SCS5619-MOBILE AND PERVASIVE COMPUITNG-UNIT-III

Wireless Sensor Networks

• Wireless Sensor Networks are networks that consist of sensors which are distributed in
an ad-hoc manner.
• These sensors work with each other to sense some physical phenomenon and then the
information gathered is processed to get relevant results.
• Wireless sensor networks consist of protocols and algorithms with self-organizing

capabilities.
Sensors

• The overall architecture of a sensor node consists of:

– The sensor node processing subsystem running on sensor node main CPU
– The sensor subsystem and
– The communication subsystem
• The processor and radio board includes:
– TI MSP430 microcontroller with 10kB RAM
– 16-bit RISC with 48K Program Flash
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– IEEE 802.15.4 compliant radio at 250 Mbps

– 1MB external data flash
– Runs TinyOS 1.1.10 or higher
– Two AA batteries or USB
– 1.8 mA (active); 5.1uA (sleep)
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Sensor Networks - Example

WSN vs. Ad-Hoc Networks

• Wireless sensor networks mainly use broadcast communication while ad hoc

networks use point-to-point communication.
• Unlike ad hoc networks wireless sensor networks are limited by sensors, limited
power, energy and computational capability.
• Sensor nodes may not have global ID because of the large amount of overhead
and large number of sensors.
WSN vs. MANET

• Wireless sensor networks may be considered a subset of Mobile Ad-hoc Networks

(MANET).
• WSN nodes have less power, computation and communication compared to MANET
nodes.
• MANETs have high degree of mobility, while sensor networks are mostly stationary.
– Freq. node failures in WSN -> topology changes
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• Routing protocols tend to be complex in MANET, but need to be simple in sensor

networks.
• Low-power operation is even more critical in WSN.
• MANET is address centric, WSN is data centric.
Applications of WSN

• The applications can be divided in three categories:

• Monitoring of objects.

• Monitoring of an area.

• Monitoring of both area and objects.

Monitoring Area

• Environmental and Habitat Monitoring

• Precision Agriculture

• Indoor Climate Control

• Military Surveillance

• Treaty Verification

• Intelligent Alarms

Precision Agriculture

• Precision agriculture aims at making agriculture operations more efficient, while

reducing environmental impact.

• The information collected from sensors is used to evaluate optimum sowing

density, estimate fertilizers and other inputs needs, and to more accurately
predict crop yields.
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Monitoring Objects

• Structural Monitoring
• Eco-physiology
• Condition-based Maintenance
• Medical Diagnostics
• Urban terrain mapping
Condition-based Maintenance

• Intel fabrication plants

• Sensors collect vibration data, monitor wear and tear; report data in real-
time
• Reduces need for a team of engineers; cutting costs by several orders of
magnitude
Monitoring Interactions between Objects and Space
• Wildlife Habitats
• Disaster Management
• Emergency Response
• Ubiquitous Computing
• Asset Tracking
• Health Care
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• Manufacturing Process Flows

Characteristics of Wireless Sensor Networks
• Wireless Sensor Networks mainly consists of sensors. Sensors are -
• low power
• limited memory
• Energy constrained due to their small size.
• Wireless networks can also be deployed in extreme environmental conditions
and may be prone to enemy attacks.
• Although deployed in an ad hoc manner they need to be self organized and self
healing and can face constant reconfiguration.
Role of Sensors in Pervasive Computing
• Sensors convert one form of energy into another form. Sensors convert physical
parameter into electrically measurable signal.
• Types of Sensors:
• Electromagnetic
• Thermal
• Optical
• Chemical
• Mechanical, etc
• Limitations of old sensors
• Communication Latency
• Scalability
Advent of VLSI
We can integrate a dumb sensor with
• Small Microprocessor
• Limited amount of memory
• Short Range wireless transceiver
• Small Battery
Smart Sensors
• A group of such sensors form a wireless adhoc network.
• Code can be downloaded dynamically by each sensor.
• Ability to Self Configure
• Can discard them once ran out of battery.
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IRISNET
• Internet scale Resource Intensive Sensor Network Services
• World Wide Sensor Web
• Applications include Parking space finder, Watchmychild (or watchmyparent) services,
etc.
• Demands:
• Planet wide
• local data collection and storage
• Real Time Adaptation of collection and processing
• Data as a single queriable unit
• Queries posed anywhere on the internet
• Data Integrity and Privacy
• Robustness
• Ease of service authorship
Sensor Networks for Emergency Response
• How to monitor and deal with a large number of casualties in a disaster response
scenario?
• How to strategically identify and stratify severely injured patients and provide transport
to trauma care center?
• How can sensors help in monitoring vital signs of a victim and aid locating the victims?
Code Blue
• CodeBlue comprises of a suite of protocols and services that let many types of devices
like sensors, handhelds, etc coordinate their activities.
• CodeBlue architecture does not use the traditional agents or RPC mechanism to
operate.
Motes
• Motes, grammatically is a speck of dust, technically referred to as smart dust with limited
computing and communication abilities.
• The picture represents Mica2, developed by UC Berkeley, is a popular sensor node
design.
• 7.3MHz microcontroller with 4K RAM and 128K ROM.
• Single chip radio CC1000 capable of operating at 76.8kbps.
• Range of operation: 20 ~ 30 meters.
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• Runs TinyOS, addressing resource management and concurrency.

Vital Sign Monitors

• Pulse Oximeter shown on left measures patient’s heart rate and blood oxygen
saturation.
• EKG shown on the right measures the patient’s heart rate and rhythm.
• The information is transmitted to monitoring device using differential encoding scheme.
Monitoring Device

• Handheld computers receive and visualize multiple patient information.

• Can report audio/visual alerts should the patient’s vital signs exceed a predetermined range.
• Handhelds provide semi permanent storage for the current and past medical observations.
• Can act as a intermediary between the low power sensors and a central controller or
administrator.

In-Network Processing

To reduce communication costs some algorithms remove or reduce nodes' redundant sensor
information and avoid forwarding data that is of no use. As nodes can inspect the data they
forward, they can measure averages or directionality for example of readings from other nodes.

For example, in sensing and monitoring applications, it is generally the case that neighboring
sensor nodes monitoring an environmental feature typically register similar values. This kind of
data redundancy due to the spatial correlation between sensor observations inspires techniques
for in-network data aggregation and mining
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Programming Sensor Nets Is Hard:

– Months of lifetime required from small batteries
– 3-5 days naively; can’t recharge often
– Interleaved sleep with processing
– Lossy, low-bandwidth, short range communication
– Nodes coming and going
– Multi-hop
– Remote, zero administration deployments
– Highly distributed environment
Limited Development Tools.
A Solution: Declarative Queries
• Users specify the data they want
– Simple, SQL-like queries
– Using predicates, not specific addresses
– One such system: TinyDB
• Challenge is to provide:
– Expressive & easy-to-use interface
– High-level operators
• “Transparent Optimizations” that many programmers
would miss Power efficient execution framework

Aggregation Queries
SELECT AVG (sound)
FROM sensors
EPOCH DURATION 10s
SELECT region, CNT (occupied) AVG (sound)
FROM sensors
GROUP BY region
HAVING AVG (sound) > 200
EPOCH DURATION 10s
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TinyDB Architecture

Declarative Queries for Sensor Networks

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Benefits of Declarative Queries

• Specification of “whole-network” behavior

• Simple, safe
• Complex behavior via multiple queries, app logic
• Optimizable
– Exploit (non-obvious) interactions
Versus other approaches, e.g., Diffusion
Tiny Aggregation (TAG)
• In-network processing of aggregates
– Common data analysis operation
– Communication reducing
• Exploit query semantics to improve efficiency!
Basic Aggregation
• In each epoch:
– Each node samples local sensors once
– Generates partial state record (PSR)
• local readings
• readings from children
– Outputs PSR during assigned comm. interval
• Communication scheduling for power reduction
• At end of epoch, PSR for whole network output at root
• New result on each successive epoch
• Extras:
– Predicate-based partitioning via GROUP BY
Aggregation Framework
• As in extensible databases, TAG supports any aggregation function conforming to:
• Aggn={finit, fmerge, fevaluate}
• Finit {a0} <a0>
• Fmerge {<a1>,<a2>} <a12>
• Fevaluate {<a1>} aggregate value
• Example: Average
• AVGinit {v} <v,1>
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• AVGmerge {<S1, C1>, <S2, C2>} < S1 + S2 , C1 + C2>

• AVGevaluate{<S, C>} S/C

Types of Aggregates
• SQL supports MIN, MAX, SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE
• Any function over a set can be computed via TAG
• In network benefit for many operations
– E.g. Standard deviation, top/bottom N, spatial union/intersection, histograms, etc.
– Compactness of PSR

Data Dissemination
Data dissemination is the distribution or transmitting of statistical, or other, data to end users.
• Process of diffusing the data, query to the various sink nodes.
• Methods of dissemination
• Directed diffusion
TTDD (Two Tier Data Dissemination)
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• Goal:
– Efficient data dissemination from multiple source to multiple mobile Sinks
– Reducing the number of packets for efficient energy consumption
– Supporting mobile nodes
• Enhanced method uses:
– Using a permanent grid structure
– Cross-shaped trajectory
– Use Cluster concept
– Use hybrid routing
Assumptions and Basic Model

• Basic model
– Multiple mobile sink nodes exist in the sensor network.
• Assumptions
– Each sensor node is assumed to be aware of its own geographic location
– Sensor nodes remain stationary
– Homogeneous sensor nodes are deployed in a wide sensor field.
– One-hop communication is used for data transmission between proximate sensor
nodes and multi-hop communication for distant sensors.
– Each sensor node is aware of its available energy.
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• Example

• Data Announcement and Query Transfer

Sensor Databases

A sensor database involves a combination of stored data and sensor data. - Sensor data is
generated by signal processing functions. - Stored data include the set of sensors that
participate in the sensor database together with characteristics of the sensors (e.g., their
location) or characteristics of the physical environment.
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Some Examples: - monitoring in-building energy usage for planning energy conservation -
Supervising items in factory warehouse - Gathering information in a disaster area - military and
civilian surveillance - fine-grain monitoring of natural habitats with a view to understanding
ecosystem dynamics

data gathering in instrumented learning environments for children - Measuring variations in local
salinity levels in riparian environments - what make some of today’s network different : 1- they
operate unattended and untethered. 2- energy-efficiency is becoming a primary design
consideration

Approaches: -

Data Warehousing Approach:

- processing of sensor queries and access to the sensor network are separated.

- Data is extracted from the sensor network in a predefined way and is stored in a database
located on a unique frontend server.

- It periodically retrieves data from the sensor network and stores the data at a centralized
database.

-query processing takes place on the centralized database.

- It is well suited for answering predefined queries over historical data.

- It requires significant communication and that requires energy - Limitations: exhaust the
energy of the sensors and produce a lot of redundant data

Approaches:

Distributed Approach:

- The query workload determines the data that should be extracted from sensors.
- Flexible: different queries extract different data from the sensor network
- Efficient: only relevant data are extracted from the sensor network.
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COUGAR:
- The COUGAR System is a platform for query processing techniques over ad-hoc sensor
networks
- Treats a sensor network as a distributed database
- A query optimizer is located on the gateway node to generate distributed query processing
plans after receiving queries from outside
- The COUGAR forms clusters out of the sensors to allow intelligent in-network aggregation to
conserve energy by reducing the amount of communication between sensors.
- Each sensor type has a standard Abstract Data Type representation which is used at all
nodes. It is not possible to insert sensing nodes with new sensing capabilities into the network in
an ad hoc manner.
Architecture:
- The Query Proxy: a small database component that runs on sensor nodes to interpret and
execute queries
- Frontend component: which is a more powerful Query Proxy that permits connections to the
world outside of the sensor network?
- A graphical user interface through which users can pose ad-hoc and long-running queries on
the sensor network.
TinyDB
- Enquiry processing system for sensor networks that operates on TinyOS
- TinyDB provides a simple SQL-like interface to query sensor data mush as you would pose
queries against a traditional database
- Query processing system for extracting information from a network of TinyOS sensors
- collects data from motes, filters it, aggregates it together, and routes it.
Every node has an identically structured sensor table containing local sensor data. Each type of
sensor corresponds to an attribute (column) in this table.
Motivation:
- The primary goal of TinyDB is to allow data-driven applications to be developed and deployed
much more quickly.
- Acquire and deliver desired data while conserving as much power as possible
- TinyDB transforms diverse kinds of sensor networks into user-friendly virtual databases rich
with raw information about the real world.
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Database in every sensor: - Deployment experiences show that aggregation is rarely used in
practice. Indeed, in many cases each device has and a unique task - Each sensor device
should run its own database system. - Low-power flash memory has both rapidly decreased in
cost and rapidly increased in storage capacity.
The energy cost of a query that selects 100 tuple is less than the cost of single packet
transmission.

Antelope:
- Antelope contains a flexible data indexing mechanism that includes three different indexing
algorithms
- Each node in the sensor network provides a database interface to their stored data and each
mote runs a database manager for energy-efficient data querying
- Queries are made to individual nodes instead of to a dedicated sink node
Antelope consists of eight components:
1- query processor: which parse AQL queries
2- Privacy control: which ensures that query is allowed
3- LogicVM: which executes the query
4- Database kernel: which holds the database logic and coordinates query execution
5- Index abstraction: which holds the index logic
6- Index process: which builds indexes from existing data
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7- storage abstraction: which contains all storage logic

8- Result transformer: which presents the results of a query in way that makes it easy to
be used by programs?

Data Management in Wireless Mobile Environment

Back in the early ’90s, the authors of were the first to deal with the problem of data management
in distributed mobile environments. It provoked a new research direction with several names
such as pervasive computing, ubiquitous computing, and nomad computing, anywhere anytime
computing. At that time, the idea of cell phones becoming personal digital assistants, or pocket
computers was still largely a fantasy.

Since then, mobile devices have been continuously getting smaller, cheaper and more powerful.
Nevertheless, there are some inherent shortcomings of mobile computing that still exist and,
more importantly, are not expected to be drastically confronted with in the near future. These
are the following:

• Energy consumption: Unless a breakthrough in battery technology occurs, a considerable

increase of battery resources cannot be expected any time soon. Therefore, the energy
efficiency problem profoundly affects mobile applications .Measurements in show that the
network interface represents a significant fraction of the energy consumed by the device. This
fact directly influences the design of mobile applications.

• Wireless bandwidth: WLANs are capable of providing 56 Mbit/s bandwidth, but this is rather a
theoretical value, since real applications usually have to live with a lower value. Wireless
bandwidth is constantly increasing, but not at a tremendous rate.
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• Small display size: The limited screen size of mobile devices is a severe limitation, since a
considerable increase is not expected. Data analysis becomes extremely problematic using
such devices. Therefore, the end user interface design cannot follow the traditional desktop
principles.
Wireless Information Broadcast

Data broadcast has added another dimension in the area of mobile computing. Data access
from wireless channels is a very useful facility because it allows users to get desired data
through many computationally enabled devices.

In reality, wireless channels are always fewer than the number required to satisfy user
demands. Thus, the task of data dissemination technology is to develop ways for satisfying data
demand with limited wireless resources.
Data broadcast is a 1-to-n process, enabling enhanced scalability.

The effectiveness of data dissemination systems is evaluated by its ability to provide users with
required data ubiquitously. Data broadcast can be managed with three different modes: on-
demand, push-based and hybrid.

We present the basics of broadcast structures.

Indexed Broadcast Structure

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Broadcast Structure

In broadcast systems, there is no traditional network stack. Data is transmitted in the form of
buckets. Buckets are also called data blocks or frames. Practically, buckets reside on top of the
wireless Medium Access Control (MAC) protocol. In broadcast systems, mobile clients must
wait until the server broadcasts the required information.

Indexing techniques are used to implement selective tuning in wireless environments. Indices
are broadcast together with data to help mobile clients locate the required information, as shown
in above Figure. In most systems, buckets are classified into index and data buckets.

Air indexing is fundamentally different than disk indexing. While disk indices represent a path or
an offset in the disk (where accessibility is direct), air indices provide solely a time offset
indicating when the pointed item is going to appear in the wireless channel.

On-Demand data dissemination

Broadcast Architectures
On-Demand
In on-demand broadcast, clients make explicit requests for data. If multiple clients request the
same data at approximately the same time, the server may match these requests and only
broadcast the data once. Such architecture is shown in above Figure.

On-demand data dissemination is clearly user-oriented. It provides interactive capability to users

for accessing the information through query. Users do not have to search in the wireless
information space by tuning several channels.
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However, this approach has many disadvantages. First of all, it is resource intensive. Users
require a separate channel to send requests to the server. The server, after receiving the
request, composes the result and sends it to the user on a back channel (downstream) known
to the user.

Push-Based

In push-based systems, the server employs point-to-multipoint communication and sends data
items in the absence of explicit client requests. In order to achieve that, the server maintains a
broadcast schedule, which determines the order and the frequency in which data items are
broadcast. Such architecture is shown in the above Figure.

The major feature of such systems is scalability. Client population does not influence the
dissemination process because clients do not issue requests. The addition of new clients does
not influence the server’s incoming load or the client perceived access time.

The major problem of push-based systems is their lack of self organization and adaptiveness.

Hybrid data dissemination.

As the name suggests, hybrid data dissemination is a combination of on-demand and push-
based approaches. Data items are classified into popular and unpopular (respectively, hot and
cold).
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Hybrid data dissemination

Popular data items are delivered via push-based channels, while unpopular data items are
disseminated via on-demand channels. Such architecture is shown in above Figure.

Typical design issues in hybrid systems are channel allocation (number of push and on-demand
channels), data classification (cold or hot) and item scheduling.

Document classification and bandwidth division are interrelated issues, simply because a given
bandwidth division determines the performance of a document classification choice and,
conversely, a given document classification determines a bandwidth split that optimizes
performance.

Mobile Databases
Mobility and portability pose new challenges to mobile database management and distributed
computing. In conventional database systems, there is one common characteristic: All
components, especially the processing units, are stationary.

The first research efforts for mobile databases concentrated on relational databases. The
presence of personal and terminal mobility incurs several problems related to the maintenance
of the ACID (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability) properties. Naturally, the ACID
properties of a transaction must be maintained in all data management activities.
Transaction Processing
Transactions models for mobile environments are different than those used in centralized or
distributed databases in the following ways.
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Computation and communication have to be supported by stationary hosts.

The transactions are prolonged due to the mobility of both data and users,
And due to frequent disconnections.
The models should support and handle concurrency, recovery, disconnection and
mutual consistency of the replicated data objects.
As mobile hosts move from one cell to another, the states of transaction and accessed
data objects, and the location information also change.
Computations might have to be split into sets of operations executed on mobile and
stationary hosts.

Query Processing
Query optimization techniques have to consider the effects of mobility. Query processing in
mobile environments can be divided into queries that involve only the content of the database,
and location based queries. Mobility has several effects on the ACID properties. Location data
may involve location based queries or location aware queries.

Other typical issues are finding the best execution plan for a query that involves data broadcast
on different channels, and defining the organization of the broadcast data so that the consumed
energy is minimized.

Caching
Cache management plays an important role in mobile computing because of its potential to
alleviate the performance and availability limitations during weak connections and is
connections. It can reduce contention on limited bandwidth networks. This improves query
response time and supports disconnected or weakly connected operations.

If a mobile user has cached a portion of the shared data, different levels of cache consistency
may be requested. In a strongly connected mode, the user may want the current values of the
database items belonging to its cache. During weak connections, the user may require weak
Consistency when the cached copy is a quasi-copy of the database items.
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Replication
The ability to replicate data objects is essential in mobile computing in order to increase
availability and performance. Shared data items have different synchronization constraints
depending on their semantics and particular use.

These constraints should be enforced on an individual basis. Replicated systems need to

provide support for disconnected mode, data divergence, application defined reconciliation
procedures, and optimistic concurrency control.

Wireless Mesh Networks [WMN]

Wireless mesh network is an upcoming technology that has the potential to deliver Internet
broadband access, wireless local area network coverage, and network connectivity for network
operators and customers at low costs.
It is a communication network that have increasingly attracted Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
recently because of its rapid growing and developing of wireless technologies. WMN is a
promising technology in providing high bandwidth network coverage. WMNs will greatly help the
users to be always on- line anywhere anytime by connecting to wireless meshes routers.
Moreover, the mesh routers have the bridge functionality to connect WMNs with various existing
wireless networks such as cellular, wireless sensor, wireless-fidelity (Wi-Fi), worldwide
interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), WiMedia networks. Thus, WMNs will deliver
wireless services for a large variety of applications.

WMN Classification
Wireless networks can be classified based on the connectivity types of the various network
elements, which are either Point to Point (PTP), Point to Multi-Point (PTM) or Multi-Point to
Multi-Point (MPM) networks.
PTP networks are reliable. However, they are not scalable and their level of adaptability is low.
PTM networks are moderately scalable, but they have low adaptability and reliability. In order to
overcome these limitations, Multi-point to Multi-point (MTM) networks are offering features that
provide high reliability, adaptability and scalability to accommodate a large number of users.
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Advantages of WMNs

Self Organizing and Self Configuring: WMNs are flexible in network architecture and not depend
on the implementation and the protocols. Self healing and self configuring are the WMNs
features. This, reduces the set-up time and maintenance cost. Apart from this, it enhances
network performance. Due to these features, the network service providers are able to change,
expand, and adapt the network as needed to meet the demands of the end users.
Low Deployment Cost: Mesh routers are wireless and they have the ability to service in multi-
hop environments. Thus, using wireless routers in large areas are cheaper compared to single
hop routers/access points that they have wired connections. Typically, due to wired connections
that is more expensive to install and maintain, the WMNs deployment with easier plus faster
installation and maintenance, leads to a lower operation cost.
Increased Reliability: In a WMN there are multiple paths from source to destination nodes. This
provides alternate paths in case of failure. Alternate paths may chose, in order to minimize the
bottlenecks in congested area of the network too. This also allows the traffic loads to be
balanced in the network. Load balancing and minimizing the bottleneck via alternate routing can
significantly increase network reliability in WMNs.
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Scalability: In traditional wireless networks, when number of nodes increases, the network
performance will be affected downward. But, in WMNs, increasing the number of nodes will
increase transmission capacity for better load balancing and alternate routes. Usually, the local
packets (generated in clients of mesh router) run faster compared to packets (generated in two
or more hops away) from the neighbors. This is mainly achievable using some WMNs
configurations and protocols that manage the communication medium.

Interoperability: WMN has a hybrid multi-point to multi-point architecture which is compatible

with existing standards such as: WiMAX, Cellular, Wi-Fi, Zigbee, Bluetooth, Sensor, MANET,
Vehicular,etc.Thus, it is attractive for incremental deployment and reuse of existing
infrastructures. All technologies mentioned above, are able or will be able soon to configured a
WMN and communicate with each others. Most of necessary improvements needed in any type
of networks to enable them communicate with others, can augment the current standards to
maintain interoperability.

WMN Architecture
Wireless mesh architecture design is a first step towards providing high-bandwidth Internet
access over a
Specific coverage area. WMNs consist of Mesh Clients (MCs) and Wireless Mesh Routers
(WMRs), which relaying each other’s packets in a multi-hop fashion, where mesh routers have
minimal mobility and form the Backbone of WMNs (BWMNs).

Based on the functionality of the nodes the architecture of WMNs can be classified into:
Infrastructure mesh Architecture,
Client mesh Architecture and
Hybrid mesh architecture

Infrastructure Mesh

 In infrastructure mesh architecture, the mesh routers collectively provide a wireless

backbone infrastructure. Client node is passive in mesh infrastructure.
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 Via Ethernet links conventional clients with Ethernet interfaces can be connected to
mesh routers.

 If the conventional clients have the same radio technologies as the mesh routers then
they can communicate directly with the mesh routers

 If different radio technologies are used then the clients communicate with their base
station that have Ethernet connections to mesh routers

Client Mesh

 Client meshing provides peer-to-peer networks among client devices. Here no such
mesh router is required. Client will act like a mesh router by relaying the packets.
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Hybrid Mesh

 Mesh router provide the backbone of such network.

 With the help of network functionalities such as routing and forwarding of data packets,
clients can actively participate in the creation of the mesh.

Characteristics

 Dynamic self-configuration and self-organization

 Adaptation
 Fault tolerance and robustness
 Low-Cost
 Integration and interoperability
Components of WMNs
There are three types of node in a WMN: WMN client, WMN router, and WMN gateway.
o WMN clients are the end-user devices such as: laptops, PDAs, smart phones,
etc that can access the network for using applications like email, VoIP, game,
location detection, etc. These devices are assumed to be mobile; they have
limited power, they may have routing capability, and may or may not be always
connected to the network.
o WMN routers are in the network to route the network traffic. They cannot
terminate nor originate the traffic. The routers have limitation in mobility and they
have reliable characteristics. Transmission power consumption in mesh routers is
low, for multi-hop communications strategy. Additionally, the Medium Access
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Control (MAC) protocol in a mesh router supports multiple-channels and multiple

interfaces to enable scalability in a multi-hop mesh environment.
o WMN gateways are routers with direct access to the wired infrastructure/Internet.
Since the gateways imams have multiple interfaces to connect to both wired and
wireless networks, they are expensive. Therefore, there are a few number of
WMN gateways in the network. Moreover, their placement has a significant
impacton the performance of the network.
Routing Protocols

• The design of the routing protocols for WMNs is still an area of research although there
are many routing protocols that are available for ad hoc networks.
• However, an optimal routing protocol for WMNs must possess features like:
• multiple performance metrics
• scalability
• robustness and
• Efficient routing with mesh infrastructure.
• The routing protocols for ad hoc networks are equipped with some of these features, but
none of them possesses all of the above.
Multi Radio Routing:
• In a multi-radio link quality source routing (MR-LQSR) a new performance metric,
weighted cumulative expected transmission time (WCETT), is incorporated.
• Both link quality metric and the minimum hop count are accounted for in WCETT
which provides a good tradeoff between delay and throughput.

Multi Path Routing:

• Better load balancing and providing high fault tolerance are the two main
objectives of using multi-path routing.
• Multiple paths are selected between source and the destination
• This provides better fault tolerance as when a link is broken another path can be
chosen.
• This enhances efficiency since without waiting to set up a new routing path, the
end-to-end delay, throughput, and fault tolerance can be improved.
• Complexity is the major hurdle of multi-path routing.
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• Also, the availability of node disjoint routes between source and destination
determines the improvement, given a performance metric.
Hierarchical Routing:
• The hierarchical routing protocols tend to achieve better performance when the
node density is high.
• This is because of less overhead, shorter average routing path, and quicker set-
up procedure of routing path etc.
• Maintaining hierarchy definitely adds to the complexity and this may compromise
the performance of the routing protocol.
Geographical Routing:

• This kind of routing scheme forwards packets only by using the position
information of the nodes in the vicinity and in the destination node unlike the
topology based schemes.

• This suggests that there is less impact on the geographic routing due to a
topology change than the other routing protocols.

• The algorithm used in geographical routing (single-path greedy routings) suffers

from that a delivery is not guaranteed even if a path exists between a source and
the destination as the packet forwarding decision is made based on the location
information of the current forwarding node, its neighbors, and the destination
node.

• Planar-graph based geographic routing algorithms have been proposed which

guarantees the delivery. Theses algorithms suffer form a major drawback: a
higher communication overhead.

Applications of WMN

Broadband Home Networking:

• Realized through IEEE 802.11 WLANs
• Problem  location of the access points.
• Homes have many dead zones without service coverage.
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• Solutions based on site survey are expensive and not practical for home networking,
while installation of multiple access points is also expensive and not convenient because
of Ethernet wiring from access points to backhaul network access modem or hub.
• Moreover, communications between end nodes under two different access points have
to go all the way back to the access hub.
 Not an efficient solution, especially for broadband networking.

• Mesh

networking can resolve all these issues in home networking.

Community and Neighborhood Networking

• In a community, the common architecture for network access is based on cable or DSL
connected to the Internet, and the last-hop is wireless by connecting a wireless router to
a cable or DSL modem.

• This type of network access has several drawbacks:

* Even if the information must be shared within a community or neighborhood, all traffic
Must flow through Internet. This significantly reduces network resource utilization.
* Large percentage of areas in between houses is not covered by wireless services.
* An expensive but high bandwidth gateway between multiple homes or neighborhoods
May not be shared and wireless services must be set up individually. As a result,
network service costs may increase.
* Only a single path may be available for one home to access the Internet or
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Communicate with neighbors.

Enterprise Networking
• Within an office or all offices in an entire building, or among offices in multiple buildings.
• IEEE 802.11 WLANs are widely used in various offices currently. However, they are still
isolated islands.
• Connections among them are achieved through wired Ethernet (still costly)
• In addition, adding more backhaul access modems only increases capacity locally, but
does not improve robustness to link failures, network congestion and other problems of
the entire enterprise network.
• Multiple backhaul access modems can be shared by all nodes in the entire network, and
thus improve the robustness and resource utilization of enterprise networks.
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Metropolitan Area Networks

• The physical-layer transmission rate of a node in WMNs is much higher than that in any
cellular networks, e.g., an IEEE 802.11g node can transmit at a rate of 54 Mbps.

• Moreover, the communication between nodes in WMNs does not rely on a wired
backbone.

• Compared to wired networks, e.g., cable or optical networks, wireless mesh MAN is an
economic alternative to broadband networking, especially in underdeveloped regions.

• Wireless mesh MAN covers a potentially much larger area than home, enterprise,
building, or community networks.

• Thus, the requirement on the network scalability by wireless mesh MAN is much higher
than that by other applications.

Health and Medical Systems

• In a hospital or medical center, monitoring and diagnosis data need to be processed and
transmitted from one room to another for various purposes.

• Data transmission is usually broadband, since high resolution medical images and
various periodical monitoring information can easily produce a constant and large
volume of data.

• Traditional wired networks can only provide limited network access to certain fixed
medical devices.
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• Wi-Fi based networks must rely on the existence of Ethernet connections, which may
cause high system cost and complexity but without the abilities to eliminate dead spots.

Security Surveillance Systems

• As security is turning out to be a very high concern, security surveillance systems

become a necessity for enterprise buildings, shopping malls, grocery stores, etc.

• In order to deploy such systems at locations as needed, WMNs are a much more viable
solution than wired networks to connect all devices.

• Since still images and videos are the major traffic flowing in the network, this application
demands much higher network capacity than other applications.

References:

1. Frank Adelstein, “Fundamentals of Mobile and Pervasive Computing”, TMH, 2005

2. Jochen Burthardt et al, “Pervasive Computing: Technology and Architecture of Mobile
Internet Applications”, Pearson Education, 2003
3. Feng Zhao and Leonidas Guibas, “Wireless Sensor Networks”, Morgan Kaufmann
Publishers, 2004.