Attribute Allocation and Retrieval Scheme for Large-Scale Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor network is an emerging technology that enables remote monitoring of large geographical regions. In this paper, we address the problem of distributing attributes over such a large-scale sensor network so that the cost of data retrieval is minimized. The proposed scheme is a data-centric storage scheme where the attributes are distributed over the network depending on the correlations between them. The problem addressed here is similar to the Allocation Problem of distributed databases. In this paper, we have defined the Allocation Problem in the context of sensor networks and have proposed a scheme for finding a good distribution of attributes to the sensor network. We also propose an architecture for query processing given such a distribution of attributes. We analytically determine the conditions under which the proposed architecture is beneficial and present simulation results to demonstrate the same. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to determine an allocation of attributes over a sensor network based on the correlations between attributes.     

Why does it pay to be selfish in a MANET?

Routing protocols for a mobile ad hoc network have assumed that all mobile nodes voluntarily participate in forwarding others' packets. This was a reasonable assumption because all MNs in a MANET belonged to a single authority. In the near future, however, a MANET may consist of MNs that belong to many different organizations since numerous civilian applications are expected to crop up. In this situation, some MNs may run independently and purposely decide not to forward packets so as to save their own energy. This could potentially lead to network partitioning and corresponding performance degradation. To minimize such situations in MANETs, many studies have explored the use of both the carrot and the stick approaches by having reputation-based, credit-payment, and game theory schemes. This article summarizes existing schemes, identifies their relative advantages, and projects future directions     

Analysis and Optimization of the Energy Efficiency in the 802.11 DCF

This paper introduces an analytical model to investigate the energy efficiency of the IEEE 802.11 distributed coordinated function (DCF). This model not only accounts for the number of contending nodes, the contention window, but also the packet size, and the channel condition. Based on this model, we identify the tradeoff in choosing optimum parameters to optimize the energy efficiency of DCF in the error-prone environment. The effects of contention window and packet size on the energy efficiency are examined and compared for both DCF basic scheme and DCF with four-way handshaking. The maximum energy efficiency can be obtained by combining both the optimal packet size and optimal contention window. To validate our analysis, we have done extensive simulations in ns-2, and simulation results seem to match well with the presented analytical results. The Ohio Board of Regents Doctoral Enhancements Funds and the National Science Foundation under Grant CCR 0113361 have supported this work. Xiaodong Wang received his B.S. degree in communication engineering from Beijing Information Technical Institute of China in 1995, and his M.S. degree in electric engineering from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics of China in 1998. He joined China Telecom in 1998 where he worked on communication protocols for telecommunication. From June 2000 to July 2002, he worked on GSM base station software development at Bell-labs China, Beijing, China. Currently he is a Ph.D. student in Computer Engineering at University of Cincinnati. His research activities include wireless MAC protocols, energy saving for wireless sensor networks. He is a student member of the IEEE. Jun Yin received the BS degree in automatic control from Dalian Railway Institute of China in 1997, and the MS degree in flight control from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics of China in 2001. Since 2001 she has been a Ph.D. student in the OBR Research Center for Distributed and Mobile Computing at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests include performance evaluation of 802.11 MAC protocol, wireless ad hoc networks and sensor networks. She is a student member of the IEEE. Dharma P.Agrawal IEEE Fellow, 1987; ACM Fellow, 1998; AAAS Fellow, 2003 Dr. Agrawal is the Ohio Board of Regents Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Computer Engineering in the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science, University of Cincinnati, OH. He has been a faculty member at Wayne State University, (1977–1982) and North Carolina State University (1982–1998). He has been a consultant to the General Dynamics Land Systems Division, Battelle, Inc., and the U. S. Army. He has held visiting appointment at AIRMICS, Atlanta, GA, and the AT&T Advanced Communications Laboratory, Whippany, NJ. He has published a number of papers in the areas of Parallel System Architecture, Multi computer Networks, Routing Techniques, Parallelism Detection and Scheduling Techniques, Reliability of Real-Time Distributed Systems, Modeling of C-MOS Circuits, and Computer Arithmetic. His recent research interest includes energy efficient routing, information retrieval, and secured communication in ad hoc and sensor networks, effective handoff handling and multicasting in integrated wireless networks, interference analysis in piconets and routing in scatternet, use of smart directional antennas (multibeam) for enhanced QoS, Scheduling of periodic real-time applications and automatic load balancing in heterogeneous workstation environment. He has four approved patents and three patent filings in the area of wireless cellular networks.     

A novel metal-insulator-metal structure for field-programmabledevices

A metal-insulator-metal (MIM) capacitor structure has been developed for use in field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) as a voltage-programmable link (VPL). The structure relies on a combination of a refractory metal and aluminum as the lower electrode, and either a similar combination or aluminum alone as the top electrode. The insulator is prepared by means of plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD). It comprises a sandwich of nearly stoichiometric silicon dioxide interposed between two like layers of silicon-rich silicon nitride. The structure has displayed characteristics desirable for use in emerging FPGA technology, including high density, low on-resistance, reduced capacitance, and low programming voltage     

Fault tolerant multiple event detection in a wireless sensor network

With an increasing acceptance of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), the health of individual sensor is becoming critical in identifying important events in the region of interest. One of the key challenges in detecting event in a WSN is how to detect it accurately transmitting minimum information providing sufficient details about the event. At the same time, it is also important to devise a strategy to handle multiple events occurring simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a Polynomial-based scheme that addresses these problems of Event Region Detection (PERD) by having a aggregation tree of sensor nodes. We employ a data aggregation scheme, TREG (proposed in our earlier work) to perform function approximation of the event using a multivariate polynomial regression. Only coefficients of the polynomial (P$P$) are passed instead of aggregated data. PERD includes two components: event recognition and event report with boundary detection. This can be performed for multiple simultaneously occurring events. We also identify faulty sensor(s) using the aggregation tree. Performing further mathematical operations on the calculated P$P$ can identify the maximum (max) and minimum (min) values of the sensed attribute and their locations. Therefore, if any sensor reports a data value outside the [min, max] range, it can be identified as a faulty sensor. Since PERD is implemented over a polynomial tree on a WSN in a distributed manner, it is easily scalable and computation overhead is marginal. Results reveal that event(s) can be detected by PERD with error in detection remaining almost constant achieving a percentage error within a threshold of 10%$10\%$ with increase in communication range. Results also show that a faulty sensor can be detected with an average accuracy of 94%$94\%$ and it increases with increase in node density.     

Range-Free Localization Using Expected Hop Progress in Wireless Sensor Networks

Localization algorithm continues to be an important and challenging topic in today's wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, a novel range-free localization algorithm using expected hop progress (LAEP) to predict the location of any sensor in a WSN is proposed. This algorithm is based on an accurate analysis of hop progress in a WSN with randomly deployed sensors and arbitrary node density. By deriving the expected hop progress from a network model for WSNs in terms of network parameters, the distance between any pair of sensors can be accurately computed. Since the distance estimation is a key issue in localization systems for WSNs, the proposed range-free LAEP achieves better performance and less communication overhead as compared to some existent schemes like DV-Hop and RAW. In addition, we study the effect of anchor placement on the algorithm performance by deriving the corresponding mean position error range. Extensive simulations are performed and the results are observed to be in good agreement with the theoretical analysis.     

Adaptive state-based multi-radio multi-channel multi-path routing in Wireless Mesh Networks

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are envisioned to seamlessly extend the network connectivity to end users by forming a wireless backbone that requires minimal infrastructure. Unfortunately for WMNs, frequent link quality fluctuations, excessive load on selective links, congestion, and limited capacity due to the half-duplex nature of radios are some key limiting factors that hinder their deployment. To address these problems, we propose a novel Adaptive State-based Multi-path Routing Protocol (ASMRP), which constructs Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) from each Mesh Router (MR) to Internet Gateways (IGWs) and effectively discovers multiple optimal path set between any given MR-IGW pair. A congestion aware traffic splitting algorithm to balance traffic over these multiple paths is presented which synergistically improves the overall performance of the WMNs. We design a novel Neighbor State Maintenance module that innovatively employs a state machine at each MR to monitor the quality of links connecting its neighbors in order to cope with unreliable wireless links. We also employ a 4-radio architecture for MRs, which allows them to communicate over multiple radios tuned to non-overlapping channels and better utilize the available spectrum. Through extensive simulations using ns-2, we observe that ASMRP substantially improves the achieved throughput (～5 times gain in comparison to AODV), and significantly minimizes end-to-end latencies. We also show that ASMRP ensures fairness in the network under varying traffic load conditions.     

Polynomial based scheme (PBS) for establishing Authentic Associations in Wireless Mesh Networks

The varying degree of mobility of Mesh Clients has provided much more flexibility in Wireless Mesh Networks, and establishing an Authentic Association among entities is a non-trivial problem. In this paper, we introduce a Polynomial Based scheme which provides pair-wise connectivity, low communication, marginal storage overhead and high scalability while making on the fly Authentic Association feasible. The proposed scheme is also observed to be resilient against both traffic analysis and node capture attacks.     

Impact of a simple load balancing approach and an incentive-based scheme on MANET performance

Most reactive mobile ad hoc network (MANET) routing protocols such as AODV and DSR do not perform search for new routes until the network topology changes. But, low node mobility does not affect the MANET connectivity and the same routes may be used for a long time. This may cause concentration of traffic on few mobile stations (MSs), which results in congestion and hence longer end-to-end delay. In addition, continuous use of MSs may cause their battery power to get exhausted rapidly. Expiration of MS energy causes disruption of connections traversing through the MSs and could generate many simultaneous new routing requests. Therefore, we propose a load balancing approach called Simple Load Balancing Approach (SLBA), which can be transparently added to any current reactive routing protocol such as AODV and DSR. SLBA minimizes the traffic concentration by allowing each MS to drop RREQ or to give up packet forwarding depending on its own traffic load. Meanwhile, MSs may deliberately give up forwarding packets to save their own energy. For encouraging MSs to volunteer in forwarding packets, we introduce a reward scheme for packet forwarding, named Protocol-Independent Fairness Algorithm (PIFA). We compare the performance of AODV and DSR with and without SLBA and PIFA. Simulation results indicate that SLBA can distribute traffic very well and improve the MANET performance. PIFA is also observed to prevent MANET partitioning and any performance degradation due to selfish nodes.     

Perimeter discovery in wireless sensor networks

In this paper, we focus on the perimeter detection problem using wireless sensor networks, as perimeter detection has a wide range of uses in several areas. We present a decentralized localized algorithm where sensor nodes determine if they are located along the perimeter of a wireless sensor network. Our proposed algorithm uses the location neighborhood information in conjunction with the Barycentric technique to determine if the sensor node enclosed by neighboring nodes, and consequently, if it is located within the interior of the wireless sensor network. We define performance metrics to analyze the performance of our approach and the simulation shows that the algorithm gives fairly accurate results.