University: Utah State University
Name of sponsoring Professor: Cynthia
Furse
Department: ECE
Richard
and Moonyeen Anderson Wireless Communication
Research and Education Center
Research
Modeling and Simulation of
FDR-Wireless “Infrastructured” Network
This project covers a wide span
of details from the network topology, Protocol stack, to the communication
protocol that is being developed for the Sensor-network.
The sensor node consists of frequency domain reflectometer (FDR) used to test aging aircraft cables in
situ. This sensor provides information
on which cable is broken, where (to within 3cm) the failure has occurred, and
what type of failure is present (open, short, etc.) The data must then be transmitted to a
central distribution point for use by maintainers or pilots. This is done via wireless
communication.
The Sensor-network consists of
thousands of low powered and low memory Sentient Instrument Controllers
(SIC). These SIC form a self organizing multihop
network. The network can be termed as low in data rate and amount of data
being transmitted.
The network topology of the
whole system is divided into smaller networks called cells. Each cell has a Master(Control Unit) called the Base Station (BS). The base station
controls the activities of the cell. In general all nodes have the same
capability as Base station. This makes the protocol robust in case as it
enables active re-configuration in case of Base station failure.
Why OPNET ?
There are many challenges in
the way while building a network topology and a protocol for a SIC network. Inorder to overcome these challenges we are using OPNET.
The major challenge is to have a network topology and the protocol to
conserve power and to use very less memory. Whether to go for reactive or
pro-active routing is yet to be answered. Another issue is synchronization in
communication between these thousands of SIC nodes and also to address the
hidden node problem.
Last Modified: 31/Oct/2001 Sumeeth
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