Pervasive service discovery in low-power and lossy networks

Pervasive Service Discovery (SD) in Low-power and Lossy Networks (LLNs) is expected to play a major role in realising the Internet of Things (IoT) vision. Such a vision aims to expand the current Internet to interconnect billions of miniature smart objects that sense and act on our surroundings in a way that will revolutionise the future. The pervasiveness and heterogeneity of such low-power devices requires robust, automatic, interoperable and scalable deployment and operability solutions. At the same time, the limitations of such constrained devices impose strict challenges regarding complexity, energy consumption, time-efficiency and mobility. This research contributes new lightweight solutions to facilitate automatic deployment and operability of LLNs. It mainly tackles the aforementioned challenges through the proposition of novel component-based, automatic and efficient SD solutions that ensure extensibility and adaptability to various LLN environments. Building upon such architecture, a first fully-distributed, hybrid pushpull SD solution dubbed EADP (Extensible Adaptable Discovery Protocol) is proposed based on the well-known Trickle algorithm. Motivated by EADPs’ achievements, new methods to optimise Trickle are introduced. Such methods allow Trickle to encompass a wide range of algorithms and extend its usage to new application domains. One of the new applications is concretized in the TrickleSD protocol aiming to build automatic, reliable, scalable, and time-efficient SD. To optimise the energy efficiency of TrickleSD, two mechanisms improving broadcast communication in LLNs are proposed. Finally, interoperable standards-based SD in the IoT is demonstrated, and methods combining zero-configuration operations with infrastructure-based solutions are proposed. Experimental evaluations of the above contributions reveal that it is possible to achieve automatic, cost-effective, time-efficient, lightweight, and interoperable SD in LLNs. These achievements open novel perspectives for zero-configuration capabilities in the IoT and promise to bring the ‘things’ to all people everywhere

Synchronous and Concurrent Transmissions for Consensus in Low-Power Wireless

With the emergence of the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles and the Industry 4.0, the need for dependable yet adaptive network protocols is arising. Many of these applications build their operations on distributed consensus. For example, UAVs agree on maneuvers to execute, and industrial systems agree on set-points for actuators.Moreover, such scenarios imply a dynamic network topology due to mobility and interference, for example. Many applications are mission- and safety-critical, too.Failures could cost lives or precipitate economic losses.In this thesis, we design, implement and evaluate network protocols as a step towards enabling a low-power, adaptive and dependable ubiquitous networking that enables consensus in the Internet of Things. We make four main contributions:- We introduce Orchestra that addresses the challenge of bringing TSCH (Time Slotted Channel Hopping) to dynamic networks as envisioned in the Internet of Things. In Orchestra, nodes autonomously compute their local schedules and update automatically as the topology evolves without signaling overhead. Besides, it does not require a central or distributed scheduler. Instead, it relies on the existing network stack information to maintain the schedules.- We present A2 : Agreement in the Air, a system that brings distributed consensus to low-power multihop networks. A2 introduces Synchrotron, a synchronous transmissions kernel that builds a robust mesh by exploiting the capture effect, frequency hopping with parallel channels, and link-layer security. A2 builds on top of this layer and enables the two- and three-phase commit protocols, and services such as group membership, hopping sequence distribution, and re-keying.- We present Wireless Paxos, a fault-tolerant, network-wide consensus primitive for low-power wireless networks. It is a new variant of Paxos, a widely used consensus protocol, and is specifically designed to tackle the challenges of low-power wireless networks. By utilizing concurrent transmissions, it provides a dependable low-latency consensus.- We present BlueFlood, a protocol that adapts concurrent transmissions to Bluetooth. The result is fast and efficient data dissemination in multihop Bluetooth networks. Moreover, BlueFlood floods can be reliably received by off-the-shelf Bluetooth devices such as smartphones, opening new applications of concurrent transmissions and seamless integration with existing technologies

Efficient Control Message Dissemination in Dense Wireless Lighting Networks

Modern lighting systems using LED light sources lead to dense lighting installations. The control of such systems using wireless Machine-to-Machine (M2M) where standard LED light sources are replaced by wirelessly controllable LED light sources create new problems which are investigated in this thesis. Current approaches for control message transmission is such networks are based on broadcasting messages among luminaires. However, adequate communication performance - in particular, sufficiently low latency and synchronicity - is difficult to ensure in such networks, in particular, if the network is part of a wireless building management system and carries not only low-latency broadcast messages but also collects data from sensors. In this thesis, the problem of simultaneously controlling dense wireless lighting control networks with a higher number of luminaires is addressed. Extensive computer simulation shows that current state-of-the-art protocols are not suitable for lighting control applications, especially if complex applications are required such as dimming or colour tuning. The novel D³LC-Suite is proposed, which is specially designed for dense wireless lighting control networks. This suite includes three sub-protocols. First, a protocol to organize a network in form of a cluster tree named CIDER. To ensure that intra-cluster messages can be exchanged simultaneously, a weighted colouring algorithm is applied to reduce the inter cluster interference. To disseminate efficiently control messages a protocol is proposed named RLL. The D³LC-Suite is evaluated and validated using different methods. A convergence analysis show that CIDER is able to form a network in a matter of minutes. Simulation results of RLL indicate that this protocol is well suited for dense wireless applications. In extensive experiments, it is shown that the D³LC-Suite advances the current state-of-the-art in several aspects. The suite is able to deliver control messages across multiple hops meeting the requirements of lighting applications. Especially, it provides a deterministic latency, very promising packet loss ratios in low interference environments, and mechanisms for simultaneous message delivery which is important in terms of Quality of Experience (QoE

Desenvolvimento de aplicações para monitorização de consumos de energia em instalações elétricas

As redes de energia inteligentes smart grids têm por objetivo melhorar a eficiência, fiabilidade e sustentabilidade da produção e consumo de energia elétrica, através de informação recolhida sobre a atividade dos produtores e consumidores. A sua implementação irá tornar possível a integração de fontes de energia renováveis, a redução das perdas de transporte e distribuição de energia e a implementação de tarifas dinâmicas de energia. Aliado a este conceito encontra-se a tecnologia de smart metering que permite a recolha de informação em tempo real, relativa ao consumo de energia o que vai influenciar os consumidores a mudarem os seus hábitos, tornando-os mais conscientes em relação ao seu perfil de consumo atual. A recolha dos dados referentes ao consumo energético dos consumidores, será efetuada por smart meters, que têm por função medir os consumos de energia elétrica de uma instalação, enviar as leituras efetuadas para uma unidade de armazenamento e processamento de dados, permitindo ao utilizador visualizar a informação recolhida, as estatísticas mais relevantes e os eventos detetados, em plataformas desenvolvidas para o efeito. O objetivo deste projeto compreendeu o desenvolvimento de um dispositivo eletrónico com a capacidade de adquirir, registar e armazenar valores relativos à energia consumida, a partir de um contador de energia digital. O dispositivo de aquisição foi desenvolvido utilizando um microcontrolador de baixo custo para estabelecer a comunicação com o contador de energia. Os dados adquiridos são guardados numa base de dados e numa memória volátil as quais servem de base às plataformas de ICT desenvolvidas: uma em ambiente web e uma aplicação Android, as quais permitem ao consumidor consultar os dados recolhidos referentes ao seu consumo de energia

A study of the applicability of software-defined networking in industrial networks

173 p.Las redes industriales interconectan sensores y actuadores para llevar a cabo funciones de monitorización, control y protección en diferentes entornos, tales como sistemas de transporte o sistemas de automatización industrial. Estos sistemas ciberfísicos generalmente están soportados por múltiples redes de datos, ya sean cableadas o inalámbricas, a las cuales demandan nuevas prestaciones, de forma que el control y gestión de tales redes deben estar acoplados a las condiciones del propio sistema industrial. De este modo, aparecen requisitos relacionados con la flexibilidad, mantenibilidad y adaptabilidad, al mismo tiempo que las restricciones de calidad de servicio no se vean afectadas. Sin embargo, las estrategias de control de red tradicionales generalmente no se adaptan eficientemente a entornos cada vez más dinámicos y heterogéneos.Tras definir un conjunto de requerimientos de red y analizar las limitaciones de las soluciones actuales, se deduce que un control provisto independientemente de los propios dispositivos de red añadiría flexibilidad a dichas redes. Por consiguiente, la presente tesis explora la aplicabilidad de las redes definidas por software (Software-Defined Networking, SDN) en sistemas de automatización industrial. Para llevar a cabo este enfoque, se ha tomado como caso de estudio las redes de automatización basadas en el estándar IEC 61850, el cual es ampliamente usado en el diseño de las redes de comunicaciones en sistemas de distribución de energía, tales como las subestaciones eléctricas. El estándar IEC 61850 define diferentes servicios y protocolos con altos requisitos en terminos de latencia y disponibilidad de la red, los cuales han de ser satisfechos mediante técnicas de ingeniería de tráfico. Como resultado, aprovechando la flexibilidad y programabilidad ofrecidas por las redes definidas por software, en esta tesis se propone una arquitectura de control basada en el protocolo OpenFlow que, incluyendo tecnologías de gestión y monitorización de red, permite establecer políticas de tráfico acorde a su prioridad y al estado de la red.Además, las subestaciones eléctricas son un ejemplo representativo de infraestructura crítica, que son aquellas en las que un fallo puede resultar en graves pérdidas económicas, daños físicos y materiales. De esta forma, tales sistemas deben ser extremadamente seguros y robustos, por lo que es conveniente la implementación de topologías redundantes que ofrezcan un tiempo de reacción ante fallos mínimo. Con tal objetivo, el estándar IEC 62439-3 define los protocolos Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) y High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR), los cuales garantizan un tiempo de recuperación nulo en caso de fallo mediante la redundancia activa de datos en redes Ethernet. Sin embargo, la gestión de redes basadas en PRP y HSR es estática e inflexible, lo que, añadido a la reducción de ancho de banda debida la duplicación de datos, hace difícil un control eficiente de los recursos disponibles. En dicho sentido, esta tesis propone control de la redundancia basado en el paradigma SDN para un aprovechamiento eficiente de topologías malladas, al mismo tiempo que se garantiza la disponibilidad de las aplicaciones de control y monitorización. En particular, se discute cómo el protocolo OpenFlow permite a un controlador externo configurar múltiples caminos redundantes entre dispositivos con varias interfaces de red, así como en entornos inalámbricos. De esta forma, los servicios críticos pueden protegerse en situaciones de interferencia y movilidad.La evaluación de la idoneidad de las soluciones propuestas ha sido llevada a cabo, principalmente, mediante la emulación de diferentes topologías y tipos de tráfico. Igualmente, se ha estudiado analítica y experimentalmente cómo afecta a la latencia el poder reducir el número de saltos en las comunicaciones con respecto al uso de un árbol de expansión, así como balancear la carga en una red de nivel 2. Además, se ha realizado un análisis de la mejora de la eficiencia en el uso de los recursos de red y la robustez alcanzada con la combinación de los protocolos PRP y HSR con un control llevado a cabo mediante OpenFlow. Estos resultados muestran que el modelo SDN podría mejorar significativamente las prestaciones de una red industrial de misión crítica

Convergência de redes sem fios para comunicações M2M e internet das coisas em ambientes inteligentes

Actualmente, os Ambientes Inteligentes (AmI) estão a emergir através da convergência entre as redes de comunicação sem fios, a microelectrónica e a Internet. Este tipo de aplicações cria novas perspectivas no âmbito da partilha de informação dentro das sociedades humanas, ao mesmo tempo que surgem ideias inovadoras envolvendo espaços, objectos e entidades físicas com as quais lidamos diariamente. Com os AmI e as redes de comunicação, a partilha de informação passa a englobar coisas físicas que geram e disponibilizam dados sobre si mesmas. Nesta dissertação foram enquadradas as tecnologias de informação e a convergência entre redes de comunicação sem fios heterogéneas que suportam as aplicações dos AmI. Daqui surgem dois conceitos extremamente relevantes: a Internet of Things (IoT) e as comunicações Machine-to-Machine (M2M). A IoT, além de fornecedora de serviços virtuais, integra objectos físicos com representação virtual, interligados em rede para partilharem informação sobre vários factores. As comunicações M2M resultam da convergência de redes heterogéneas que permitem a comunicação directa entre dispositivos e objectos sem qualquer intervenção humana. A IoT é no fundo a base principal para a interligação das várias redes M2M entre objectos. As comunicações M2M são formadas por dois tipos de sub-redes: redes capilares e redes celulares. As redes capilares são compostas pelos dispositivos e os objectos embutidos nos ambientes inteligentes, que geram e difundem dados. As redes celulares são a espinha dorsal para a partilha destes dados através da Internet e centros de dados. As redes de sensores sem fios (RSSF), em conjunto com a norma IEEE 802.15.4, foram abordadas nesta dissertação para integrarem as redes capilares. As RSSF são redes com ritmos de transmissão e potência reduzida, que possibilitam o desenvolvimento de uma vasta variedade de aplicações AmI. Foi elaborado um estudo sobre a eficiência energética dos dispositivos RSSF disponíveis no mercado. A interligação das RSSF com a Internet é possível através da atribuição de endereços IPv6 aos dispositivos das RSSF. A camada de adaptação 6LoWPAN possibilita a atribuição de endereços IPv6 com overheads bastante reduzidos. Para permitir a máxima eficiência das RSSF, integradas com a IoT, foi adoptado o protocolo de encaminhamento RPL, desenvolvido no âmbito das redes 6LoWPAN. A contribuição principal desta dissertação centra-se na identificação e resolução de problemas ao nível do encaminhamento nas RSSFs, e no estudo de algumas métricas utilizadas para calcular o custo dos encaminhamentos entre nós. O protocolo RPL foi implementado no simulador OMNeT++ com o objectivo de analisar os resultados e os comportamentos das métricas de custo ETX, HOP-COUNT e RSSI. O ETX atingiu os melhores resultados para o débito binário útil, entre 75 % e 95 %, enquanto o HOP-COUNT tem resultados abaixo do 50 %. Contudo, o HOP-COUNT tem tempos de convergência superiores e latências inferiores. Com o RSSI obtêm-se resultados modestos e provou-se ser esta uma métrica de custo bastante precisa e equilibrada em todos os resultados.Nowadays, Ambient Intelligent (AmI) applications are emerging from the convergence between wireless networks, microelectronics, and Internet. The development of this kind of applications creates new perspectives on information sharing inside human societies, while new innovative ideas arise, involving spaces, objects and physical entities, which we deal with every day. With AmI and communication networks, information sharing is no longer only between and for the people, to encompass physical things that generate and provide data and information of themselves. One of the objectives of this thesis is to address the information technologies as well as the convergence between heterogeneous wireless networks that support the AmI applications. In this context two extremely important concepts arise: the Internet of Things (IoT) and the Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications. The IoT is, beyond a virtual service provider, the integration of physical objects with virtual representation, networked together to share information about various factores of the surrounding environment. In turn, M2M communications result from the convergence of heterogeneous networks that allow direct communication between devices and objects, with no human intervention. The IoT is basically the main base for the interconnection between objects of M2M networks. M2M communications are composed by two types of sub-networks: capillary and cellular networks. Capillary networks are composed of devices and objects that are embedded in the AmI, while generate and disseminate relevant data about themselves. Cellular networks participate, as the necessary backbone, to share this data over the Internet and data centers. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) ate low rate and low power networks that enable the development of a wide variety of AmI applications. In this thesis, the adoption of WSN and IEEE 802.15.4 standard for the capillary networks were assumed. A study was conducted on the energy efficiency and lifetime of the WSN devices available on the market. The interconnection of WSNs with the Internet is possible by assigning IPv6 addresses to lowpower devices. The 6LoWPAN adaption layer enables the IPv6 addresses assignment with low levels of overhead. To facilitate maximum efficiency of WSN, integrated with IoT, the routing protocol RPL was adopted, developed to be compatible with 6LoWPAN networks. The main contribution of this thesis is on identifying and solving problems at the level of routing in WSN, and a study of specific metrics used to calculate the forwarding cost between nodes. The RPL protocol was implemented on OMNeT++ simulator with the objective of analyze the results and behaviors of ETX, HOP-COUNT and RSSI routing metrics. ETX achieved the highest goodput results, between 75 % and 95 %, while HOP-COUNT has results above 50 %. However, HOP-COUNT has the fastest convergence times and the shortest latencies. In turn, RSSI has modest results but proved to be very accurate and a balanced metric for every set of results

WICC 2016 : XVIII Workshop de Investigadores en Ciencias de la Computación

Actas del XVIII Workshop de Investigadores en Ciencias de la Computación (WICC 2016), realizado en la Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos, el 14 y 15 de abril de 2016.Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI