in wireless sensor‐actor networks. An actor acts as a cluster head for k‐hop sensors and computes the shortest path for all the sensors. Then, the actor partitions the cluster into multiple subtrees and assigns a noninterference channel to each subtree. The actor 1‐hop sensors are represented as relay nodes. The actor selects a relay node as a backup cluster head (BCH) based on the residual energy and node degree. After selecting a BCH from the relay nodes, the actor broadcast this information to the remaining relay nodes using the common control channel. The relay sensors use the same channel of BCH to communicate with it. However, the other cluster members do not change their data channel. Further, interference‐aware and throughput‐aware multichannel MAC protocol is also proposed for actor–actor coordination. The performance of the proposed IAMMAC protocol is analyzed using standard network parameters such as packet delivery ratio, goodput, end‐to‐end delay, and energy dissipation in the network. The obtained simulation results indicate that the IAMMAC protocol has superior performance as compared with the existing MAC protocols. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Throughput and cost‐efficient interference cancelation strategies for the downlink of spectrum‐sharing Long Term Evolution heterogeneous networks

In a heterogeneous network (HetNet), small cells such as femtocells considered in this work are deployed jointly with macrocells. This new cells' layer, when added to the network, generates interference, which could hamper neighboring macro‐user equipment (MUE) and femto‐user equipment (FUE) transmissions. In fact, this interference results in degradation of the network performance. In this paper, we propose a downlink interference cancelation (DL‐IC) strategy for spectrum‐sharing Long Term Evolution (LTE) HetNet. This DL‐IC strategy aims to reduce the interference impact on users by optimizing their received signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) using new utility functions for both FUEs and MUEs. These utility functions allow relaxation of the cancelation ratios in order to reduce implementation complexity while maximizing SINR, QoS, and throughput. We support by different system‐level simulations that both global network performance and user experience in terms of total throughput and received SNR or link‐level throughput, respectively, are significantly enhanced. Throughput gains achievable by the new DL‐IC strategy can reach as much as 200% against a homogeneous LTE network without IC along with an extra 48% per additional femtocell base station against a basic spectrum‐sharing LTE HetNet without IC. These performance figures are shown to surpass those achieved by interference avoidance techniques using either power or frequency resource allocation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A distributed implementation of mobility load balancing with power control and cell reselection in 4G network

We consider a self‐organizing network (SON) capability of mobility load balancing in a 4G network, which determines the transmission power level for individual base stations and cell reselection for individual mobile stations such that the network‐wide load is minimized while satisfying the minimum signal‐to‐noise and interference ratio (SINR) requirement of individual users. Both centralized and distributed schemes are proposed. The centralized scheme is based on the greedy algorithm, serving as a performance bound to the distributed scheme. The distributed scheme is to solve the system‐wide optimization problem in the flat network model, i.e. no central control node. Furthermore, it requires relatively low inter‐cell exchange information among neighboring cells over an inter‐cell channel, e.g. X2 interface in the LTE network. The proposed design objective is to minimize the number of mobile users that do not satisfy the specified average throughput, while distributing the user traffic load as uniformly as possible among the neighboring cells. Our simulation results for a uniform user distribution demonstrate that the proposed scheme can achieve up to almost 80% of a load balancing gain that has been achieved by a greedy algorithm in the centralized optimization. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Exact analysis of the multihop multibranch hybrid AF/DF relaying networks

In this paper, the exact analysis of a multihop multibranch (MHMB) relaying network is investigated wherein each relay can operate in amplify‐and‐forward (AF) or decode‐and‐forward (DF) modes depending upon the decoding result of its received signal. If a relay decodes the received signal correctly, it works in DF mode; otherwise, the relay operates in AF mode. Therefore, we name such relaying network as hybrid amplify‐and‐forward and decode‐and‐forward (hybrid AF/DF) relaying network. We first investigate the signal transmission from source to destination node via n number of relays in a hybrid AF/DF MHMB mode. Then, we obtained the statistical features and analyze the end‐to‐end signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR). Finally, a comprehensive performance analysis is conducted by using maximal ratio combining (MRC) scheme at the destination node. For comparison, we also obtained the results using selection combining (SC) scheme at the destination node. To the best of our knowledge, very few works in the literature have considered a general system model of MHMB relaying network wherein each relay can operate in AF or DF modes, that is, a hybrid AF/DF relaying network. Accordingly, the analysis of our system model is not only novel and exact, but also is comprehensive and can be employed in the future works.     

Cross‐layer scheduling for multi‐users in cognitive multi‐radio mesh networks

A wireless mesh network has been popularly researched as a wireless backbone for Internet access. However, the deployment of wireless mesh networks in unlicensed bands of urban areas is challenging because of interference from external users such as residential access points. We have proposed Urban‐X, which is a first attempt towards multi‐radio cognitive mesh networks in industrial, scientific, and medical bands. Urban‐X first controls network topology with a distributed channel assignment to avoid interference in large timescale. In such a topology, we develop a new link‐layer transmission‐scheduling algorithm together with source rate control as a small‐timescale approach, which exploits receiver diversity when receivers of multi‐flows can have different channel conditions because of varying interference. For this purpose, mesh nodes probe the channel condition of received mesh nodes using group Request to Send and group Clear to Send. In this study, we establish a mathematical Urban‐X model in a cross‐layer architecture, adopting a well‐known network utility maximization framework. We demonstrate the feasibility of our idea using a simulation on the model. Simulation results show improved network throughput from exploiting receiver diversity and distributed channel assignment under varying external user interference. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Spatial modulation and physical layer network coding based bidirectional relay network with transmit antenna selection over Nakagami‐m fading channels

In this paper, a high data rate bidirectional relay network is proposed by combining the merits of spatial modulation (SM) and physical layer network coding. All nodes in the network are equipped with multiple antennas. Spatial modulation technique is used to reduce hardware complexity and interchannel interference by activating only one antenna at any time during transmission. In the proposed bidirectional relay network, transmit antennas are selected at the source nodes and relay node on the basis of the order statistics of channel power. It increases received signal power and provides a significant improvement in the outage performance. Also, the data rate of the proposed network is improved by physical layer network coding at the relay node. A closed form analytical expression for the outage probability of the network over Nakagami‐m fading channel is derived and validated by Monte Carlo simulations. In addition, asymptotic analysis is investigated at high signal‐to‐noise ratio region.The outage performance of the proposed network is compared with SM and physical layer network coding bidirectional relay network without transmit antenna selection and point‐to‐point SM. With approximate SNR≈1 dB difference between the two networks, the same data rate is achieved.     

Gateway Placement for Throughput Optimization in Wireless Mesh Networks

In this paper, we address the problem of gateway placement for throughput optimization in multi-hop wireless mesh networks. Assume that each mesh node in the mesh network has a traffic demand. Given the number of gateways to be deployed (denoted by k) and the interference model in the network, we study where to place exactly k gateways in the mesh network such that the total throughput is maximized while it also ensures a certain fairness among all mesh nodes. We propose a novel grid-based gateway deployment method using a cross-layer throughput optimization, and prove that the achieved throughput by our method is a constant times of the optimal. Simulation results demonstrate that our method can effectively exploit the available resources and perform much better than random and fixed deployment methods. In addition, the proposed method can also be extended to work with multi-channel and multi-radio mesh networks under different interference models.     

基于CDMA的无线传感器网络误码率分析

为了分析多址干扰和节点干扰对CDMA无线传感器网络的影响,在考虑传输距离、传输速率、阴影效应、节点密度等影响的基础上,通过Matlab对误码率(BER)进行了仿真.仿真结果表明,CDMA在物理层对抵抗干扰和节约能量具有良好的性能.