A cognitive radio (CR) is a radio that can be programmed and configured dynamically to use the best channels in its vicinity to avoid user interference and congestion. Such a radio automatically detects available channels, then accordingly changes its transmission or reception parameters to allow more concurrent wireless communications in a given band at one location. This process is a form of dynamic spectrum management.
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) refer to networks of spatially dispersed and dedicated sensors that monitor and record the physical conditions of the environment and forward the collected data to a central location. WSNs can measure environmental conditions such as temperature, sound, pollution levels, humidity and wind.
In symmetric key cryptography, both parties must possess a secret key which they must exchange prior to using any encryption. Distribution of secret keys has been problematic until recently, because it involved face-to-face meeting, use of a trusted courier, or sending the key through an existing encryption channel. The first two are often impractical and always unsafe, while the third depends on the security of a previous key exchange.
In computer networking, linear network coding is a program in which intermediate nodes transmit data from source nodes to sink nodes by means of linear combinations.
A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers or wireless access points. Instead, each node participates in routing by forwarding data for other nodes. The determination of which nodes forward data is made dynamically on the basis of network connectivity and the routing algorithm in use.
Low-energy adaptive clustering hierarchy ("LEACH") is a TDMA-based MAC protocol which is integrated with clustering and a simple routing protocol in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The goal of LEACH is to lower the energy consumption required to create and maintain clusters in order to improve the life time of a wireless sensor network.
Key distribution is an important issue in wireless sensor network (WSN) design. WSNs are networks of small, battery-powered, memory-constraint devices named sensor nodes, which have the capability of wireless communication over a restricted area. Due to memory and power constraints, they need to be well arranged to build a fully functional network.
A sensor node, consists of an individual node from a sensor network that is capable of performing a desired action such as gathering, processing or communicating information with other connected nodes in a network.
Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are integrations of computation with physical processes. In cyber-physical systems, physical and software components are deeply intertwined, able to operate on different spatial and temporal scales, exhibit multiple and distinct behavioral modalities, and interact with each other in ways that change with context. CPS involves transdisciplinary approaches, merging theory of cybernetics, mechatronics, design and process science. The process control is often referred to as embedded systems. In embedded systems, the emphasis tends to be more on the computational elements, and less on an intense link between the computational and physical elements. CPS is also similar to the Internet of Things (IoT), sharing the same basic architecture; nevertheless, CPS presents a higher combination and coordination between physical and computational elements.
Nano-RK is a wireless sensor networking real-time operating system (RTOS) from Carnegie Mellon University, designed to run on microcontrollers for use in sensor networks. Nano-RK supports a fixed-priority fully preemptive scheduler with fine-grained timing primitives to support real-time task sets. "Nano" implies that the RTOS is small, using 2 KB of random-access memory (RAM) and using 18 KB of flash memory, while RK is short for resource kernel. A resource kernel provides reservations on how often system resources can be used. For example, a task might only be allowed to execute 10 ms every 150 ms, or a node might only be allowed to transmit 10 network packets per minute. These reservations form a virtual energy budget to ensure a node meets its designed battery lifetime and to prevent a failed node from generating excessive network traffic. Nano-RK is open-source software, is written in C and runs on the Atmel-based FireFly sensor networking platform, the MicaZ motes, and the MSP430 processor.
Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) is the combination of cloud computing and mobile computing to bring rich computational resources to mobile users, network operators, as well as cloud computing providers. The ultimate goal of MCC is to enable execution of rich mobile applications on a plethora of mobile devices, with a rich user experience. MCC provides business opportunities for mobile network operators as well as cloud providers. More comprehensively, MCC can be defined as "a rich mobile computing technology that leverages unified elastic resources of varied clouds and network technologies toward unrestricted functionality, storage, and mobility to serve a multitude of mobile devices anywhere, anytime through the channel of Ethernet or Internet regardless of heterogeneous environments and platforms based on the pay-as-you-use principle."
PowWow is a wireless sensor network (WSN) mote developed by the Cairn team of IRISA/INRIA. The platform is currently based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard radio transceiver and on an MSP430 microprocessor. Unlike other available mote systems, PowWow offers specific features for a very-high energy efficiency:
MyriaNed is a wireless sensor network (WSN) platform developed by DevLab. It uses an epidemic communication style based on standard radio broadcasting. This approach reflects the way humans interact, which is called gossiping. Messages are sent periodically and received by adjoining neighbours. Each message is repeated and duplicated towards all nodes that span the network; it spreads like a virus.
A mobile wireless sensor network (MWSN) can simply be defined as a wireless sensor network (WSN) in which the sensor nodes are mobile. MWSNs are a smaller, emerging field of research in contrast to their well-established predecessor. MWSNs are much more versatile than static sensor networks as they can be deployed in any scenario and cope with rapid topology changes. However, many of their applications are similar, such as environment monitoring or surveillance. Commonly, the nodes consist of a radio transceiver and a microcontroller powered by a battery, as well as some kind of sensor for detecting light, heat, humidity, temperature, etc.
A cloudlet is a mobility-enhanced small-scale cloud datacenter that is located at the edge of the Internet. The main purpose of the cloudlet is supporting resource-intensive and interactive mobile applications by providing powerful computing resources to mobile devices with lower latency. It is a new architectural element that extends today's cloud computing infrastructure. It represents the middle tier of a 3-tier hierarchy: mobile device - cloudlet - cloud. A cloudlet can be viewed as a data center in a box whose goal is to bring the cloud closer. The cloudlet term was first coined by M. Satyanarayanan, Victor Bahl, Ramón Cáceres, and Nigel Davies, and a prototype implementation is developed by Carnegie Mellon University as a research project. The concept of cloudlet is also known as follow me cloud, and mobile micro-cloud.
Wireless sensor networks (WSN) are a spatially distributed network of autonomous sensors used for monitoring an environment. Energy cost is a major limitation for WSN requiring the need for energy efficient networks and processing. One of major energy costs in WSN is the energy spent on communication between nodes and it is sometimes desirable to only send data to a gateway node when an event of interest is triggered at a sensor. Sensors will then only open communication during a probable event, saving on communication costs. Fields interested in this type of network include surveillance, home automation, disaster relief, traffic control, health care and more.
On-body wireless or body-centric wireless is the interconnection and networking of wearable computer system components and sensors through a system of transceivers, space wave antennas, and surface guided wave antennas for telemetry and telecommunications. The technique uses the surface of the human body as a transmission medium or path for electromagnetic waves. The topic of body-centric wireless networks (BCWN) can be divided into three main domains based on wireless sensor nodes placement, i.e., communication between the nodes that are on the body surface; communication from the body-surface to nearby base station; and at least one node may be implanted within the body. These three domains have been called on-body, off-body and in-body, respectively. The performance analysis of on-body wireless communication for different sporting activities has been reported.
Time Slotted Channel Hopping or Time Synchronized Channel Hopping (TSCH) is a channel access method for shared-medium networks.
RPL is a routing protocol for wireless networks with low power consumption and generally susceptible to packet loss. It is a proactive protocol based on distance vectors and operates on IEEE 802.15.4, optimized for multi-hop and many-to-one communication, but also supports one-to-one messages.
Atta ur Rehman Khan is a computer scientist and academician who has contributed to multiple domains of the field. According to a Stanford University report, he is among World's Top 2% Scientists. He is the founder of National Cyber Crime Forensics Lab Pakistan, which operates in partnership with NR3C. He has published numerous research articles and books. He is a senior member of IEEE and ACM.
