NeTS: Medium: Collaborative Research: Mobile Content Sharing Networks: Theory to Implementation

List of personnel

This is a multi-university project between The Ohio State and Temple Universities.

Principal Investigators: Jie Wu and Xiaojiang Du (Temple University); Ness Shroff and Dong Xuan (OSU)

Vision

The major goal of this project is to understand at a fundamental level how mobile wireless networks can be designed in a practical heterogeneous setting. Our approach is to be able to jointly exploit and explore opportunities such as mobility, fading, and user/traffic predictability to make the overall system more efficient.

Summary of Accomplishments

In this reporting period, we have continued our efforts in the following four aspects: theoretical foundation development, algorithm design, protocol and system development and cases studies:

Theoretical foundation development and Algorithm design
- In this work, we first imagine access to an oracle that has global and future knowledge of node mobility, and we design a provably-optimal centralized polynomial-time solution as the benchmark for comparison. With the insights obtained from the centralized solution, we then develop a distributed dissemination algorithm, D2, which maintains certain neighborhood information at individual nodes. D2 makes dissemination decisions based on the estimations of the potential computational capacities and the future workloads of mobile nodes. Extensive trace-driven simulations confirm the effectiveness of D2. This work was published in IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, 2016.
- In this work, in order to solve the DUR problem, we propose a greedy approximation algorithm, which can achieve the logarithmic approximation ratio. This work was published in IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2016) as a poster in June 2016.
- In this work, we unify the downloading cost and downloading delay as the user’s satisfaction. The objective of this work is to maximize the user’s satisfaction. A user will be unsatisfied if they are paying too much for data, or if they wait for a long time. We analyze the optimal solution under the condition that the encountering time between vehicles and RSUs follows the exponential and Gaussian distributions. Generally, we propose an adaptive algorithm. A downloading strategy is made based on the historical encountering situation between the vehicle and multiple RSUs. After a period of time, if the real situation is different with the initial prediction, the data downloading strategy will be correspondingly adjusted. Extensive real-trace driven experiment results show that our algorithm achieves a good performance. This work was published in IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM 2016) in April 2016.
- To solve the schedule problem of offloading data item to WiFi APs, we propose a greedy oFfline Data Offloading (FDO) algorithm, and prove that this algorithm can achieve an approximation ratio of 2. Moreover, we extend our data offloading strategy to the online decision case, and propose an oNline Data Offloading (NDO) algorithm, which has a competitive ratio of 2. Finally, we demonstrate the significant performances of our algorithms through extensive simulations. The results were published in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication and Networking (SECON 2016), 2016.
Protocol and system development for mobile content sharing
- To improve Internet services for users in high-speed vehicles, we propose using heterogeneous wireless networks. We developed a concurrent multipath transmission scheme and a network adaptive scheduling algorithm. The multipath transmission scheme provides transparent Internet services for users without requiring the participation of user devices in any multipath signaling. Meanwhile, the scheduling algorithm works at the network layer, instead of the transport layer, to meet the diverse transmission requirements of the connection-oriented and connectionless user applications. Analysis and experiments show that the proposed algorithm can provide better onboard Internet services with lower cache requirements than the Earliest Delivery Path First and Weighted Round Robin scheduling algorithms, in terms of bandwidth improvement and packet disorder reduction. The results were reported in a paper to be published by the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (accepted in May 2016).
- We studied the participant recruitment issue in mobile crowdsourcing. First, we developed a double-sided combinatorial auction model to describe the relationships between mobile users and requesters from the perspective of supply and demand. Then, we investigated the coupling between the utility values of the system at different time slots. Based on the aforementioned work, we proposed a context-aware participant recruitment (CAPR) mechanism, in which the mobile crowdsourcing system dynamically adjusts the participant recruitment mechanism based on the ratio between the numbers of mobile users and requesters. Our extensive simulations demonstrate that the proposed mechanism achieves high system utility in the long term. The research results were published in Wiley journal of Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, and the online version is available on 16 MAY 2016
- In this work, we proposed a multichannel broadcast protocol, called Mc-Broadcast, which enables a network BS to broadcast over multiple channels via a channel hopping (CH) process such that the broadcasts can be successfully delivered to SUs. The CH sequence for Mc-Broadcast is generated using a mathematical construct called Langford pairing, which allows the BS to significantly reduce the broadcast latency and given a customized number of broadcast channels. Our analytical and simulation results show that the proposed method reduces the broadcast latency, and it is robust to the broadcast failure caused by PU transmissions under various network conditions. The results were published in the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology in July 2015.
- In this work, we first propose a communication strategy, which applies the WiFi hotspot mode of a mobile phone. To maximize the message dissemination scope within the limited energy constraint of each phone in PSN, an Energy efficient Phone-to-phone Communication method based on WiFi Hotspot (EPCWH) is designed to schedule the phone’s switching between hotspot mode and client mode. Simulations based on the synthetic random-waypoint mobility pattern and real traces are conducted in ONE; the results show that EPCWH achieves the best performance in terms of message dissemination and energy consumption among different switching strategies. This work has been accepted by IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.
- In this work, we propose a generic priority-based compare-split routing scheme, which proves to be the optimal buffer exchange strategy. During each contact opportunity, relays compare their forwarding abilities to different destinations based on two types of criteria: the contact probability and the social status. Ideally, each relay keeps the messages whose destinations meet the current relay frequently. Then, an adaptive priority-based exchange scheme, which considers the priority within each type of messages and the relative priority between two types of messages, is proposed to exchange the most benefit messages. The effectiveness of our scheme is verified through extensive simulations in synthetic and real traces. This work was published in Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks, 2016.
- This work first provides a distributed labeling scheme to determine the NCPH with a granularity control. Based on the NCPH, this work further proposes an up-and-down routing protocol for MOSNs, which includes an upload phase and a download phase. A message can be uploaded from the source to the network core, through iteratively forwarding the message to a relay that has a higher position in the NCPH. Then, space-efficient Bloom-filter-based routing hints are introduced to download messages from the network core to the destination. Compared to traditional hierarchical routings, the up-and-down routing protocol achieves better balances among the data delivery delay, ratio, and cost. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed routing protocol achieves a competitive performance on the data delivery delay and ratio, with a small cost on the prior information maintenance and a low forwarding cost. This work has been accepted by IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.

Publications

Journal

H. Zheng and J. Wu," Up-and-Down Routing through Nested Core-periphery Hierarchy in Mobile Opportunistic Social Networks," accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.
E. Wang, Y. Yang, J. Wu, and W. Liu, " Phone-to-Phone Communication Utilizing WiFi Hotspot in Energy-Constrained Pocket Switched Networks," accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.
S. Zhang and J. Wu, " Distributed Workload Dissemination for Makespan Minimization in Disruption Tolerant Networks," IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing, Vol. 15, No. 7, 2016, 1661-1673.
N. Wang and J. Wu, " Data Dissemination in Mobile Social Networks with the Acknowledgment Feedback," accepted to appear in Journal of Sensor and Actuator Networks, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2016.
P. Dong, B. Song, H. Zhang, and X. Du, “Improving Onboard Internet Services for High-Speed Vehicles by Multipath Transmission in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, accepted, May 2016.
H. Zhang, Z. Xu, and X. Du*, “Context-aware Participant Recruitment Mechanism in Mobile Crowdsourcing,” Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, Wiley, accepted, July 2015.
C. Bian, T. Zhao, X. Li, X. Du, and W. Yan, “Theoretical analysis on caching effects in urban vehicular ad hoc networks,” Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, Wiley, Article first published online: 25 NOV 2015，DOI: 10.1002/wcm.2651.
K. Bian, J. Chen, X. Du*, and X. Li, “Multi-channel Broadcast via Channel Hopping in Cognitive Radio Networks,” IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, Issue 7, Vol.64, pp. 3004-3017, 2015. DOI: 10.1109/TVT.2014.2349996
P. Ostovari, J. Wu, A. Khreishah, and N. B. Shroff, "Scalable Video Streaming with Helper Nodes using Random Linear Network Coding," IEEE/ACM Trans. on Networking (ToN), accepted for publication.
W. Ouyang, A. Eryilmaz, and N. B. Shroff, "Downlink Scheduling over Markovian Fading Channels," IEEE/ACM Trans. on Networking (ToN), accepted for publication.
Y. Kim, K. Lee, and N. B. Shroff, "On Stochastic Confidence of Information Spread in Opportunistic Networks," IEEE Trans. on Mobile Computing, accepted for publication.
H. Cai, I. Koprulu, N. B. Shroff, "Exploiting Double Opportunities for Latency-Constrained Content Propagation in Wireless Networks," IEEE/ACM Trans. on Networking (ToN), accepted for publication.
F. Wu, Y. Sun, Y. Yang, K. Srinivasan, and N. B. Shroff, "Constant Delay and Constant Feedback Moving Window Network Coding for Wireless Multicast: Design and Asymptotic Analysis," IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications (JSAC), vol. 33, no. 2, Mar. 2015, pp. 127-140.
Bo Ji, Gagan R. Gupta, Xiaojun Lin, and Ness B. Shroff, "Low-Complexity Scheduling Policies for Achieving Throughput and Asymptotic Delay Optimality in Multi-Channel Wireless Networks," IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, vol. 22, no. 1, Feb. 2014, pp. 1911-1924.
Bo Ji, Gagan R. Gupta, Manu Sharma , Xiaojun Lin, and Ness B. Shroff, "Achieving Optimal Throughput and Near-Optimal Asymptotic Delay Performance in Multi-Channel Wireless Networks with Low Complexity: A Practical Greedy Scheduling Policy," IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking (ToN), accepted for publication.
Jin Teng, Boying Zhang, Xiaole Bai, Zhimin Yang and Dong Xuan, "Incentive-Driven and Privacy-Preserving Message Dissemination in Large-Scale Mobile Networks," in IEEE Transactions on Parallel Distributed Systems (TPDS), Vol. 25, No. 11, Nov. 2014, pp. 2909-2919.
Jin Teng, Boying Zhang, Xinfeng Li, Xiaole Bai and Dong Xuan, "E-Shadow: Lubricating Social Interaction using Mobile Phones," in IEEE Transactions on Computers (TC), Vol. 63, No. 6, June 2014, pp. 1422-1433
H. Zhang, Q. Zhang, Z. Zhou, and X. Du*, "Toward Vehicle-Assisted Cloud Computing for Smartphones," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, submitted, April 2015.
Z. Lin, L. Huang, Z. Gao, and X. Du, "Efficient Device-to-Device Discovery and Access Procedure for 5G Cellular Network," Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, Wiley, accepted, April 2015.
K. Wang, X. Li, H. Ji, and X. Du*, "Modeling and Optimizing the LTE Discontinuous Reception Mechanism under Self-Similar Traffic," IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, accepted, April 2014.
S. Zhang, J. Wu, and S. Lu, "Collaborative Mobile Charging," IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol. 64, No. 3, 2015, 654-667.
Y. Dai, J. Wu, and C. Xin, "Efficient Virtual Backbone Construction without a Common Control Channel in Cognitive Radio Networks [supplemental]," accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.
M. Xiao, J. Wu, and L. Huang, "Time-sensitive Utility-based Single-copy Routing in Low-duty-cycle Wireless Sensor Networks," accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.
A. Khreishah, I. M. Khalil, and J. Wu, "Universal Network Coding-based Opportunistic Routing for Unicast," accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.
W. Chang and J. Wu, "Progressive or Conservative: Rationally Allocate Cooperative Work in Mobile Social Networks," accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.
Y. Dai, J. Wu, and Y. Zhao, "Boundary Helps: Reliable Route Selection with Directional Antennas in Cognitive Radio Networks," accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on VehicularTechnology.
H. Zhou, J. Chen, H. Zheng, and J. Wu, "Energy Efficiency and Contact Opportunities Trade-off in Opportunistic Mobile Networks," accepted to appear in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology.

Conference

N. Wang and J. Wu, " Mutually Exclusive Data Dissemination in the Mobile Publish/Subscribe System," Proc. of the 13th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad hoc and Sensor Systems (IEEE MASS 2016), October 10-13, 2016.
E. Wang, Y. Yang, J. Wu, and W. Liu, "A Multi-Copy Delegation Forwarding Based on Short-term and Long-term Speed in DTNs," Proc. of the 13th IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad hoc and Sensor Systems (IEEE MASS 2016), October 10-13, 2016.
M. Xiao, J. Wu, H. Huang, L. Huang, and C. Hu, "Deadline-Sensitive User Recruitment for Probabilistically Collaborative Mobile Crowdsensing," Proc. of the 36th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS 2016), June 27-30, 2016. (Poster)
G. Gao, M. Xiao, J. Wu, H. Kai, and L. Huang , "Deadline-Sensitive Mobile Data Offloading via Opportunistic Communications," The IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communication and Networking (SECON 2016), June 27-30, 2016.
N. Wang and J. Wu, "Opportunistic WiFi Offloading in a Vehicular Environment: Waiting or Downloading Now?," Proc. of the 35th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM 2016), April 10 - 15, 2016.
L. Wu, B. Brandt, X. Du, and B. Ji, “Analysis of Clickjacking Attacks and An Effective Defense Scheme for Android Devices”, to appear in Proc. of IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (IEEE CNS) 2016, Philadelphia, PA, Oct. 2016.
P. Dong, X. Du, J. Sun, and H. Zhang, “Energy-Efficient Cluster Management in Heterogeneous Vehicular Networks,” in Proc. of the IEEE INFOCOM'2016 Workshops, San Francisco, CA, April 2016.
C. Bian, T. Zhao, X. Li, X. Du, and W. Yan, “Quantifying Caching Effects in Urban VANETs,” in Proc. of the IEEE WCNC 2016, Doha, Qatar, April 2016.
Z. Lin, L. Du, Z. Gao, L. Huang, X. Du, and M. Guizani, “Analysis of Discovery and Access Procedure for D2D Communication in 5G Cellular Network,” in Proc. of the IEEE WCNC 2016, Doha, Qatar, April 2016.
S. Liang, X. Du, and P. Dong, “Public Scene Recognition Using Mobile Phone Sensors,” in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Computing, Networking and Communications. (ICNC) 2016, Kauai, Hawaii, USA. February 15-18, 2016.
Y. Wang, H. Zhang, C. Tan, X. Du and B. Sheng, “WiGroup: A Lightweight Cellular-assisted Device-to-Device Network Formation Framework,” in Proc. of the 12th IEEE International Conference on Ubiquitous Intelligence and Computing (UIC 2015), Aug. 2015, Beijing, China.
W. Ouyang, A. Eryilmaz, and N. B. Shroff, "Scheduling in Time-correlated Wireless Networks with Imperfect CSI and Stringent Constraint," IEEE CDC'14, LA, CA, Dec. 2014.
Y. Kim, K. Lee, and N. B. Shroff, "An Analytical Framework to Characterize the Efficiency and Delay in a Mobile Data Offloading System," ACM Mobihoc'14, Philadelphia, PA, August 2014.
Jihun Hamm, Adam C. Champion, Guoxing Chen, Mikhail Belkin and Dong Xuan, "Crowd-ML: A Privacy-Preserving Learning Framework for a Crowd of Smart Devices," in Proc. of IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), June 2015.
L. Wu, X. Du, H. Zhang, W. Yu, and C. Wang, "Effective Task Scheduling in Proximate Mobile Device based Communication Systems," in Proc. of IEEE ICC 2015, London, UK, June 2015.
L. Wu, X. Du, and J. Wu (2015). "Fair Spectrum Allocation for Co-Existing Heterogeneous Secondary User Networks," Submitted.
H. Zheng and J. Wu, "Optimizing Roadside Advertisement Dissemination in Vehicular Cyber-Physical Systems," Proc. of the 35th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (IEEE ICDCS 2015), June 29 - July 2, 2015.
M. Xiao, H. Huang, L. Huang, W. Yang, and J. Wu, "Deadline-sensitive Opportunistic Utility-based Routing in Cyclic Mobile Social Networks, " Proc. of the 12th IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communications, and Networking (IEEE SECON 2015), June 22 - June 25, 2015.
H. Zheng and J. Wu, "Data Collection and Event Detection in the Deep Sea with Delay Minimization," Proc. of the 12th IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communications, and Networking (IEEE SECON 2015), June 22 - June 25, 2015.
J. Chen, Q. Yuan, R. Du, and J. Wu, "MuCAR: A Greedy Multi-flow-based Coding-Aware Routing in Wireless Networks," Proc. of the 12th IEEE International Conference on Sensing, Communications, and Networking (IEEE SECON 2015), June 22 - June 25, 2015.
P. Ostovari and J. Wu, "Reliable Videos Broadcast with Network Coding and Coordinated Multiple Access Points," Proc. of the 14th IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless, Mobile and Multimedia Networks (IEEE WoWMoM 2015), June 14 - June 17, 2015.
S. Zhang, Z. Qian, F. Kong, J. Wu, and S. Lu, "P 3: Joint Optimization of Charger Placement and Power Allocation for Wireless Power Transfer," Proc. of the 34th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM 2015), April 26 - May 1, 2015.
M. Xiao, J. Wu, L. Huang, Y. Wang, and C. Liu, "Multi-Task Assignment for CrowdSensing in Mobile Social Networks," Proc. of the 34th IEEE International Conference on Computer Communications (IEEE INFOCOM 2015), April 26 - May 1, 2015.