Technical Program

Sunday, April 3, 08:00 – 08:40

WS-05-01: Technology Trends for Communications in Extreme Conditions

Hussein Mouftah, University of Ottawa, Canada

Room: Presidential 7

Chair: Melike Erol-Kantarci (Clarkson University, USA)

Over the past few decades first responders, namely police, fire department and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) have each developed privately-operated narrowband wireless services to meet their communications needs. However, recent incidents, whether natural or human made, have exposed that the incompatibility between these wireless services, as well as their limited capacity, often presents critical threats to the lives of first responders and the public in general. Thus, there is a persistent need for a unified broadband wireless solution that can support real-time collaboration and information sharing among different types of first responders. LTE presents itself as a promising candidate for such a network due to its numerous advantages such as its large geographical footprint, large bandwidth, Quality of Service (QoS) capabilities, etc. Nevertheless, there are unique requirements and challenges for broadband wireless public safety networks. The most important requirement is interoperability, which means that personnel in different agencies have to be able to communicate directly. This requirement, combined with the limited bandwidth assigned to public safety networks in North America for instance, raises multiple challenges relating to bandwidth allocation, prioritization and scheduling, spectral efficiency, and QoS achievement. Thus, in order to extend the available bandwidth, cognitive radio access can be used in conjunction with the LTE network. Another important requirement for public safety networks is the security and privacy of information, which may not be the same for all emergency agencies. Finally, network robustness is an important requirement that has to be achieved even in the case of major incidents such as natural disasters that take out part of the network. Thus the main objective of this presentation is to address all these issues of LTE interoperability, bandwidth allocation, security and privacy, and robustness, for a first responder network.

Sunday, April 3, 08:40 – 09:20

WS-05-01: Resilient Wireless Sensor Networks for Industrial Monitoring

Hossam Hassanein Queens University, Canada

Room: Presidential 7

Chair: Melike Erol-Kantarci (Clarkson University, USA)

We present, Sprouts, a modern Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) platform that utilizes unique service-oriented sensors with an energy-aware architecture in a Zigbee-compliant network. Serviceable sensors allow for the rapid conception of a wide spectrum of applications; efficiently shortening the time gap between design and deployment. The Sprouts platform is the result of an industry related research at Queen’s University, and has successfully attracted some of the biggest industrial companies in Canada including Oil & Gas mining, steel production, and Power Grid monitoring. We also describe the deployment of the Sprouts platform to monitor the health conditions of the vibration screens and shovel teeth used by Syncrude in the oil sands of Canada. Previous to WSN, wired sensing solutions have been attempted for this project, but failed to sustain integrity in the harsh conditions imposed by the environment. A complete system was developed at Queen’s University Telecommunications Research Lab (TRL) and successfully realized on a miniature working lab model.

Sunday, April 3, 09:20 – 10:00

WS-05-02: Panel: Communication in Extreme Conditions

Hossam Hassanein (Queens University), Hussein Mouftah (University of Ottawa)

Room: Presidential 7

Chair: Melike Erol-Kantarci (Clarkson University, USA)

Sunday, April 3, 10:00 – 11:00

WS-05-Interactive-01: Networking Break & Poster session for morning WS

Room: Al dafna

Chair: Tuncer Baykas (Istanbul Medipol University, Turkey)

Image Restoration for Through-The-Earth Communications

Sávio Neves and Lucas Silva (Universidade de Brasília, Brazil); Mylene Farias (University of Brasilia, Brazil); Andre Barreto (University of Brasilia and Nokia, Brazil)

Resource Allocation for Multibeam MISO Satellite Systems: Sum Rate versus Proportional Fair Optimization

Dai Nguyen and Long Bao Le (INRS, University of Quebec, Canada)

Sunday, April 3, 11:00 – 12:20

WS-05-02: System Design and Channel Models for Communication in Extreme Conditions

Room: Presidential 7

Chair: Tuncer Baykas (Istanbul Medipol University, Turkey)

Architecture for Public Safety Network Using D2D Communication

Kamran Ali (MIddlesex Universtiy London, United Kingdom); Huan X Nguyen (Middlesex University, United Kingdom); Purav Shah (Middlesex University & School of Science and Technology, United Kingdom); Quoc-Tuan Vien and Namadev Bhuvanasundaram (Middlesex University, United Kingdom)

Channel Measurements in an Open-pit Mine using USRPs: 5G – Expect the Unexpected

Rickard Nilsson and Jaap van de Beek (Luleå University of Technology, Sweden)

Channel Modelling of Human Tissues at Terahertz Band

Ke Yang (Queen Mary University Of London, United Kingdom); Qammer Hussain Abbasi (Texas A & M University, Qatar); Khalid A. Qaraqe (Texas A&M University at Qatar, USA); Akram Alomainy (Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdom); Yang Hao (Queen Mary University, United Kingdom)

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle based Missing People Detection System employing Phased Array Antenna

Hikari Inata, Sotheara Say, Taisuke Ando and Jiang Liu (Waseda University, Japan); Shigeru Shimamoto (Waseda University & Graduate School of Global Information and Telecommunication Studies, Japan)