A Wireless Billboard Channel over Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld Platform By Zhanlin Ji B. Eng, Beijing Institute of Technology M.Eng, Dublin City University M.Sc, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications A doctoral thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the award of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Limerick Supervisors Dr. Ivan Ganchev, Dr. Máirtín O'Droma Telecommunications Research Centre Department of Electronic & Computer Engineering University of Limerick A Wireless Billboard Channel over Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld Platform Zhanlin Ji, B. Eng, M.Eng, M.Sc The research work was carried under supervision and direction of Dr. Ivan Ganchev, Dr. Máirtín O'Droma University of Limerick Declaration This thesis is presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for a PhD. It is entirely my own work and has not been submitted to any other University or higher education institution, or for any other academic award in this University. Where use has been made of the work of other people it has been fully acknowledged and fully referenced. Signed: Date: Zhanlin Ji Student ID: 0622052 ii A Wireless Billboard Channel over Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld Platform Zhanlin Ji, B. Eng, M.Eng, M.Sc The research work was carried under supervision and direction of Dr. Ivan Ganchev, Dr. Máirtín O'Droma University of Limerick Abstract Wireless Billboard Channels (WBCs) are a proposal for novel broadcast advertisement channel which will be integral to realising the Consumer-centric Business Model (CBM) within the new emerging Ubiquitous Consumer Wireless World (UCWW), their primary goal of facilitating the service of Advertisement, Discovery and Association (ADA) of wireless access networks and teleservices in the UCWW. In the principal research presented in this thesis the author has investigated the conceptualisation, design, implementation and testing of a WBC established over a Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld (DVB-H) platform. The thesis addresses how realising this goal the following objectives were successfully achieved in the research work and are described in the thesis: The creation of a foundational WBC infrastructure. The elaboration of a WBC framework, interface and protocol architecture. The development of a fully operational WBC system prototype. The investigation and implementation of suitable WBC carrier technologies. The WBC system proposed and designed has been developed along three architectural layers – physical, link and service layers. In designing the service layer, to achieve an extensible, flexible, configurable and maintainable system, the WBC Service Provider (WBC-SP) and Mobile User (MU)’s software architecture has been proposed. A number of intelligent algorithms have been developed for advertisement’s collecting, clustering, scheduling, indexing, discovery and association in Multi-Agents System (MAS) environment. A new WBC Advertisements Delivery Protocol (ADP) has been designed and developed for delivering advertisement over unidirectional WBCs to MU simultaneously. In the link layer, and specifically dictated by DVB-H link layer conditions, a novel cross-layer Multi-Protocol Encapsulation - Forward Error Correction (MPE-FEC) coding and decoding schemes were proposed for improving reliability. Realising the DVB-H physical layer was achieved through a specially constructed laboratory testbed infrastructure, using a DVB-H physical layer simulator. Besides the design and implementation of this layered, distributed, intelligent, and heterogeneous WBCs system, the research work included the proofing and refining of aspects of the designs. Also carried out was the operational testing, performance evaluation and scalability evaluation of the core WBCs elements. WBC carrier technologies other than DVB-H were also explored, e.g. Terrestrial- Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (T-DMB). The work has yielded over 20 internationally published research papers to date, including one in the IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics and two in EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere thanks to my supervisors Dr. Ivan Ganchev and Dr. Máirtín O'Droma for all their guidance, patience, support and advice. I could not have asked for any more. Thanks go to the following for their financial support: Telecommunications Research Centre, University of Limerick. Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) Basic Research Grant (Ref. No 04/BR/E0082). SFI Equipment Call 2007 for the funding of a DVB-H “All-in-One” Testbed (Ref. No. 04/BR/E0082/EC07). University of Limerick (UL) ‘seed’ Funding Programme 2008 for purchasing the POD-1100 DVB-H demodulator. The Embark Initiative, who fund this research through the Irish Research Council for Science, Engineering and Technology (IRCSET) postgraduate Research Scholarship Scheme. Special thanks also to my wife Xiuli Quan and my daughter Hongyu Ji, for encouraging me in all stages of this work. iv Table of Contents TABLE OF CONTENTS Author’s Declaration ......................................................................................................................... ii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .............................................................................................................................. v List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... viii List of Tables .................................................................................................................................... xi List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................... xii Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Research Objectives .................................................................................................. 2 1.2. The Novel Contributions of the Research ................................................................. 4 1.3. Literature Survey ....................................................................................................... 4 1.4. The Structure of the Thesis ....................................................................................... 5 1.5. Publications Arising from This Work ........................................................................ 6 1.6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 6 Chapter 2. Wireless Billboard Channels: Motivation and Concepts ........................................... 7 2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 7 2.2. Ubiquitous Consumer Wireless World (UCWW) ..................................................... 7 2.2.1. Always Best Connected and best Served (ABC&S) ......................................... 8 2.2.2. Consumer-centric Business Model (CBM) ....................................................... 8 2.3. Wireless Billboard Channels (WBCs) ..................................................................... 10 2.3.1. Motivation ....................................................................................................... 10 2.3.2. WBC Service Discovery Protocols ................................................................. 11 2.3.3. WBC Concept and Characteristics .................................................................. 13 2.3.4. WBC Service Discovery Model ...................................................................... 15 2.4. Conclusion .............................................................................................................. 21 Chapter 3. WBC System Architecture ...................................................................................... 22 3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 22 3.2. System Architecture ................................................................................................ 23 3.3. WBC Service Layer ................................................................................................ 25 3.3.1. WBC Service Description Model .................................................................... 25 3.3.2. WBC Application Enabler Sub-Layer ............................................................. 27 3.3.3. WBC Service Enabler Sub-Layer .................................................................... 38 3.4. WBC Link Layer ..................................................................................................... 39 3.4.1. Time Slicing .................................................................................................... 40 3.4.2. MPE-FEC Frame ............................................................................................. 42 3.4.3. Link Layer PDU Encapsulation ...................................................................... 42 3.4.4. Software and Hardware Solutions ..................................................................