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Wireless Networks Laboratory (WN)

Head: Erina Ferro

Wireless networks are among the fastest growing areas in networking research. Wireless communication extends the capabilities of fixed networks, to include location-independent information storage, transport, retrieval and processing, and to support mobility of terminals and users. Besides, wireless networks are cheaper and faster to deploy, very important features in rural remote areas, as well as in case of natural disasters. Mobile networks may accommodate widely ranging data rates; the system bandwidth may be allocated fixed or dynamically according to the user's needs; terminals may be portable (but static when communicating) or mobile (able to communicate while transported, as quickly as fast trains or aircrafts can do). Terminals may communicate directly or through a base station, and so on. Many other requirements may be listed, which imply different problems to be solved and different technologies to be developed. In any case, mobility is the major, common requirement, whatever technology is used to implement the wireless network.

Wireless networks are usually classified as "infrastructured" (or cellular) and "not infrastructured" (or ad-hoc). Cellular networks offer to roaming users access points (often called "base stations") to fixed, wired networks, while ad-hoc networks are purely wireless. Obviously, the two types of networks can be interconnected. Sensor networks as well constitute wireless ad-hoc networks, meaning that each sensor supports a multi-hop routing algorithm. The applications for wireless sensor networks are varied, typically involving some kind of monitoring (temperature, humidity, light, radiation, noise, etc.), tracking, or controlling. A specific problem related to the use of sensors is their reduced capabilities; in fact, sensors have limited resources such as battery lifetime (varying from hours to several years depending on the application), computational power, data storage and communication bandwidth. Hence, it is important for a wireless sensor network architecture to take into consideration the network topology, the power consumption, the data rate and fault tolerance in order to avoid significant energy consumption and improve bandwidth utilization.

In the infrastructured scenario, satellite communication plays a very important role, due to its inner characteristic of broadcasting over wide areas. Communication delay and signal fade are major problems. Technologies such as IEEE802.11, Bluetooth, or HIPERLAN are also very important since they provide very effective responses to requirements of wireless communication over short distances (e.g. in Local Area Networks, Personal Area Networks, Body Area Networks).
When base stations are unavailable to provide connection to mobile terminals, wireless, ad-hoc networks are the response. Ad-hoc networks implement a peer-to-peer architecture, where all the network protocols are distributed among the terminal themselves.

Security in wireless communications is a fundamental topic, as well as the utilization of a middleware that allows the development of applications completely transportable in an environment of interconnected heterogeneous networks.

The WNLAB conducts fundamental and applied research covering mobile and wireless communication networks, broadband satellite networks, sensor networks, integration of communication systems, and middleware for context information acquisition. The laboratory is also involved in educational and scholar activities, involving graduate and undergraduate students.

A power point presentation of the main activities of the laboratory con be downloaded here.

Last update Friday, 04-Dec-2009 13:54:07 CET

Comments to: Erina Ferro