Improving Sensor Network Performance with Directional Antennas: A Cross-layer Optimization

The use of directional antennas for wireless communications brings several benefits, such as increased communication range and reduced interference. One example of directional antennas are electronically switched directional (ESD) antennas that can easily be integrated into Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) due to their small size and low cost. However, current literature questions the benefits of using ESD antennas in WSNs due to the increased likelihood of hidden terminals and increased power consumption. This is mainly because earlier studies have used directionality for transmissions but not for reception. In this article, we introduce novel cross-layer optimizations to fully utilize the benefits of using directional antennas. We modify the Medium Access Control (MAC) , routing, and neighbor discovery mechanisms to support directional communication. We focus on convergecast investigating a large number of different network topologies. Our experimental results, both in simulation and with real nodes, show when the traffic is dense, networks with directional antennas can significantly outperform networks with omnidirectional ones in terms of packet delivery rate, energy consumption, and energy per received packet.

Minimization of IEEE 802.11p Packet Collision Interference through Transmission Time Shifting

V2I communications are characterized by the presence of network nodes in vehicles and in the infrastructures that these vehicles use, as well as by the wireless interactions among them. Safety-related applications demand stringent requirements in terms of latency and packet delivery probability, especially when safety messages have to be delivered to vehicles by the infrastructure. Interference issues stem from the typical characteristics of wireless communications, i.e., the noise of the wireless medium, the limited communication range of the wireless entities, and the receiver passivity of all the conventional wireless transceivers during transmissions. This paper presents a synchronization mechanism to artificially replicate at a host premises destructive interference due to hidden terminals, together with an application-level technique to minimize that interference by shifting the packet transmission time, similarly to the MAC TDMA channel access method. As both have been field-tested, the paper also analyzes the results of these tests, all performed with real hardware on IEEE 802.11p over different frequencies and transmission powers, and with repeatability in mind. The resulting figures attest that interference effects due to hidden terminals may indeed take place on real IEEE 802.11p networks, and that carefully designed time-shifting mechanisms can actively mitigate them.

Analysis of hidden terminal’s effect on the performance of vehicular ad-hoc networks

Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANETs) based on the IEEE 802.11p standard are receiving increasing attention for road safety provisioning. Hidden terminals, however, demonstrate a serious challenge in the performance of VANETs. In this paper, we investigate the effect of hidden terminals on the performance of one hop broadcast communication. The paper formulates an analytical model to analyze the effect of hidden terminals on the performance metrics such as packet reception probability (PRP), packet reception delay (PRD), and packet reception interval (PRI) for the 2-dimensional (2-D) VANET. To verify the accuracy of the proposed model, the analytical model-based results are compared with NS3 simulation results using 2-D highway scenarios. We also compare the analytical results with those from real vehicular network implemented using the commercial vehicle-to-everything (V2X) devices. The analytical results show high correlation with the results of both simulation and real network.

A Simple and Practical Scheme Using Multiple Channels for Improving System Spectral Efficiency of Highly Dense Wireless LANs

As the density of wireless LANs increases, performance degradation caused by hidden terminals and exposed terminals becomes significant. These problems come from carrier sensing based medium access control used in current wireless LANs. Hidden terminals are created if carrier sense threshold is too high, whereas exposed terminals are created if carrier sense threshold is too low. A good threshold depends on how far nodes are placed from their destinations, but that cannot be controlled by the system. In this paper, we propose a simple scheme that makes use of multiple channels. Multiple channels could be utilized by equipping multiple radios or using advanced hardware such as SDR to divide a single channel into multiple channels. Nodes are assigned channels based on their estimated distance from the AP. Once the assignment is done, carrier sense threshold for the channel is selected so that as many concurrent transmissions take place as possible, while preventing hidden terminals. Simulation results show that the proposed mechanism achieves significantly higher throughput without causing starvation at the edge nodes.

The analysis of IEEE 802.11 PCF protocol based on LEO satellite Wi-Fi

In view of the problem of long propagation delay, hidden terminals and serious user conflicts in LEO satellite Wi-Fi scenario, this paper analysis the incompatibility of 802.11 DCF protocol briefly. A scheme of PCF polling mechanism based on priority is proposed and the frame format is adaptively modified. Through MATLAB simulation, the system throughput of the original scheme and the improvement scheme over the different transmission distance and nodes are analysed. The simulation results show that the improved PCF protocol can improve the throughput under the multi-user over long distances.