I am currently seeking DIT and PhD students for a number of research projects. The following are abstracts which may be of interest to potential students. If you are interested in a PhD in an of these areas, please contact me.
Exposing Wireless Sensor Networks as Cloud Computing Entities
Sensor networks provide a valuable resource for applications which observe the world. A major downside is the time and cost required to deploy, maintain and support application-specific sensor networks. This research aims to tackle this problem by investigating the possiblity of exposing Wireless Sensor Networks as Cloud Computing entities. This could enable shared usage of resources, easier access models and the development of a market for these resources. This research could focus on a number of different areas, including middleware for integrating the two domains, architectures for efficent access of shared Wireless Sensor Networks and pricing models for shared access to Wireless Sensor Network resources.
Supporting Sensor Networks with Cloud Computing Resources
Sensor networks offer a window to the physical word computing users. A vast amount of data can be sensed and analysed for massive range of applications. However, Wireless Sensor Networks have restricted resources, limiting their potential usefulness. This project aims to investigate the possibility of enhansing the ability of Wireless Sensor Networks through the use of Cloud Computing resources. There are a number of interesting research challenges in this topic such as energy usage for sensor nodes access Cloud Computing resources, middleware support for integrating the two domains and aggregate techniques in Wireless Sensor Networks.
Supporting Sensor Network Applications with very low power Sensors
Very low-power sensor nodes and sensors are becoming increasingly available for large-scale deployments in support of environmental monitoring applications such as flood and fire risk. This project will investigate the use of relatively cheap, very-embedded sensor nodes such as Atmel Ravens and Arduino development boards to support such applications. This project could lead to research in a number of areas, such as middleware for sensor networks, hardware platform integration, efficient routing in Zigbee radio networks and sensor network application development.
Large-scale Scientific Computing with Cloud Computing
Scientists in a wide range of fields perform large-scale computation on grid resources. Increasingly it is becoming obvious that cloud (public and private) resources offer a attractive alternative to scientists. Cloud-based computational resources offer relatively cheap, on-demand, flexible and vast resources. This project will investigate the integration of cloud options into scientific workflow engines. An example of a possible outcome could be the integration of market brokers with the Pegasus workflow engine.
Graph-based adaptivity for Distributed Systems
The structure of Distributed Systems can largely be modeled as graphs that describe the interconnections between computational units. This project will use graph manipulation techniques to adapt distributed systems to changing environment conditions. Based on feedback from the environment, graph nodes can be replaced, removed, added, new connections created; all being enacted on the modeled distributed system. Target case studies will likely include p2p systems, sensor networks and scientific workflow execution on the grid.
Please also take a look at the WSN Sensor Group at Murdoch University which I have Co-founded with David Murray here.
As well as these, if you are interested in pursuing PhDs in any of the areas listed in my research publications here then feel free to contact me.
