Control Protocol Design Research Articles

Cross-layer design for decentralized detection in WSNs

A wireless sensor network (WSN) deployed for detection applications has the distinguishing feature that the sensors cooperate to perform the detection task. Therefore, the decoupled and maximum throughput design approaches typically used to design communication networks do not lead to the desired optimal detection performance. Recent work on decentralized detection has addressed the design of media access control (MAC) and routing protocols for detection applications by considering independently the quality of information (QoI), channel state information (CSI), and residual energy information (REI) for each sensor. However, little attention has been given to integrate the three quality measures (QoI, CSI, and REI) in the system design. In this work, we present a cross-layer approach to design a QoI, CSI, and REI-aware transmission control policy (XCP) that coordinates communication between local sensors and the fusion center, in order to maximize the detection performance. We formulate and solve a constrained non-linear optimization problem to find the optimal XCP design variables, for both ALOHA and time-division multiple access (TDMA) sensor networks. We show the detection performance gain compared to the typical decoupled and maximum throughput design approaches, without utilizing additional network resources. We compare ALOHA and TDMA MAC schemes and show the conditions under which each transmission scheme outperforms.

CAD-MAC: A Channel-Aggregation Diversity Based MAC Protocol for Spectrum and Energy Efficient Cognitive Ad Hoc Networks

In cognitive Ad Hoc networks (CAHN), because the contentions and mutual interferences among secondary nodes are inevitable as well as secondary nodes usually have limited power budget, spectrum efficiency and energy efficiency are critically important to the CAHN, especially for the medium access control (MAC) protocol design. Aiming at improving both spectrum and energy efficiencies, we in this paper propose a diversity technology called Channel-Aggregation Diversity (CAD), through which each node can utilize multiple channels simultaneously and efficiently allocate the upper-bounded power resource with only one data radio. Based on the proposed CAD technology, we further develop a CAD-based MAC (CAD-MAC) protocol, which enables the secondary nodes to sufficiently use available channel resources under the upper-bounded power and transmit multiple data packets in one transmission process subject to the transmission-time fairness constraint. In order to improve the performance of CAHNs, we propose two joint power-channel allocation schemes. In the first scheme, we aim at maximizing the data transmission rate. By converting the joint power-channel allocation to the Multiple-Choice Knapsack Problem, we derive the optimal allocation policy through dynamic programming. In the second scheme, our objective is to optimize the energy efficiency and we obtain the corresponding allocation policy through fractional programming. Simulation results show that our proposed CAD-MAC protocol can efficiently increase the spectrum and energy efficiencies as well as the throughput of the CAHN compared with existing protocols. Moreover, the energy efficiency of the CAHN can be further improved by adopting the energy efficiency optimization based resource allocation scheme.

Design and Performance of a Directional Media Access Control Protocol for Optical Wireless Sensor Networks

Sensor networks that use line-of-sight (LOS) laser links can provide spatially efficient and physically secure connectivity. These features are advantageous for low-power communication networks over short distances in environments where LOS is available and where radio-frequency connectivity must be avoided because of interference, low data rates, or security problems. In order for optical wireless (OW) directional networks to provide viable short-range connectivity, the networks must provide signal coverage over an acceptable field of view and operate with efficient media access protocols to minimize random access times for the independent transmitting nodes within the network. In this paper, we present the performance of a directional media access control protocol applied to a uniquely designed OW sensor network. The protocol was implemented using vertical cavity surface-emitting lasers and microcontrollers. The results are discussed with respect to efficiency of operation and optimized performance.

Throughput Enhancement in the Design of Adaptive Receiver Transmission Protocol in Wireless Adhoc Network

In case of decentralized coordinator the design of medium access control (MAC) protocols is considered crucial for throughput enhancement in the wireless ad hoc networks. Ad hoc network means it does not have a pre-existing infrastructure. The receiver blocking problem, which has not been studied in most of the MAC protocol design, can lead to severe degradation on the throughput performance. In this paper, the multiple receiver transmission (MRT) and the fast NAV truncation (FNT) mechanisms are proposed to alleviate the receiver blocking problem without the adoption of additional control channels. The adaptive receiver transmission(ART) scheme is proposed to further enhance the throughput performance with dynamic adjustment of the selected receivers. Analytical model is also derived to validate the effectiveness of the proposed ART protocol. Simulations are performed to evaluate and compare the proposed three protocols with existing MAC schemes can be observed that the proposed ART protocol outperforms the other Schemes by both alleviating the receiver blocking problem and enhancing the throughput performance for the wireless multihop ad hoc networks.

Performance Analysis of CSMA, MACA and MACAW Protocols for VANETs

Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) are a special type of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs). Recent advances in various wireless communication technologies and the emergence of computationally rich vehicles are pushing VANET research to the forefront in academia and industry. A lot of research results have been published in various areas (such as routing, broadcasting, security and others) of VANET in the last decade covering both vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) scenarios. One specific area of VANET that still faces significant challenges is the design of reliable and robust media access control (MAC) protocols for V2V communications. Many algorithms of V2V MAC methods (including various VANET standards) have been proposed for VANETs over the last, few years that also focused on the benefits and limitations of the proposed MAC techniques as well as their ease of implementation in practice and future deployment. In this paper, we have made the performance analysis of Carrier sense multiple access (CSMA), Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance (MACA) and Multiple Access with Collision Avoidance for Wireless (MACAW) for VANET environment.

MAC Protocol Design and Performance Analysis for Random Access Cognitive Radio Networks

In this paper, we consider the medium access control (MAC) protocol design for random access cognitive radio network (CRN). Based on asynchronous spectrum sensing technique and RTS/CTS mechanism, a new MAC protocol, namely, cognitive-radio-based carrier sense medium access with collision avoidance (CR-CSMA/CA) is proposed to coordinate the channel access of secondary network as well as protect the operation of primary network, which applies to both single and multiple channel models. Using the G/G/1 queuing model with consideration of unsaturated and saturated network condition, we develop a framework to analyze the proposed MAC protocol and also derive closed-form expressions of specific performance metrics such as normalized throughput, average packet service time, etc. Performance evaluations illustrate and validate that the performance of CR-CSMA/CA varies with the offered traffic load of secondary network and the spectrum utilization rate of primary network, respectively, and also show that CR-CSMA/CA outperforms other relevant MAC protocols.

An urn occupancy approach for cognitive radio networks in DTVB white spaces

The paradigm of cognitive radio recently received considerable interest to address the so called `spectrum scarcity' problem. In the USA, the Federal Communications Commission issued the regulatory for the use of cognitive radio in the TV white space spectrum. The primary objective is the design of cognitive devices able to combine the use of spectrum sensing and GEO-location information with the concept of the cognitive control channel to manage the cognitive devices. The recent standard ECMA-392 defines physical layer techniques and medium access control protocols to enable a cognitive network managed in a fully distributed fashion. In this work, we pursue the design of an efficient medium access control protocol for the cognitive control channel to flexibly and reliably exchange messages inside the cognitive radio network. In particular, we explore how the cognitive devices can raise their awareness of spectrum vacancies of spectrum vacancies by means of sensing when the distributed beaconing defined by ECMA-392 is used. Our main contributions are the following: (1) we propose a proprietary medium access control protocol based on the Standard ECMA-392; (2) we model the behavior of the cognitive radio network by means of an innovative urn model approach, (3) we investigate the access of the cognitive devices to the frequency channels with and without spoofing attacks and (4) we investigate the ability of the cognitive devices to identify frequency holes accounting for perfect and imperfect spectrum sensing, as well as we study the network throughput.

Synchronous receiver initiated MAC protocol for long-lived sensor networks

In this paper, we discuss the design of a new Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol, SRI-MAC (Synchronous Receiver Initiated MAC), for wireless sensor networks whose goal is to extend the lifetime of the network by avoiding major energy waste causes, such as collisions, overhearing and idle listening.SRI-MAC is designed on the basis of synchronized duty cycled MAC protocols. The nodes in SRI-MAC synchronize each other to avoid data packet collisions. SRI-MAC uses receiver-initiated data transmission in order to efficiently and effectively operate over a wide range of traffic loads. It employs an adaptive beacon and a series of RTS/CTS (Request To Send/Clear To Send) packets to reduce duty cycle and minimize idle listening. In SRI-MAC, the senders remain active and wait silently until the receiver explicitly signifies when to start data transmission by sending CTS packet. If the node is not the intended sender, it returns to sleep immediately and continues its sleep as if the medium had been idle. Analytical and Simulation results show that SRI-MAC reduces the energy consumption and achieves an obvious improvement on the network lifetime.

Design and Analysis of Adaptive Receiver Transmission Protocols for Receiver Blocking Problem in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks

Due to the lack of a centralized coordinator for wireless resource allocation, the design of medium access control (MAC) protocols is considered crucial for throughput enhancement in the wireless ad hoc networks. The receiver blocking problem, which has not been studied in most of the MAC protocol design, can lead to severe degradation on the throughput performance. In this paper, the multiple receiver transmission (MRT) and the fast NAV truncation (FNT) mechanisms are proposed to alleviate the receiver blocking problem without the adoption of additional control channels. The adaptive receiver transmission (ART) scheme is proposed to further enhance the throughput performance with dynamic adjustment of the selected receivers. Analytical model is also derived to validate the effectiveness of the proposed ART protocol. Simulations are performed to evaluate and compare the proposed three protocols with existing MAC schemes. It can be observed that the proposed ART protocol outperforms the other schemes by both alleviating the receiver blocking problem and enhancing the throughput performance for the wireless multihop ad hoc networks.

Energy-efficient Relay MAC with Dynamic Power Control in Wireless Body Area Networks

Wireless body area network (WBAN) is an emerging short-range wireless communication network with sensor nodes located on, in or around the human body for healthcare, entertainment and ubiquitous computing. In WBANs, energy is severely constrained which is the prime consideration in the medium access control (MAC) protocol design. In this paper, we propose a novel MAC protocol named Energy-efficient Relay MAC with dynamic Power Control (ERPC-MAC) to save energy consumption. Without relying on the additional devices, ERPC-MAC employs relaying nodes to provide relay service for nodes which consume energy fast. Accordingly the superframe adjustment is performed and then the network topology can be smoothly switched from single-hop to multi-hop. Moreover, for further energy saving and reliability improvement, the dynamic power control is introduced to adjust the power level whenever a node transmits its packets to the coordinator or the relaying node. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first effort to integrate relay, topology adjustment and power control to improve the network performance in a WBAN. Comprehensive simulations are conducted to evaluate the performance. The results show that the ERPC-MAC is more superior to the existing standard and significantly prolongs the network lifetime.

A Bidirectional-Concurrent MAC Protocol With Packet Bursting for Underwater Acoustic Networks

The underwater acoustic channel is fundamentally different from the terrestrial wireless channel. Its unique characteristics, such as slow propagation speed and small bit rate distance product, present both challenges and opportunities for media access control (MAC) protocol design. In existing handshaking-based MAC protocols, each successful handshake only allows an initiating sender to transmit a single or multiple consecutive data packets to its intended receiver. In a long propagation delay environment, this unidirectional data transmission often results in extremely poor channel utilization due to the long waiting time for the handshake to complete. By exploiting the channel's unique characteristics, we present a novel approach based on concurrent, bidirectional data packet exchange to improve the data transmission efficiency. To further amortize the high latency overhead, we adopt a packet bursting idea, where a sender-receiver pair can exchange multiple rounds of bidirectional packet transmissions. Based on these strategies, we propose an asynchronous handshaking-based MAC protocol, which we call bidirectional-concurrent MAC with packet bursting (BiC-MAC). Via extensive simulations, we compare BiC-MAC against two representative unidirectional handshaking-based protocols, as well as several existing MAC protocols. We demonstrate that BiC-MAC can significantly increase channel utilization and offer performance gains in terms of both throughput and delay, while achieving a stable saturation throughput. Our study highlights the value of adopting bidirectional, concurrent transmission in underwater networks.

An underwater acoustic MAC protocol using reverse opportunistic packet appending

Underwater communication primarily utilizes propagation of acoustic waves in water. Its unique characteristics, including slow propagation speed and low data rates, pose many challenges to Media Access Control (MAC) protocol design. In most existing handshaking-based underwater MAC protocols, only an initiating sender can transmit data packets to its intended receiver after a channel reservation through a Request-to-Send (RTS)/Clear-to-Send (CTS) handshake. This conventional single-node transmission approach is particularly inefficient in underwater environments, as it does not account for long propagation delays. To improve channel utilization in high latency environments, we propose a novel approach that exploits the idle waiting time during a 2-way handshake to set up concurrent transmissions from multiple nodes. The sender can coordinate multiple first-hop neighbors (appenders) to use the current handshake opportunity to transmit (append) their data packets with partially overlapping transmission times. After the sender finishes transmitting its packets to its own receiver, it starts to receive incoming appended packets that arrive in a collision-free packet train. This not only reduces the amount of time spent on control signaling, but it also greatly improves packet exchange efficiency. Based on this idea, we propose an asynchronous, single-channel handshaking-based MAC protocol based on reverse opportunistic packet appending (ROPA). From extensive simulations (single- and multi-hop networks) and comparisons with several existing MAC protocols, including MACA-U, MACA-UPT, BiC-MAC, Slotted-FAMA, DACAP, unslotted Aloha, we show that ROPA significantly increases channel utilization and offers performance gains in throughput and delay while attaining a stable saturation throughput.

Consensus predictive control for 360MN extrusion machine

Abstract We consider the control of 360MN Extrusion machine, which has six-hydraulic cylinders which can be simplified to six second order integral dynamic agents. We introduce consensus predictive model in this paper to improve the convergence speed and relax the sampling rate requirement for our previous design of consensus control protocol for this machine and verified benefits of this design on a co-simulation platform with ADAMS and EASY5.

Energy Efficiency Analysis of Error Control Techniques of WSN

Energy efficiency is the primary consideration of the design of error control protocol of WSN and energy efficiency analysis is the key point of the present related literature research. However, while emphasizes are on the theoretical analysis and experiments are simulated by advanced programming language such as Matlab、C++ and so on, definitions of some restrictive or operation systems on hardware side of sensor nodes in practical usage are neglected, which lead to the inaccurate conclusion of the error control energy efficiency analysis. In this paper, samples of package-loss and error package and distribution of error codes in error packages are obtained through experiment statistics of a large amount of entity nodes and energy efficiency analysis and comparison of Error Control Techniques of WSN are conducted based on error characteristics.

Cluster synchronization of a class of multi-agent systems with a bipartite graph topology

This paper investigates cluster synchronization of a class of multi-agent systems with a directed bipartite graph topology, and presents a number of new results by using the neighbor’s rules for the following two cases: I) there is competition among the agents of different clusters, and II) there are both competition and cooperation among the agents. Firstly, for case I), a linear control protocol is designed for cluster synchronization of multi-agent systems, and a method is presented to determine the final state with the initial conditions based on state-space decomposition. Secondly, we study case II), and design a control protocol based on the information of neighbors and that of two-hop neighbors (that is, neighbors’ neighbors). Finally, two examples are studied by using our presented results. The study of illustrative examples with simulations shows that our results as well as designed control protocols work very well in studying the cluster synchronization of this class of multi-agent systems.

EHM: a novel efficient protocol based handshaking mechanism for underwater acoustic sensor networks

Underwater Media Access Control (MAC) protocol design faces more challenges due to the unique characteristics of acoustic communication such as the long propagation delay and limited bandwidth. The long propagation delay in underwater causes the hidden terminal and spatially unfair problem. In this paper, we propose an efficient MAC protocol for multi-hop underwater acoustic sensor networks, which we shall call the EHM--Efficient Handshaking Mechanism. It is a handshaking-based protocol that addresses the hidden terminal and spatially unfair problem, and the EHM protocol can improve the channel utilization by allowing a node to receive data packets from multiple potential senders simultaneously. This method can reduce the relative proportion of time spent on control packets. The performance of the proposed protocol is evaluated via simulations. Experiment results show that the EHM protocol outperforms in channel utilization, fairness of transmission and end-to-end packets delay.

IP-based mobility management for heterogeneous wireless access

Abstract. Future high quality communication services will be offered in an integrated or converged network infrastructure maintaining both fixed wireless and mobile access via multi-mode user terminals. A support of various scenarios of user and/or terminal mobility within a common IP-based infrastructure requires intelligently designed control protocols. A major challenge is to provide seamless (i.e. lossless and low delay) handover between different radio cells and operator domains to enable continuation of unicast and multicast sessions while using network resources most efficiently. IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) is specifying related IP mobility management protocols to be applicable also to a flat architecture as envisaged by Next Generation (Mobile) Networks (NGNs/NGMNs). The contribution will describe operator requirements towards such an approach. Both single-domain and multi-domain scenarios will be discussed based on federation ideas. Already existing solutions are taken into consideration and application of solution proposals towards a Distributed Mobility Management (DMM) currently under evaluation within IETF will be outlined.

Throughput of Networks With Large Propagation Delays

Propagation delays in underwater acoustic networks can be large as compared to the packet size. Conventional medium-access control (MAC) protocol design for such networks focuses on mitigation of the impact of propagation delay. Most proposed protocols to date achieve, at best, a throughput similar to that of the zero propagation delay scenario. In this paper, we systematically explore the possibility that propagation delays can be exploited to make throughput far exceed that of networks without propagation delay. Under the assumptions of the protocol model in a single collision domain for a half-duplex unicast network, we show that the upper bound of throughput in an <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</i> -node wireless network with propagation delay is <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</i> /2. We illustrate network geometries where this bound can be achieved and study transmission schedules that help achieve it. We show that for any network, the optimal schedule is periodic and present a computationally efficient algorithm to find good schedules. Finally, we show that <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</i> -node network geometries that achieve throughput close to the <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</i> /2 bound exist for any <i xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N</i> and present a lower bound on achievable maximum throughput for bounded geometries. This paper chiefly endeavors to explore the impact and potential of nonzero propagation delays on network throughput. We believe that the novel observations in this paper could motivate further research into this area, especially random access networks with large propagation delay, with a fundamentally changed outlook on maximum achievable throughput. This could lead to novel scheduling and network configuration approaches with applications in underwater and satellite networks.

Impact of Wireless Channel Temporal Variation on MAC Design for Body Area Networks

We investigate the impact of wireless channel temporal variations on the design of medium access control (MAC) protocols for body area networks (BANs). Our measurements-based channel model captures large and small time-scale signal correlations, giving an accurate picture of the signal variation, specifically, the deep fades which are the features that mostly affect the behavior of the MAC. We test the effect of the channel model on the performance of the 802.15.4 MAC both in contention access mode and TDMA access mode. We show that there are considerable differences in the performance of the MAC compared to simulations that do not model channel temporal variation. Furthermore, explaining the behavior of the MAC under a temporal varying channel, we can suggest specific design choices for the emerging BAN MAC standard.

Medium Access Control Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks with Energy Harvesting

The design of Medium Access Control (MAC) protocols for wireless sensor networks (WSNs) has been conventionally tackled by assuming battery-powered devices and by adopting the network lifetime as the main performance criterion. While WSNs operated by energy-harvesting (EH) devices are not limited by network lifetime, they pose new design challenges due to the uncertain amount of harvestable energy. Novel design criteria are thus required to capture the trade-offs between the potentially infinite network lifetime and the uncertain energy availability. This paper addresses the analysis and design of WSNs with EH devices by focusing on conventional MAC protocols, namely TDMA, Framed-ALOHA (FA) and Dynamic-FA (DFA), and by accounting for the performance trade-offs and design issues arising due to EH. A novel metric, referred to as delivery probability, is introduced to measure the capability of a MAC protocol to deliver the measure of any sensor in the network to the intended destination (or fusion center, FC). The interplay between delivery efficiency and time efficiency (i.e., the data collection rate at the FC), is investigated analytically using Markov models. Numerical results validate the analysis and emphasize the critical importance of accounting for both delivery probability and time efficiency in the design of EH-WSNs.