On the use of programmable metasurfaces in vehicular networks

Metasurface-based intelligent reflecting surfaces constitute a revolutionary technology which can serve the purpose of alleviating the blockage problem in mmwave communication systems. In this work, we consider the hypersurface paradigm complementing the software defined metasurface with an embedded controller network in order to facilitate the dissemination of reconfiguration directives to unit cell controllers. For the first time, we describe the methodology with which to characterize the workload within this embedded network in the case of the metasurface tracking multiple users and we use a vehicular communications setting to showcase the methodology. Beyond that, we demonstrate use cases of the workload analysis. We show how the workload characterization can guide the design of information dissemination schemes achieving significant reduction in the network traffic. Moreover, we show how the workload, as a measure of the consumed power, can be used in designing energy efficient communication protocols through a multi-objective optimization problem maximizing the achieved utilization while at the same time minimizing the workload incurred.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Analysis and design of multiagent systems using MAS-CommonKADS

This article proposes an agent-oriented methodology called MAS-CommonKADS and develops a case study. This methodology extends the knowledge engineering methodology CommonKADSwith techniquesfrom objectoriented and protocol engineering methodologies. The methodology consists of the development of seven models: Agent Model, that describes the characteristics of each agent; Task Model, that describes the tasks that the agents carry out; Expertise Model, that describes the knowledge needed by the agents to achieve their goals; Organisation Model, that describes the structural relationships between agents (software agents and/or human agents); Coordination Model, that describes the dynamic relationships between software agents; Communication Model, that describes the dynamic relationships between human agents and their respective personal assistant software agents; and Design Model, that refines the previous models and determines the most suitable agent architecture for each agent, and the requirements of the agent network

A survey of agent-oriented methodologies

This article introduces the current agent-oriented methodologies. It discusses what approaches have been followed (mainly extending existing object oriented and knowledge engineering methodologies), the suitability of these approaches for agent modelling, and some conclusions drawn from the survey

Designinig Coordination among Human and Software Agents

The goal of this paper is to propose a new methodology for designing coordination between human angents and software agents and, ultimately, among software agents. The methodology is based on two key ideas. The first is that coordination should be designed in steps, according to a precise software engineering methodology, and starting from the specification of early requirements. The second is that coordination should be modeled as dependency between actors. Two actors may depend on one another because they want to achieve goals, acquire resources or execute a plan. The methodology used is based on Tropos, an agent oriented software engineering methodology presented in earlier papers. The methodology is presented with the help of a case study

Towards an unified experimentation framework for protocol engineering

The design and development process of complex systems require an adequate methodology and efficient instrumental support in order to early detect and correct anomalies in the functional and non-functional properties of the solution. In this article, an Unified Experimentation Framework (UEF) providing experimentation facilities at both design and development stages is introduced. This UEF provides a mean to achieve experiment in both simulation mode with UML2 models of the designed protocol and emulation mode using real protocol implementation. A practical use case of the experimentation framework is illustrated in the context of satellite environment