Home Networking

This work describes the simulation under the Simulink environment of Matlab of an IEEE802.16 complete transmitter/receiver chain. Because of its superior performance the WirelessMAN OFDM 256 PHY layer is the most implemented in WiMAX compliant devices. The first part of the paper concerns the validation of a transmitter model using that PHY layer while the second part of the article deals with a complete transmitter/receiver model proposed. An example with a 20 MHz channel using adaptive modulation is considered and analyzed. This model takes into account several constraints and problem of the standard translation: reducing ambiguity in the standard and providing a reference for compliance testing.

An IEEE 802.11 analytical performance evaluation model for ad-hoc WLAN’s comprising terminals with different traffic source characteristics is presented. Although some publications address this issue, most of them propose to modify the original standard by some means that will affect the probability of transmission of a device when the network reaches congestion. The approach of this publication is to be able to establish a set of equations such that an intelligent choice of configuration parameters of standard home devices may improve the performance of the wireless network. Actually, two models are presented and compared, a simple one based on stationary behavior of the network assuming collisions have a negligible effect on network performance, and a second model based on a stationary stochastic model of a network, where devices have a packet ready for transmission at all times.

Seamless mobility is now a key requirement for wireless communication systems and users are day after day thirstier of high speed connections. For indoor communication, WLAN has become the most common technology. In this paper we introduce a composite trigger for intra-system handover which can take into account not only signal strength but also access point load and expected throughput. Simulation results show that the proposed metric provides gains in term of delays and system overall throughput in various scenarios.

Bandwidth hungry services are developing rapidly in home networking and needs for Gigabit Home Networks will appear shortly, following the introduction of Gigabit optical access networks. In addition, ubiquitous wireless connectivity is required by users to connect multiple multimedia devices inside the home. Some wireless standards, such as Ultra Wide Band (UWB), are able to provide Gbit/s data rate but with a limited coverage. In order to extend this coverage, we propose a multipoint to multipoint (MP2MP) radio over fibre (RoF) architecture based on a NxN optical splitter. The UWB MAC layer is able to control the system and no optical MAC layer is required, so that the optical path becomes a “transparent tunnel”. Simulations and experimental investigations demonstrate the technical feasibility of this innovative MP2MP RoF architecture.

We highly believe that 60 GHz wireless technology is an ideal candidate to be the future high-speed WLAN standard for home networks thanks to its unique characteristics. In this paper, we review and present the main aspects of the 60 GHz radio regarding future home networks. We introduce the fundamental challenges with the research issues and the considerations on some promising solutions.

In this paper, a new architecture for sharing resources amongst home environments is proposed. Our approach goes far beyond traditional systems for distributed virtualization like PlanetLab or Grid computing, since it relies on complete decentralization in a peer-to-peer like manner, and above all, aims at energy efficiency. Energy metrics are defined, which have to be optimized by the system. The system itself uses virtualization to transparently move tasks from one home to another in order to optimally utilize the existing computing power. An overview of our proposed architecture is presented as well as an analytical evaluation of the possible energy savings in a distributed example scenario where computers share downloads.

The vast literature on the wireless sensor research community contains many valuable proposals for managing energy consumption, the most important factor that determines sensors lifetime. Interesting researches have been facing this requirement by focusing on the extension of the entire network lifetime: either by switching between node states (active, sleep), or by using energy efficient routing. We argue that a better extension of the network lifetime can be obtained if an efficient combination of management mechanisms can be performed at the energy of each single sensor and at the load distribution over the network. Considering these two accuracy levels (i.e., node and network), dis paper presents a new approach that uses cost functions to choose energy efficient routes. In particular, by making different energy considerations at a node level, our approach distributes routing load, avoiding thus, energy-compromised hotspots that may cause network disconnections. The proposed cost functions have completely decentralized and adaptive behavior and take into consideration: the end-to-end energy consumption, the remaining energy of nodes, and the number of transmissions a node can make before its energy depletion. Our simulation results show that, though slightly increasing path lengths from sensor to sink nodes, the proposed scheme (1) improves significantly the network lifetime for different neighborhood densities degrees, while (2) preserves network connectivity for a longer period of time.

Ambient intelligence is the driving force of the new digital world. The trend is to equip everyday life objects even inside home environment with intelligence, which will make our lives easier and more productive. Wireless mesh networking (WMN) has emerged as a promising concept to meet such challenges. This paper considers the problem of achieving QoS inside home networks relying on a wireless mesh networks.

Open service platforms like the OSGi-platform offer a standard, scalable way for service providers to remotely deploy their services inside many residential networks. However, the lack of control by WAN service providers on the home environment together with too complex end-user policy configuration hinder widespread e-deployment of services into the home. Several architectures have been presented for next generation home networks, coping with the deployment, discovery and run-time control of residential services in order to enforce service levels. However, to evolve towards true collaboration scenarios where a service from one service provider can interact with a service from another service provider without configuration inconvenience, or where a service from one service provider can co-exist with an identical service from another provider on the same device, proper security and policy configuration needs to be addressed. This paper contributes therefore to the already presented architectures by discussing secure remote policy configuration in a multi service provider environment. A security framework is proposed based on the OSGi specification that limits not-trusted service providers in their control on other services. The strength of the framework lies in its generic XACML-compliant policy configuration module and its compatibility with existing services. This makes the framework easy to adopt for remote configuration providers, which allows service providers to delegate configuration support to a service aggregation provider.

Estimations of coherence bandwidth from wideband channel sounding measurements made in the 30KHz–100MHz band in several indoor environments are described. Results are intended for applications in high-capacity indoor powerline networks. The coherence bandwidth and the RMS delay spread parameters are estimated from measurements of the complex transfer function of the Powerline Communications (PLC) channel. The 90th percentile of the estimated coherence bandwidth at 0.9 correlation level is above 65.5 KHz and 90% of estimated values of B_0.9 are below 691.5 KHz. B_0.9 was observed to have a minimum value of 32.5 KHz. The RMS delay spread describes the dispersion in the time domain due to multipath transmission. 80 % of the channels exhibit an RMS delay spread between O.O6µs and 0.78µs. Its mean value was equal to 0.413µs. The paper studies the variability of the coherence bandwidth and time-delay spread parameters with the channel class [9], and thus with the location of the receiver with respect to the transmitter. And finally relates the RMS delay spread to the coherence bandwidth, which in turn, affects the powerline channel capacity.

Powerline communication systems are used to transmit audio and video transmissions with delay, datarate and QoS requirements. However, the Powerline medium is shared with other devices connected to any socket. When switching, and even during normal operation, these devices can generate some noises (stationary, cyclo-stationary & impulsive). A good knowledge of these noises is essential to counter them and to ensure a fair quality of service. This study describes an new method to monitor impulsive noise, which tries to be very close to the mechanism of Powerline modems, so the impact of these noises is better evaluated

Operating Local Area Networks, in the home of their customers, has recently become a new business for Network Operators. On the other hand, Gigabit optical technologies are introduced in the operators’ access network and new digital terminals appear in the customer premises, such as HDTV videos, PCs and home servers, requiring more and more a high speed data transfer inside the apartment. These evolutions will appeal for the emergence of an Ultra Broadband Home Area Network (UBB-HAN) with advanced connectivity capabilities that will combine many technologies. We introduce a new architecture for this future UBB-HAN which includes some foreseeable autonomic functions to cope with the management and the increased complexity of such a heterogeneous HAN.

In this paper, we have proposed a group dynamic source routing protocol, GDSR, for mobile ad hoc networks with high mobility. We focus on pursuing routing stability and making a fast recovery of link failure. Nodes in a network are divided into clusters, each being assigned a unique cluster label. A routing path is represented by a source route including a sequence of cluster labels, and the nodes having an identical cluster label are responsible for delivering packets cooperatively to the cluster whose label is the next one in the source route. We have also employed a distributed self-pruning algorithm DSP to prevent intermediate nodes from relaying RREQ unnecessarily, thus reducing considerable overhead. We compared our protocol with some existing ones and the result is proven to be highly dependable.

Apart from ethernet, both wired and wireless technologies involved in home networking are prone to bandwidth fluctuations mostly due to interferences with others home devices or appliances. Channels characteristics are time variant and environment sensitive. Mobility and end devices density in a wireless cell may collapse available network resources. Therefore, quality of service provision for delay sensitive multimedia applications in such an unstable and dynamic network environment is important since there is no way to ensure that a reserved resource will maintain the required level of service over time. This paper presents an intelligent routing scheme based on the multi-agent system technology. Agents are embedded in nodes and cooperate to build alternatives routes. These routes are used as backup routes when those defined by the routing protocol become inadequate.

The last developments of the home gateways, DSL-boxes, off-the-shelf wireless routers, wireless communities initiatives have brought a great number of network hardware to the home. These different developments have been followed by different initiatives of “hacking the box” to be able to flash this specific hardware with open-source firmware resulting from the contribution of several open-source developers (OpenWrt, Frei-funk…). Due to the lack of “open hardware” off-the-shelf available to adjust the platform to the home-networking (and networking) applications, Open-Pattern is a project to develop such a hardware based on the inputs from the past initiatives and bringing a box based on an open hardware (i.e. open specifications of the targeted hardware), using a motherboard and able to receive daughterboard to expand the functionalities in conjunction with the current open source project to be using the box once this one is ready to be shipped.

Recently home intelligent service is extended to context aware and situation aware automation service by using ubiquitous technology. In this paper, we focused on user’s context based intelligent security management for home safety application using RFID and WSN(Wireless Sensor Network). We propose a context aware home safety application model. The proposed context service support security and privacy control by using user’s situation aware security management. It will be a practical application of RFID and sensor network for ubiquitous home safety environment. The proposed system has lots of advantages in user safety and energy efficiency.

Today, proprietary home automation targets very specific applications which operate mostly on a cable based infrastructure. In contrast to that, our implementation builds a wireless ad-hoc multi-hop network based on the ESB sensor node platform from the FU-Berlin. The nodes gather sensor readings in a home and transmit them to a central automation server. There, the readings are matched against a list of script statements. In case of a match, a specific action is performed. In this work we will show how the user can implement complex home automation applications optimized for his specific needs by defining very simple script statements. An important property of the system is also that the control of all home appliances is done by means of IR communication and Ethernet enabled multiple plugs. This way, the cooperation between manufacturers is no necessity in order to connect devices to the home automation network.

Among the latest events of the wireless revolution, the fast-growing of ZigBee as a standard for WSN (Wireless Sensors Networks) is certainly one of these. ZigBee and 802.15.4 had been proving in the last years that they can achieve the results that Wi-Fi had achieved for high bit-rate wireless LANs and some large reliable deployments are now in place implementing ad-hoc WSN in critical applications. Therefore this paper will emphasize on the past, present and future features for ZigBee, taking a look on the feedback from previous implementations to finally design the next generations of WSN based on ZigBee.

Although several newer technologies exist in the domotics market, one of the oldest remains extremely popular. Despite of its very limited functionality and performance, X10 is still a very common technology to manage simple Home Networks. Even if other wired solutions such as KNX/EIB or LonWorks out perform X10 in every single aspect, they might still be a bit of an overkill when addressing simple needs in a modest Home Network. However, X10 lacks support for wireless networks that could add a lot of functionality to its wired network. A good example would be how sensor networks could communicate with already existing X10 modules to allow full home automation in, for example, light and shutter control.

This paper will focus on the use of 802. 15.4 to add functionality to simple X10 networks, in particular how 802. 15.4 could allow the use of remote controls (or switches) acting over regular X10 modules, and how X10 switches can act over wireless modules using 802.15.4 as the transport layer. We will also see how 802.15.4 doesn’t add complexity in the deployment and management of X10 Home Networks, which is one of the reasons such an old technology remains popular.

This submission focuses on highlighting the main benefits that IPv6 could bring to home networking services, based on wired and wireless architectures. Particularly wireless sensor networks (WSN) from the European IPv6 Task Force Steering Committee ’s standpoint.

In the age of technology, most of the network services originally run on large scale and base on complicated systems. When they’re brought into our home, the migration could derive further technical problems due to the change of scale and cost. Home networking structure is often improvised and built up with several types of wireless technology, such as WiMedia and WiFi, inside several small rooms. In addition, people enjoy walking around at home and being served without constraints and service interruption, so the seamless services and mobility within home are a must. This paper describes a novel notion on the transition among wireless connectivities at home which is named Hand-around and efficiently provides seamless network services while moving in heterogeneous and improvised home networking. A developing technique in Mobile IPv6, called multiple care-of addresses (MCoA) registration, is the best candidate to accomplish such seamless services in an all-IP home network. Besides, it’s a pure layer-3 mechanism and hence could more easily apply on and adapt to home services without massively changing the operational flow and system hierarchy, especially suited for services of multimedia, communication and entertainment. This notion also gives a new vision to some scenarios described in Home Gateway Initiative (HGI) document.

Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for developing communication services comprises from two parts; CAPital Expenditure (CAPEX) and Operational Expenditure (OPEX). These two types of costs are interrelated and affect any service provider’s deployment strategy. In many traditional methods, selection of critical elements of a new service is performed in a heuristic manner aimed at reducing only the OPEX part of the TCO which is not necessarily optimal. In the current chapter, a brief review of the TCO for a communication service is proposed.

Advances in technology and the increased use of home medical devices, will revolutionise the way public healthcare is administered. Homes and their associated networks in conjunction with such devices will take over many mundane healthcare tasks and manage new and enriched lifestyle choices that affect our overall quality of life. Through the combination of wireless and fixed networking infrastructures explicit links will form between the home and its devices and medical installations, such as hospitals. Through these interconnected networks new real-time healthcare management systems will emerge that continually provide information and react to adverse or unusual medical conditions received from occupants within the home. Achieving this will undoubtedly require a convergence between home networks and medical installations in order to harness the power afforded by both. We present a new approach using a working prototype to implement networked medical devices within the home capable of monitoring data received from an individual, which could then be accessed within the home and medical installations.

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) can be defined as a way to provide secure communication between members of a group through use of the public telecommunication infrastructure, maintaining privacy through the use of a tunneling protocol and security procedures. This work examines and empirically evaluates the remote access VPNs, namely Point to Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP), Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol over Internet Protocol Security (L2TP/IPSec), and Secure Socket Layer (SSL). We explore the impact of these VPNs on end-to-end user application performance using metrics such as throughput, RTT, jitter, and packet loss. All experiments were conducted using a window XP SP/2 host (VPN Client) connected to a windows server 2003 host (VPN Server) and to a fedora core 6 host (VPN Server).