Next-Generation Wireless Networking Lab (NWNL)

Introduction


Next-generation wireless networking (NWN) lab at Al-Khawrizmi Institute of Computer Science (KICS) focuses in research and development activities in the areas of wireless sensor networks (WSN), Internet of things (IoT) and software defined networks (SDN). Comprising 3 PHDs and over 15 full-time research associates and undergraduate/postgraduate interns, the lab is involved in developing IEEE 802.15.4/802.11 compliant wireless sensor/camera node, designing and implementing communication protocols and  architecture, and developing various applications. Some of the ongoing projects are summarized below.

NWNL KICS, UET Lahore signed an agreement in November 2017 with Safe City Authority (SCA) Lahore to provide citywide acoustic surveillance solution. Under this agreement, KICS will deliver audio surveillance equipment enabled with acoustic evidence collection features, at each camera location. Our low powered environment-friendly product is easily integrable with the existing camera network architecture of SCA. The complete solution including both hardware platform as well as server application software will be delivered for 300 camera sites in Lahore. The solution will enable monitoring of acoustic triggered incidents in real time at the SCA command and control center.

Recognizing the evolution of Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, the lab has recently started a project “Enabling Green Video Streaming over Internet of Things”, which is also funded by National ICT R&D Fund. This project aims to explore the limitations  of current IoT protocols and architecture for low-power multimedia devices forming Internet of Multimedia (IoM).  The project proposes to implement the low power functions in IEEE 802.11 as an underlying link/physical layer for IoM. Moreover, the project introduces the new compressive sensing based adaptive video encoding tailored for low-power/processing video devices. Eventually, the multimedia devices would be integrated in the IoT paradigm to develop many new interesting IoT application scenarios. The development of this project will be demonstrated through a surveillance applications.

Another project “Multimodal Sensing Enabled Real time Intelligent Wireless Camera Network for Secure Spaces” is being developed, which is funded by National ICT R&D Fund, Pakistan. The motivation of this project is to handle the poor security situation at public places in Pakistan. Previously deployed automated distributed camera networks limit the overall performance due to large volume of data continuously generated by camera nodes. We propose an event driven system to reduce the volume of streamed data by using pyro-electric infra-red sensors with camera nodes. A stochastic resource control mechanism will be developed to integrate sensor node architecture achieving optimal deployment of limited resource available. 

A distributed vision architecture ‘VISTA’ is implemented aiming to construct the cumulative vision of Mobile Objects (MO), which is evaluated against standard solutions. VISTA endeavors to realize silhouette recognition of mobile targets. Crossbow motes like IRIS, Stargate and Imotes are used by the to evaluate the computational and energy complexity of multiple proposed architectures. A project named “Ambient air quality monitoring using integrated secure wireless sensor and vehicular networks” is also developed for secure and reliable air quality data acquisition, processing and visualization that suggests the countermeasures on both short term and long term basis. The project developed a  new architecture that integrates the wireless sensor network with vehicular networks for low cost and real-time data gathering. 

For the complete list of the lab projects click here.

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