Arthur Edwards-Block

Developing a New Wireless Sensor Network Platform and Its Application in Precision Agriculture

Wireless sensor networks are gaining greater attention from the research community and industrial professionals because these small pieces of “smart dust” offer great advantages due to their small size, low power consumption, easy integration and support for “green” applications. Green applications are considered a hot topic in intelligent environments, ubiquitous and pervasive computing. This work evaluates a new wireless sensor network platform and its application in precision agriculture, including its embedded operating system and its routing algorithm. To validate the technological platform and the embedded operating system, two different routing strategies were compared: hierarchical and flat. Both of these routing algorithms were tested in a small-scale network applied to a watermelon field. However, we strongly believe that this technological platform can be also applied to precision agriculture because it incorporates a modified version of LORA-CBF, a wireless location-based routing algorithm that uses cluster-based flooding. Cluster-based flooding addresses the scalability concerns of wireless sensor networks, while the modified LORA-CBF routing algorithm includes a metric to monitor residual battery energy. Furthermore, results show that the modified version of LORA-CBF functions well with both the flat and hierarchical algorithms, although it functions better with the flat algorithm in a small-scale agricultural network.

WiSPH: a wireless sensor network-based home care monitoring system.

This paper presents a system based on WSN technology capable of monitoring heart rate and the rate of motion of seniors within their homes. The system is capable of remotely alerting specialists, caretakers or family members via a smartphone of rapid physiological changes due to falls, tachycardia or bradycardia. This work was carried out using our workgroups WiSe platform, which we previously developed for use in WSNs. The proposed WSN architecture is flexible, allowing for greater scalability to better allow event-based monitoring. The architecture also provides security mechanisms to assure that the monitored and/or stored data can only be accessed by authorized individuals or devices. The aforementioned characteristics provide the network versatility and solidity required for use in health applications.

Traffic Congestion Detection System through Connected Vehicles and Big Data

This article discusses the simulation and evaluation of a traffic congestion detection system which combines inter-vehicular communications, fixed roadside infrastructure and infrastructure-to-infrastructure connectivity and big data. The system discussed in this article permits drivers to identify traffic congestion and change their routes accordingly, thus reducing the total emissions of CO2 and decreasing travel time. This system monitors, processes and stores large amounts of data, which can detect traffic congestion in a precise way by means of a series of algorithms that reduces localized vehicular emission by rerouting vehicles. To simulate and evaluate the proposed system, a big data cluster was developed based on Cassandra, which was used in tandem with the OMNeT++ discreet event network simulator, coupled with the SUMO (Simulation of Urban MObility) traffic simulator and the Veins vehicular network framework. The results validate the efficiency of the traffic detection system and its positive impact in detecting, reporting and rerouting traffic when traffic events occur.

Evaluation of a Driving Simulator with a Visual and Auditory Interface

Millions of driving accidents occur worldwide each year causing more than a million fatalities. Although traditional safety measures are largely reactive in nature, the application of wireless technologies has become much more common, thus promoting proactive strategies to save lives. This article presents the development and evaluation of usability of a driving simulator with a visual and auditory interface to assist drivers more quickly identify emergencies on the road, which, when used with the support of wireless ad hoc networking, can contribute to reducing vehicular accidents. The usability results obtained in this study were favorable according to the System Usability Scale (SUS) usability questionnaire, which was applied as a post-test. Employing the SUS, respondents reported the interface to be acceptable or good. Results show that utility of the visual interface was 69% and the score for the auditory interface was 100%. In sum, respondents felt the interfaces were useful in reported upcoming emergency or accident situations.

Emerging Technologies in Wireless Ad-hoc Networks: Applications and Future Development

Raúl Aquino Santos graduated from the University of Colima with a BE in Electrical Engineering, received his MS degree in Telecommunications from the Centre for Scientific Research, and Higher Education in Ensenada, Mexico in 1990. He holds a PhD from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of the University of Sheffield, England. Since 2005, he has been with the College of Telematics, at the University of Colima, where he is currently a Research-Professor in telecommunications networks. His current research interests include wireless and sensor networks. Raul Aquino-Santos (University of Colima, Mexico), Víctor Rangel-Licea (National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico) and Arthur Edwards-Block (University of Colima, México)

Comparative Analysis of IEEE 802.11p and IEEE 802.16-2004 Technologies in a Vehicular Scenario

A major challenge of the automobile industry and safety authorities is how to improve the way cars can communicate either among themselves or with infrastructure designed to assist drivers. Sichitiu and Kihl in [1] describe a taxonomy based on the way nodes (in this case, cars) exchange data. Their work involves two forms of vehicular communication: vehicle-to-vehicle communication (IVC) and vehicle to roadside communication (RVC). IVC can employ either a one hop strategy between two cars (SICV) or multi-hop strategy between many cars (MIVC). It is important to note that multi-hop strategies begin with one car but use several other cars to relay the information to the car requiring the information. Furthermore, the communication strategy can also be either ubiquitous (URVC) or scarce (SRVC). Because of the highly dynamic nature and multiple demands inherent in Vehicular Communication Networks (VCN), these networks have their own very unique requirements:  The radio transceiver technology must provide omni-directional coverage.  Rapid vehicle-to-vehicle communications must keep track of dynamic topology changes.  Highly efficient routing algorithms need to fully exploit network bandwidth. The increased interest in vehicle-to-vehicle (IVC) and vehicle-to-roadside communication (RVC) is due, in part, to the need to expand the amount of information relayed to vehicles. As previously mentioned, the information relayed today is no longer limited to cellular telephone service. As the need to transmit more information grows, so must the technology used to carry that information from car to car or from communications tower to tower. Some applications are more suitable for vehicle-to-roadside communications in applications that involve automatic payment, route guidance, cooperative driving and parking management, just to name just a few. However, there are other applications that are more appropriate for vehicle-to-vehicle communications, including intelligent cruise control, intelligent maneuvering control, lane access and emergency warning, among others. Basically, there are three main categories of applications that have been targeted: (i) road safety applications, (ii) traffic efficiency applications, and (iii) value-added applications. Each

Comparative Analysis of Wireless Broadband Mesh and Multi-hop Networks

This paper provides a comparative analysis of wireless broadband mesh and multi-hop networks. This analysis focuses on synchronization and centralized and distributed scheduling in wireless broadband mesh networks. In addition, it also describes the additional addressing and connection definition that applies to multi-hop relay systems. The comparative analysis is made on the basis of conceptual flow diagrams.