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Method and device for dynamical protocol selection

  • US 10,659,570 B2
  • Filed: 10/14/2016
  • Issued: 05/19/2020
  • Est. Priority Date: 10/16/2015
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A device for selecting dynamically and autonomously in time the best solution to be used for the communication and the configuration that meets the user specifications, adapting autonomously and dynamically and in an effective way to the ever different and changeable conditions of the underwater environment, said device being suitable to be installed on the nodes and on the collector node of an underwater sensor network, equipped with one or more communication apparatuses that operate with different protocol stacks, wherein said device comprises:

  • a data-storage means where the data packets sent by the nodes are collected, said data packets having headers;

    a plurality of connectors for the inter-connection of said device with one or more modems;

    a processing unit;

    a “

    protocol selector”

    computer program executed by said processing unit for determining and changing dynamically the network protocol stack as the current operating conditions of the network vary in order to optimize the performance of the application supported in terms of network latency, packet-delivery fraction, energy consumption, and/or a combination thereof, wherein said protocol selector computer program is constituted by the following modules;

    a packet monitor module (module A), for analyzing the packets received by the collector node of said network for extracting the information necessary for;

    (i) evaluating the performance of the current protocol; and

    (ii) identifying possible changes in the conditions of the network;

    a performance meter module (module C), for calculating the performance of the protocol currently in use;

    a protocol-change manager module (module E), for managing the protocol change in the network, without interrupting operation thereof; and

    a communication means for managing and enabling operation of said storage means, communication means, and data-processing means, wherein said protocol selector computer program further comprises the following modules;

    a data analyser module (module B), for analyzing the data collected for identifying possible changes in the conditions of the network, said changes regard a different traffic in the network, the terms of amount of data per unit time, a variation in the quality of the acoustic channel, or a change in the size of the packets exchanged by the nodes; and

    an optimizer module (module D), for executing a learning algorithm, to learn which is the optimal protocol stack for each state of the system, using for this purpose the results produced by the said performance meter (module C);

    wherein the protocol selector module characterizes the operating state of the system through a triplet of values that summarizes the condition of the network at a given instant and that is defined as network state s=(λ

    , qsnr, psize), where qsnr is the mean signal-to-noise ratio, λ

    is the network load, and psize is the mean packet size; and

    wherein, in order to carry out the monitoring the state, the headers of the network packets are extended so as to include the information necessary for identification of the state and evaluation of the protocol stack, to each transmitted packet k the node j adding the header field HDPRE=<

    pkj,ttxj,tkj>

    , where pkj is a progressive identifier of the packets sent by node k, ttxj is the total time of transmission of the node j in the current round, and tkj is the timestamp of the packet.

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