	Ana Aguiar's Homepage
Research Interests Publications MSc Thesis Projects Teaching Useful Stuff (DEEC)	Research Wireless networks and distributed systems, currently focusing on wireless and mobile sensing Vehicular Networks Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANET) offer a unique opportunity for gathering real-time data about a city, such as real-time traffic conditions, environmental parameters, physical condition of the drivers. This data is useful for supporting decision making both at personal level, for example in enhancing mobility, and at public level, e.g. real-time monitoring of traffic or environmental aspects. To provide sensing services, the network must support nodes that periodically generate data and make that data available outside the VANET. I am working on different aspect related to this scenario, like effective ways to take the data out of the network, placement of gateways (RSUs), the use of mobile gateways, architectures to efficiently collect data and make it available, algorithms to infer knowledge from that data. I am pursuing this work within the scope of the MIT\|Portugal project MISC. I am also very interested in wireless link characterisation for urban VANET. Mobile Sensing Mobile devices have become powerful miniaturised computing devices that are equipped with a plethora of connectivity interfaces, raging from 3G and WiFi to Bluetooth, more recently RFID, and 802.15.4 in near future. As such, they are obvious gateways between people, the physical world and the Internet raising several challenges related to their integration in the Internet of Things. Moreover, groups of users can actually communicate directly with eachother over ad-hoc networks to gather or disseminate information or to communicate with eachother. I am currently working on a WiFi based network for gathering vital signs of firefighters in real-time within the scope of the CMU\|Portugal Vital Responder project. I am also currently working in machine-to-machine communications (M2M) to support mobile sensing and context-awareness, and I am pursuing these interests within the scope of projects with Portugal Telecom Inovação. Mobile Applications I have a great deal of ideas for applications and mash-ups that I am interested in pursuing, but I am also willing to discuss your ideas and work them into a MSc or even PhD thesis. On-going MSc thesis are a good overview of my interests. Performance Evaluation of Wireless Networks I have a long experience of simulation and measurement of wireless networks, specifically WLAN (802.11b, g). I am fond of measuring and using the results obtained for desinging or improving existing protocols, but also for building channel or traffic models. I am currently working on a measurement-based model for VANET links within the scope of the CMU\|Portugal DriveIn project. I am also working in optimisation of wireless communication using multiple interfaces of a single multi-homed device, and in the optimisation of handovers between WiFi access points, within IT internally funded projects COHERENT and SHOWNET, respectively. Data Mining/ Machine Learning As a straightforward consequence of my interest in mobile sensing systems and context-awareness, I have a developed a strong interest in Data Mining, which I am currently pursuing within the scope of the MISC\|MIT Portugal and an MSc thesis supervision. Additionally, I am PI of VOCE, a project funded by the portuguese Foundation for sCience and Technology (FCT) on machine learning algorithms for detection of stress in voice that will start in 2012. QoS in Wireless Networks The traffic on the Internet is becoming more and more heterogeneous, with extremely rapid growth of video and audio streaming together with online games, among other multimedia traffic. On the other side, user have become used to receiving the same type of service everywere and independently from device or connectivity. Until now, indiscriminate handling of different tyes of traffic has been able to satisfy users because there is far more bandwidth availble than usually requested, but overprovisioning will not be a solution for long. I am looking forward to start working on problems related to this again, so contact me if you are interested.
Contacts Email: ana . aguiar at fe . up . pt LinkedIn: Ana Aguiar

Ana Aguiar's Homepage

Research


Wireless networks and distributed systems, currently focusing on wireless and mobile sensing
Vehicular Networks: Vehicular ad-hoc networks (VANET) offer a unique opportunity for gathering real-time data about a city, such as real-time traffic conditions, environmental parameters, physical condition of the drivers. This data is useful for supporting decision making both at personal level, for example in enhancing mobility, and at public level, e.g. real-time monitoring of traffic or environmental aspects. To provide sensing services, the network must support nodes that periodically generate data and make that data available outside the VANET. I am working on different aspect related to this scenario, like effective ways to take the data out of the network, placement of gateways (RSUs), the use of mobile gateways, architectures to efficiently collect data and make it available, algorithms to infer knowledge from that data. I am pursuing this work within the scope of the MIT|Portugal project MISC. I am also very interested in wireless link characterisation for urban VANET.

Mobile Sensing
Mobile devices have become powerful miniaturised computing devices that are equipped with a plethora of connectivity interfaces, raging from 3G and WiFi to Bluetooth, more recently RFID, and 802.15.4 in near future. As such, they are obvious gateways between people, the physical world and the Internet raising several challenges related to their integration in the Internet of Things. Moreover, groups of users can actually communicate directly with eachother over ad-hoc networks to gather or disseminate information or to communicate with eachother. I am currently working on a WiFi based network for gathering vital signs of firefighters in real-time within the scope of the CMU|Portugal Vital Responder project. I am also currently working in machine-to-machine communications (M2M) to support mobile sensing and context-awareness, and I am pursuing these interests within the scope of projects with Portugal Telecom Inovação.

Mobile Applications
I have a great deal of ideas for applications and mash-ups that I am interested in pursuing, but I am also willing to discuss your ideas and work them into a MSc or even PhD thesis. On-going MSc thesis are a good overview of my interests.

Performance Evaluation of Wireless Networks
I have a long experience of simulation and measurement of wireless networks, specifically WLAN (802.11b, g). I am fond of measuring and using the results obtained for desinging or improving existing protocols, but also for building channel or traffic models. I am currently working on a measurement-based model for VANET links within the scope of the CMU|Portugal DriveIn project. I am also working in optimisation of wireless communication using multiple interfaces of a single multi-homed device, and in the optimisation of handovers between WiFi access points, within IT internally funded projects COHERENT and SHOWNET, respectively.

Data Mining/ Machine Learning

Contacts

Email: ana . aguiar at fe . up . pt

LinkedIn: Ana Aguiar