Doctorate thesis defense of Sarra BERRAHAL

Doctorate thesis defense on June 27^th 2016 at 09H00 AM ,in Amphi I, Sup’Com.

Entitled :Wireless Body Area Network Systems Supporting Individuals Working in Hazardous Environments

Presented by : Sarra BERRAHAL 

Committee

President	Pr. Nabil Tabbane		SUP’Com, University of Carthage
Examiners	Pr. Axel Sikora		Offenburg University, Germany
	Dr. Lamia Chaari		ISIMS, University of Sfax
Member	Dr. Slim Rekhis		SUP’Com, University of Carthage
Thesis Director	Pr. Noureddine Boudriga		SUP’Com, University of Carthage
Industry Guest	Mrs. Wided MAALEL		Director of Control of Technology, STEG

Abstract

Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN) consists in a collection of smart, low-power, hardware-constrained, and miniaturized sensors attached to (or implanted into) a moving/fixed body and that cooperate for the benefit of an application such as the tracking of human behavior in critical areas. The focal area of thesis addresses the development of a generic WBAN-based system for assisting individuals evolving in critical and hazardous environments. The contribution of the thesis is four-fold

First, we proposed a WBAN-assisted navigation approach for groups of users in indoor hazardous environments. The system is based on a Temporal Mobile Weighted Graph (TMWG) that provides continuous and real-time monitoring of surrounding hazards (e.g., fires), identifies hazards sources, estimates risk’s aggravation, and provides surveillance, localization, and tracking of workers

Second, a traffic engineering approach for a network of WBANs is proposed to provide real-time monitoring services for mobile users while guaranteeing the constrained end-to-end QoS. Proactive and reactive resource management mechanisms are also proposed to optimize resource utilization and minimize transmission blocking.

Third, we developed a surveillance system for large-scale environment that is based on a set of cooperative sensors networks including a terrestrially deployed WSN, a mobile WBANs, and aerial unmanned vehicles (UAVs). An UAV-based maintenance solution is presented to investigate and repair network and communication failures.

Fourth, we proposed to integrate WBANs and cloud computing in order to design distributed sensorcloud databases in infrastructure-less environments. A querying mechanism of data already stored in cloud servers as well of continuous streamed data from WBANs is described.

Keywords

Wireless Body Area Network, Hazardous environment, Navigation, Risk estimation, Mobility, QoS provisioning, Traffic heterogeneity, Network maintenance, and Querying techniques.