Master’s Thesis: Network Attributes and Location Awareness in Sensor Andrew [PDF]
September 2007 - May 2008
Sensor Andrew is a wireless sensor network testbed being developed at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). This large-scale deployment will enable widespread monitoring and instrumentation of the physical environment on CMU campus. It will also provide a “living laboratory” for experimentation and testing.
This thesis focuses on the Sensor Layer of the Sensor Andrew effort. In particular, the thesis focuses on a network attribute server for the project. A network attribute server is similar to the naming server in conventional networks, but it deals with various attributes of a network instead. For example, some network attributes of interest would be: the link quality in specific areas, the number of nodes present, the average battery life of the nodes that are alive, as well as any and all the sensor data that can be obtained. These network attributes should be able to be queried in a hierarchical manner. The different scales of granularity would be all the way from the entire network of Sensor Andrew, to a particular gateway, to a cluster, and even down to a particular node in the network. Some of the attributes could be obtained from the database itself, while some might have to be calculated live off the network.
Seamless Network Handover
May 2007 - August 2007
Today our world is pervaded by a variety of networks, and we have devices that can connect to these networks of varying reaches at many different locations. The type of networks include PANs such as Bluetooth, LANs like IEEE 802.11 and Ethernet, and WANs like UMTS and WiMax.
This project focussed on developing a prototype mechanism to faciliate seamless transitions from one network to another based on characteristics of the networks, and requirements of the applications being used. This prototype was based on the IEEE 802.21 standard.
My personal Adaptive Global NETwork
September 2004 - July 2006
MAGNET is a worldwide R&D project within Mobile and Wireless Systems and Platforms Beyond 3G. MAGNET developed user-centric business model concepts for secure Personal Networks in multi-network, multi-device, and multi-user environments. MAGNET has 30 partners from 15 countries, among these Industrial Partners, Universities, and Research Centres.
As a part of MAGNET, I conducted research on the various aspects of the IEEE 802.15.3 and IEEE 802.15.4 standards to develop an adaptive personal network. I was also part of a team that developed simulation environment in ns2 for simulating IEEE 802.15.3 and 802.15.4 based WPANs. This environment was demonstrated at International Wireless Summit 2005, Aalborg, Denmark in September 2005, and at the MOCCA-WWI symposium at Paris in December 2005.
As part of my work at MAGNET, I co-authored a paper titled, “Integration of WPAN with WLAN for Multimode Reconfigurable Device.” This paper appeared in the conference proceedings at WPMC 2005, as a part of the of the first ever International Wireless Summit in Aalborg Denmark.
Another of my roles in MAGNET was to develop the MAC layer of the IEEE 802.15.3 standard.
Integration of WPAN with WLAN for Multimode Reconfigurable Device. [PDF]
Abstract: An innovative way of building a personal network (PN) is through an adaptive integration of personal area networks (PAN) with other infrastructure networks. IEEE 802.15.3 is a prominent PAN standard for high data rate air interface. IEEE 802.11 is a successful and popular WLAN standard. As part of building a PN involving many wireless communication standards, a scheme is proposed here for the integration of these two standards at MAC level. This work targets a dual mode device that is potentially capable of reconfiguring its air interface (MAC and PHY) depending on the communication requirements.