Office of Research

Sirisha Medidi

School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Sensor and Ad-hoc Network Systems

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Sirisha Medidi

Sensor networks are resource-constrained in terms of size, battery, cost, and infrastructure, but still they are attractive for a wide variety of critical and emergency applications. Dr. Medidi’s research is focused on developing efficient protocols in sensor networks to address node localization, reliable communications, and energy-efficiency.

Cost-constrained sensor nodes are not typically equipped with positioning hardware such as GPS, so their position information or localization needs to be inferred. Existing solutions for localization, such as multi-dimensional scaling and mesh-relaxation techniques, are computationally expensive. Dr. Medidi has developed a sampling technique, using clustering, to identify a representative subset of nodes upon which the localization can be performed. The remaining nodes infer their positions based on the representative sample. This approach is more resilient in irregular-shaped sensor deployments and obstacles to wireless communications typical in sensor networking; furthermore, this energy-efficient approach scales to large and high-density sensor networks.

Traditional TCP (transport control protocol) designed for wired networking degrades significantly over wireless links and provides abysmal throughput. In over-provisioned sensor networks, an acceptable number of data packets must be assured to reach the base station; however all query and control packets from the base station to the sensor nodes must arrive reliably to ensure the application objectives. Dr. Medidi is developing a transport protocol for sensor networks given required bounds on reliable data delivery and complete dissemination of control messages.

Ad-hoc networks are preferred means of communication for information gathering and time-critical decision-making where infrastructure is not available, such as in emergency response. It is critical that these networks support secure communication while maintaining a high level of network performance. Dr. Medidi and her research group are currently synthesizing software-hardware monitoring techniques to enhance the security and performance of mobile ad-hoc networks.


Contact Information
Sirisha Medidi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Washington State University
P.O. Box 642752

Pullman, WA 99164-2752
Telephone: 509-335-2343
E-mail: smedidi@eecs.wsu.edu

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Sirisha Medidi

Dr. Sirisha Medidi, assistant professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Washington State University, received her Ph.D. in computer science in 2001 from Arizona State University. Her dissertation focused on optimizing handoff issues in integrated services wireless networks. Her research interests are in mobile computing, wireless networks, performance modeling, and network security. Her projects focus on routing, reliable data transport, and security aspects of ad-hoc and sensor networks. She is the principal investigator on a grant from the National Science Foundation to establish test-beds for secure wireless ad-hoc and sensor networking. She is a member of the IEEE, Association of Computing Machinery, and Upsilon Pi Epsilon.
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