Projects

Please find below the list of our current projects. Please click on the project name for more details.
For a list of all of our past projects and more details on any of our work please contact us.

FRA Trackside/Yard Wireless Standards Project

Research and evaluate standards-based Mobile Wireless LAN technologies towards the next generation for interoperable railroad deployments alongside tracks and in yards to modernize the North American railroad industry's train communication infrastructure.
Research conducted for the USDOT Federal Railroad Administration and in collaboration with many North American Railroad companies including Union Pacific, BNSF, and CSX.
Established and operate 3 wireless test beds for various technologies, including WiFi, Mobile WiMAX, LTE and other technologies.
Utilizes our lab infrastructure for device evaluation, field tests, as well as our comprehensive ns-2 simulation models, developed by our research team and freely available at sourceforge.net.

FRA Railcar-Monitoring Project

Project for utilizing Large-Scale Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) Technology for real-time railcar monitoring and alerting, for safer, more secure, and more efficient railroad operations.
Research supported by the Federal Railroad Administration and in collaboration with many North American Railroad companies, including Union Pacific, BNSF, and CSX.
Addresses demand to overcome limitations from traditional WSN technologies when used in railroad setting
Development a new networking protocol architecture, including validation through prototyping, simulation, and field testing.
This work was featured in the 2013 UNL Annual Research Report here.

Animal Tag Project

Project aims at developing a Smart Wireless Animal Tracking and Health Monitoring System in response to a need of today's food production industry and for the National Animal Identification System (NAIS).
Health monitoring and location tracking are key components to prevent future epidemic outbreaks of Mad Cow Disease and other devastating diseases, as well as improving farm productivity.
Our system is a green solution that is fully self-powered by its environment, with secure active RF for immediate alerting, as well as sensing, processing, and information storage capabilities.
Involves cutting-edge research in system design and optimization, wireless protocol design to adapt to fluctuating energy reserves and operate in an ultra-low duty cycle mode, and much more.
Field testing performed in collaboration with UNL's Agricultural Research and Development Center (ARDC).

Covert Channel Detection and Disruption

Covert Channels are a form of steganography that exploits networking protocols and activities to allow secret - often malicious - information exchanges.
Our research focuses on creating a comprehensive understanding of covert channels, their capabilities, and risks, by leveraging a framework for the unified modeling and analysis of covert channel algorithms.
This enables their detection and disruption in network traffic, a key to preventing their further proliferation.

Wireless Sensor Networks

Research into the security, resource efficiency, and multimedia support of Mobile Wireless Sensor Network technologies.
Involves multifaceted Protocol and Hardware design for WSNs.
Driven by the Modeling and Development of practical WSN applications.
Collaborative Project with WINDS Lab at UNO's College of Information Science and Technology and UNL's WISE-COM Lab.