By: Zhigang Wang
Advisor: Dr. Mengchu Zhou
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Time: 9:30 AM, Thursday, May 5, 2005
Place: Room 308, Faculty Memorial Hall, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Newark NJ. Directions

Abstract
Advances in wireless technology and portable computing along with demands for high user mobility have provided a major promotion toward the development of ad hoc networks. Mobile ad hoc networks feature dynamic topology, self-organization, limited bandwidth and battery power of a node. They do not rely on specialized routers for path discovery and traffic routing. Research on ad hoc networks has been extensively investigated in the past few years and related work has focused on many of the layers of the communications architecture.

This research intends to investigate applications of MANET for intelligent systems, including intelligent transportation system (ITS), sensor network and mobile intelligent robot network, and propose some approaches to topology management, link layer multiple access and routing algorithms. Their performance is evaluated by theoretical analysis and off-the-shelf simulation tools.

Inter-vehicle communication is a key component of ITS and it is also called vehicular ad hoc network. VANET has many features different from regular MANETs in terms of mobility, network size and connectivity. Given rapid topology changes and network partitioning, we study how to organize the numerous vehicular nodes and establish message paths between any pair of vehicular nodes if they are not apart too far away.

Most current research on ad hoc networks assumes the availability of IEEE 802.11. However, the RTS/CTS protocol of 802.11 still leads to packet collision which in turn decreases the network throughput and lifetime. For sensor networks, sensors are mostly battery operated. Hence, resolving packet collision may improve network lifetime by saving valuable power. Using space and network diversity combination, we propose a new packet separation approach to packet collision caused by masked nodes.

Nowadays robots become more and more powerful and intelligent. They can take part in operations in a cooperative manner which makes distributed control necessary. Ad hoc robot communication network is still fresh field for researchers working on networking technology. We investigate some key issues in robot ad hoc network and evaluate the challenges while establishing robot ad hoc networks.

Committee Members:
Dr. Mengchu Zhou, advisor, Professor, NJIT
Dr. Nirwan Ansari, co-advisor, Professor, NJIT
Dr. Swades De, Assistant Professor, NJIT
Dr. Roy R. You, Assistant Professor, NJIT
Dr. Chien, I Jy, Associate Professor, NJIT