Relaying for Timely and Reliable Applications in Wireless Networks

Many emerging applications based on wireless networks involve distributed control. This implies high requirements on reliability, but also on predictable maximum delay. Further, for applications, it is vital to use off-the-shelf components, both due to cost constraints and requirements on interoperability with existing networks. This, in turn, implies that concurrent transmissions and multiuser detection are seldom possible. Instead, half-duplex time-division multiple access (TDMA) is typically used. Aiming to reduce the packet error rate given a deadline (a set of TDMA time-slots), this thesis proposes a relaying scheme, which can be implemented on top of off-the-shelf components. The relaying scheme selects the best sequence of relayers, given the number of time-slots allowed by the deadline, such that the resulting error probability is minimized at the targeted receiver(s). The scheme differs from existing work in that it considers both unicast as well as broadcast and assumes that all nodes can overhear each other, as opposed to separating source nodes, relay nodes and destination nodes into three disjoint sets. A full analysis of the resulting error probability is provided and complementary numerical results show that the proposed relay sequencing strategy significantly improves reliability given a certain maximum delay, or alternatively, reduces the delay, given a certain target reliability requirement. To illustrate the performance improvements of relay sequencing, it is incorporated in a platooning application. If the decision regarding which relayer to assign in each time-slot can be taken online, just before the transmission, much can be gained. To this end, a low-complexity algorithm is developed, which is shown to be highly likely to find the optimal combination of relaying nodes that minimizes the resulting error probability at the targeted receiver(s). Data packets in wireless automation networks is typically small. To enable timely and reliable all-to-all broadcast in such systems, relay sequencing using packet aggregation is proposed. The strategy assigns relayers to time slots, as well as determines which packets to aggregate in each slot, using the proposed low-complexity algorithm. To further increase the reliability, a clustering scheme is proposed. When a relayer in the sequence fails to overhear a correct copy, a backup relayer in the cluster takes over. This work thereby enables ultra-reliable communications with maintained end-toend delay using low-complexity techniques and off-the-shelf components