[Colloq] PhD Thesis Proposal by Xin Liu, Wed. March 14

[Rachel Kalweit]

College of Computer and Information Science
presents
PhD Thesis Proposal by:
Xin Liu
Proposal Title:
Cross Layer Design for Cooperative and Adversarial Wireless Networks

Wednesday, March 14, 2007
3:40pm
366 West Village H

Abstract
This thesis work focuses on developing novel techniques to improve the 
performance of wireless networks under two communication models: (1) 
cooperative communication, and (2) adversarial environment. The proposed 
research relies on a cross-layer communication paradigm where multiple 
layers of protocols coordinate to achieve a common goal to increase 
throughput or robustness to jamming, or to reduce energy consumption.

The nature of wireless communication is broadcast. The positive aspect 
of this broadcasting property is that it naturally enables wireless 
nodes to cooperate so that the global performance can be increased 
efficiently. The first part of our work is in such a cooperative 
setting. The objective is to minimize the energy consumption of 
delivering information over the network, since energy efficiency is 
crucial to extend wireless networks' lifetime. We propose a solution 
based on a novel communication model which allows wireless nodes to 
accumulate energy from partially overheard packets. Multiple layers, 
from the physical layer to the routing layer, are involved in searching 
the optimum transmission strategy.

The negative aspect of this sharing medium property of wireless networks 
is that it is very easy for adversaries to attack the communication by 
way of monopolizing the medium, eavesdropping, or interfering the 
communication. Therefore, the second part of our research aims at 
increasing wireless networks' resiliency to cross-layer jamming attacks. 
We propose a novel cross-layer communication architecture in conjunction 
with fine-designed mechanism-hopping techniques to improve the network 
robustness against adversaries. Just as the spread spectrum technique 
thwarts malicious attackers by hopping frequencies in a pseudo-random 
fashion, our approach foils jamming attacks by adaptively and 
dynamically switching between different mechanisms at different layers 
of the stack.

In this proposal, we define the paradigms, present preliminary results 
obtained so far and discuss research in the next step.


Committee:
Prof. Guevara Noubir
Prof. Ravi Sundaram
Prof. Rajmohan Rajaraman
Prof. Agnes Chan
Dr. Tushar Saxena


-- 
Rachel Kalweit
College of Computer and Information Science
202 West Village H
Northeastern University
phone: 617-373-2462
fax: 617-373-5121
rachelb at ccs.neu.edu