Final Assignment Proposal

1. VoIP SoftPhone port to Windows Vista  

 

Abstraction: To investigate and port the Avaya IP SoftPhone (Audio and Video) onto the MS Vista operation system. This is a C++ implementation using Visual C++ and the .NET environment. This will be required to investigate the new Vista Audio API’s and integrate these into the Softphone and undertake analysis of the jitter and delay that results, trying to maximize the system performance to ensure the highest network Voice Quality. Understanding/learning of and H323 (possibly SIP), Media and Signaling Encryption will be encountered.

 Skills:

<!–[if !supportLists]–>            <!–[endif]–>• Must have OO, C++

<!–[if !supportLists]–>            <!–[endif]–>• Strong skills and interest in communication and IP networking protocols.

 2. Coverage extensions in Integrated Future Wireless Networks

 Abstraction: Existing networks (such as 2G, 3G, WLAN etc.) adopt different multi-access systems (e.g. TDMA, CDMA, OFDM etc.) in their radio interfaces and target different subscriber requirements. For example, WLAN support low cost high data rate services in hotspot areas (e.g. buildings, shopping centres etc.) whereas UMTS can provide services over both small and wide coverage area. With the huge investments involved, future wireless networks will integrate these systems to offer global services. Despite the complimentary coverage offered by these systems, there will still be pockets of area without any form of coverage. Unless the operator is willing to invest more money in setting up base stations to accommodate the traffic demand in those areas, some form of intermediary measures will have to be formulated as interim solutions thereby minimizing the investment

Puspose: In this project you will learn about the form of coverage extensions that can be offered to resolve these pockets of uncovered areas. You will also investigate the packet loss ratio for different terminal velocities as the handset travels over such pockets (assume a UMTS or WLAN cell structure). You will need to construct your own network comprising of few cells and intermittent pockets of uncovered areas. You will be required to use the network simulator or the OPNET and prepare your own codes to investigate the packet loss over your selected network.

 

Requirements: Knowledge about wireless communications, interest in learning simulation tools such as ns-2 or OPNET used by the research community etc.

3. IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)-based interworking between UMTS and WLAN

 

Abstraction: Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) and Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) are characterized by their ability to support high data rate services with different coverage requirements (e.g. wide area, hotspots etc.). With the increasing popularity of bandwidth intensive applications (e.g. interactive multimedia, online music etc.), coexistence of both these networks will be key to meeting the future traffic demand. To support seamless roaming of subscribers across these networks, an interworking mechanism needs to be developed between the two. Of all the feasible approaches, interworking based on the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) within the UMTS architecture appears to be the most promising. Confined to the packet switched network (i.e. PS or core network (CN)), the 3G IMS offers provisioning of IP multimedia services (e.g. audio, video, text, chat, etc. and a combination of them) delivered over the PS domain. Because of the existing infrastructure the IMS based interworking system will invoke minimal investment on part of the network operators. This will then reflect in lowering of the roaming charges.

 

Puspose: In this project you will learn details of the UMTS IMS architecture and investigate how this can be extended in interworking UMTS and WLAN. You will also design a mobility model (with overlapped UMTS and WLAN cells) to observe the effect of mobility on mainly signal reception near the cell boundary. You will need to use the network simulator or the OPNET and prepare your own codes to develop the model.

 

 

Requirements: Knowledge about wireless communications, interest in learning simulation tools such as ns-2 or OPNET used by the research community etc.

 

4. Comparative study of schedulers in future integrated wireless networks

 

Abstraction: Future integrated wireless network, interconnecting different systems, is envisaged to be end-to-end IP based facilitating support of increased number of users, lower cost and ease in introducing new applications. With terminals competing for the same shared resources, providing packet-level QoS is critical to support both rate-sensitive and delay-sensitive applications. Although higher bandwidth capability is available in the core network compared to the wireless network, they both require proper provisioning of network resources to maintain the minimum guaranteed QoS. Provisioning consists of fair bandwidth distribution and maximization of resource utilization, and can generally be termed as scheduling. Fairness is critical in ensuring that users are not penalized for excessive resource usage, while maximizing resource utilization is critical in supporting bandwidth intensive applications such as interactive multimedia, online gaming etc. A significant amount of research work exists for wireless network scheduling, whereas core network scheduling with multiple classes of traffic has not been pursued with equal fervent.

 

Puspose: In this project you will investigate the packet network scheduling and identify the key areas of contribution. You will also study the present scheduling mechanisms (e.g. Diffserv, Intserv, MPLS etc.) and offer an insight into formulating a packet scheduler that will be able to address increased number of subscribers and multiple traffic classes that future integrated wireless networks are expected to support.

 

Requirements: Knowledge about wireless communications, familiarity with network QoS parameters and basic routing theory, ability to identify and analyze problems etc.

 

5. Wireless Mesh Networks

 

Abstraction: Wireless mesh networks are becoming an interesting topic of research toward next generation networks. These networks are essentially infrastructure-less and have some similarities with more known ad hoc networks. They are also capable of extending the coverage of local area networks, including but not limited to the usage of wireless local loops (WLL). In this project, you will investigate the state-of-the art technology development of wireless mesh networks and identify pros and cons of those systems in compared with conventional systems. A simple simulation model that can illustrate the concept and protocols of the mesh networks will be also developed in this project.

 

Requirements: Need to be interested in reading many technical papers. For the simulation part, previous experience and programming skills in Java or similar is required.

 

6. Implementation of a new mobility-aware routing protocol for pseudo-linear highly mobile ad hoc networks

 

Abstraction: Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) provide an infrastructure-less means of communication between mobile entities. Previously, many routing protocols have been proposed for MANETs. When it comes to establishing stable links for communication between the mobile entities, none of these protocols have proved highly effective in fast-moving mobile ad hoc networks that are to a high degree linear or pseudo-linear in their motion trajectories. An example of this is an aeronautical system. A new routing protocol has been proposed, which needs to be extensively tested against previous algorithms considering the mentioned mobility model.

 

Puspose: In this project you will implement a new routing protocol called Multipath Doppler Routing (MUDOR). This can be done either in NS-2 (recommended), or OPNET simulation packages. You will learn one of these simulation packages and implement the protocol in one of them. You will also have to compare the performance of MUDOR with other algorithms such as DSR, ABR, and others with regard to traffic and throughput and other relevant metrics.

 

Requirements: This project requires strong programming and analytical skills.

 

7. Implementation of a new mobility-aware clustering algorithm for pseudo-linear highly mobile ad hoc networks

 

Abstraction: Clustering proves effective in large-scale Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) by providing a hierarchical architecture, and hence avoiding excessive flooding during route discovery. Although many clustering algorithms are available, they are either impractical or inefficient in certain scenarios where mobile entities are extremely fast (e.g. an aircraft), specially when we need to form stable clusters.

 

Puspose: In this project you will implement a new clustering algorithm called Doppler Velocity Clustering suitable for highly mobile entities that exhibit linear or near-linear motion trajectories (e.g. an aircraft). This implementation can be done in either NS-2 (recommended), or OPNET simulation packages. Once the algorithm is implemented, you will compare its performance against previous clustering algorithms with regard to stability, throughput, traffic generated and other relevant metrics in order to demonstrate the new clustering algorithm’s effectiveness and advantages (or shortcomings) over other clustering algorithms in the scenarios mentioned.

 

Requirements: This project requires strong programming and analytical skills.

 

8. Authenticated Key Agreement Protocol on WLAN

 

Abstraction: Wireless security standard – IEEE 802.11i, provides security mechanism for Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN). For strong security association it provides mechanism named robust security network association (RSNA), which utilizes IEEE 802.1x, extensible authentication protocol (EAP) and Remote authentication dial-in user service (RADIUS) to facilitate the network access control for WLAN. EAP does not specify any particular authentication mechanism instead it serves as a transport to the underlying authentication protocols. The authentication and key agreement protocols are responsible for the authentication and key generation for the two communicating entities. Reference proposed a mutually authenticated key agreement protocol (KA) that employs elliptic curve digital signature algorithm (ECDSA) and elliptic curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) exchange for mutual authentication and key exchange.

 

Puspose: In this project, you will research various types of EAP mechanisms, using network simulator you will code the EAP-KA and at least another commonly used EAP mechanism to compare them in WLAN environment.

 

Requirements: Knowledge about network security, interest in learning simulation tools such as NS-2 or OPNET.

 

9. OFFIS: A routing protocol for wireless sensor networks

 

Abstraction: Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are composed of cheap and tiny sensors with computation and communication capabilities. Due to its prospective diversified applications WSN is expecting a tremendous growth in near future. The design constituents of the routing protocol of sensor networks depends mainly its applications and traffic patterns. Extending the network lifetime is also a vital consideration while designing the routing protocol for sensor networks. Reference proposes a routing protocol OFFIS that optimizes the routing path based on the metrics distance, power and link usage by fuzzy inference systems (FIS) to extend the network lifetime. A preliminary analysis has also been made by utilizing, the first order radio model. The model is rather ideal than a real world model.

 

Puspose: In this project, you will research various types of power efficient routing protocols designed for wireless sensor networks, using network simulator you will code the protocol and compare the performance with a recently published energy aware routing protocol.

 

Requirements: Knowledge about wireless networks, interest in learning simulation tools such as ns-2 or OPNET.

 

 

10. Evaluation of Handoff Delay for SIP based Mobility Management in a UMTS Networking Environment

 

Abstraction: Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), is the main protocol chosen by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for performing mobility management for Universal Mobile Telecommunication System (UMTS) Release 5/6 networks. Due to its characteristics of transparency to lower layers, ease of deployment, and greater scalability, the application layer based SIP has been chosen as the most appropriate candidate for handling mobility. However, since SIP is involved in application layer based transport and processing of messages, considerable delays are experienced, which limits the performance of TCP and UDP over the wireless link. Hence a careful investigation on various aspects of delays is very much needed.

 

Purpose: In this project, the handoff delay for SIP based mobility management in UMTS networks will be investigated and simulated.

 

Requirements: Expected to use OPNET modeler (and have C/C++ programming skills) to model and simulate horizontal handoff delay associated with SIP.

 

11. Performance Modelling and Evaluation of 3GPP SIP vs. IETF SIP

 

Abstraction: Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), is the core protocol chosen by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) for performing signaling within the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS). IETF has provided different extensions to the original SIP up on requests by the 3GPP to comply with the additional requirements imposed by the IMS, which was not possible by the original version. By and large, these extensions can be grouped in to five categories: general, session operation, Quality of Service (QoS), Authentication, Authorization, and Accounting (AAA), and security.

 

Purpose: In this project, an evaluation of the performance of the modified 3GPP SIP specification will be analyzed against the original IETF SIP specification.

 

Requirements: Expected to use OPNET modeler (and have C/C++ programming skills) for modeling and simulating the two versions of the protocol.

12. A Survey on Mobility Management Techniques for Next-Generation All-IP based Networks

 

Abstraction: Next-generation wireless systems are envisioned to have an IP-based infrastructure with the support of heterogeneous access technologies. Regardless of the services and networks, one of the most important and challenging problems for the seamless access of all-IP-based wireless networks and mobile services is mobility management. Mobility management is the fundamental technology used to automatically support mobile terminals enjoying their services while simultaneously roaming freely without the disruption of communications.

 

Purpose: In this project, the current state of the art mobility management solutions for next generation all-IP-based wireless systems must be investigated and reported. Based on the current works on such mobility management solutions implemented on different layers, an optimal mobility management solution for all-IP based next generation networks must be presented.

 

Requirements: Background in mobile communications and reading enthusiasm.

 13. A Survey on End-to-End QoS for SIP Sessions in UMTS Networks

 

Abstraction: As the usage of wireless packet data services increases, the modern day wireless carriers face the challenge of offering multimedia applications with stringent QoS requirements via 3G data networks. As a result, proper support for end-to-end QoS in 3G cellular networks is becoming increasingly important. Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) is the protocol chosen for signalling within the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) for providing multimedia services over UMTS Release 5/6 networks.

 

Purpose: This project aims at investigating and reporting on how end-to-end QoS for SIP based multimedia sessions can be realized within the UMTS Release 5/6 architecture. Additionally, interactions between SIP, Media Gateway Control Protocol (H.248), and the Common Open Policy Service (COPS) within the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) in achieving end-to-end QoS must also be investigated in detail.

 

Requirements: Background in mobile communications and reading enthusiasm

 

 

14. Security Threats in Wireless Sensor Networks

 

Purpose: In this project, you will investigate the security threats in the emerging wireless sensor networks and ways to overcome those threats. You may need to develop your own simple protocol for this with the consideration of specific features of tiny and battery-limited sensor elements.

 

Requirements: Expected to use a network simulator or a new simulator that you build using C++ programming to model and simulate the sensor network.

 

15. Security Threat in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

 

Purpose: In this project, you will investigate the security threats in mobile ad hoc network (MANET); particularly in the way routing is handled in these networks, and ways to overcome those threats. You may need to develop your own simple protocol for this with the consideration of specific features of the MANET.

 

Requirements: The student is expected to use a network simulator or a new simulator that you build using C++ programming to model and simulate the MANET and routing protocols involved.

 

 

16. Routing Techniques in Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstraction: Wireless mesh networks are becoming an interesting topic of research toward next generation networks. These networks are essentially infrastructure-less and have some similarities with more known ad hoc networks. They are also capable of extending the coverage of local area networks, including but not limited to the usage of wireless local loops (WLL).

 

Puspose: In this project, you will investigate the state-of-the art technology development of wireless mesh networks and identify pros and cons of those systems in compared with conventional systems. Particular attention is on the routing techniques which are migrated from ad hoc networks or specifically developed for mesh networks. A simulation model that can illustrate the concept and protocols of the mesh networks will be also developed in this project, using IEEE 802.11 (W-LAN) and/or IEEE 802.16 (W-MAN) standards.

Requirements: Need to be interested in reading many technical papers. For the simulation part, previous experience and programming skills in Java or similar is required.