Coherent, automatic address resolution for vehicular ad hoc networks

Published in: Int. J. of Ad Hoc and Ubiquitous Computing, 2017 Vol.25, No.3, pp.163 - 179. DOI: 10.1504/IJAHUC.2017.10001935The interest in vehicular communications has increased notably. In this paper, the use of the address resolution (AR) procedures is studied for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). We analyse the poor performance of AR transactions in such networks and we present a new proposal called coherent, automatic address resolution (CAAR). Our approach inhibits the use of AR transactions and instead increases the usefulness of routing signalling to automatically match the IP and MAC addresses. Through extensive simulations in realistic VANET scenarios using the Estinet simulator, we compare our proposal CAAR to classical AR and to another of our proposals that enhances AR for mobile wireless networks, called AR+. In addition, we present a performance evaluation of the behaviour of CAAR, AR and AR+ with unicast traffic of a reporting service for VANETs. Results show that CAAR outperforms the other two solutions in terms of packet losses and furthermore, it does not introduce additional overhead.Postprint (published version

IEEE Access Special Section Editorial: Big Data Technology and Applications in Intelligent Transportation

During the last few years, information technology and transportation industries, along with automotive manufacturers and academia, are focusing on leveraging intelligent transportation systems (ITS) to improve services related to driver experience, connected cars, Internet data plans for vehicles, traffic infrastructure, urban transportation systems, traffic collaborative management, road traffic accidents analysis, road traffic flow prediction, public transportation service plan, personal travel route plans, and the development of an effective ecosystem for vehicles, drivers, traffic controllers, city planners, and transportation applications. Moreover, the emerging technologies of the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing have provided unprecedented opportunities for the development and realization of innovative intelligent transportation systems where sensors and mobile devices can gather information and cloud computing, allowing knowledge discovery, information sharing, and supported decision making. However, the development of such data-driven ITS requires the integration, processing, and analysis of plentiful information obtained from millions of vehicles, traffic infrastructures, smartphones, and other collaborative systems like weather stations and road safety and early warning systems. The huge amount of data generated by ITS devices is only of value if utilized in data analytics for decision-making such as accident prevention and detection, controlling road risks, reducing traffic carbon emissions, and other applications which bring big data analytics into the picture

AI Solutions for MDS: Artificial Intelligence Techniques for Misuse Detection and Localisation in Telecommunication Environments

This report considers the application of Articial Intelligence (AI) techniques to the problem of misuse detection and misuse localisation within telecommunications environments. A broad survey of techniques is provided, that covers inter alia rule based systems, model-based systems, case based reasoning, pattern matching, clustering and feature extraction, articial neural networks, genetic algorithms, arti cial immune systems, agent based systems, data mining and a variety of hybrid approaches. The report then considers the central issue of event correlation, that is at the heart of many misuse detection and localisation systems. The notion of being able to infer misuse by the correlation of individual temporally distributed events within a multiple data stream environment is explored, and a range of techniques, covering model based approaches, `programmed' AI and machine learning paradigms. It is found that, in general, correlation is best achieved via rule based approaches, but that these suffer from a number of drawbacks, such as the difculty of developing and maintaining an appropriate knowledge base, and the lack of ability to generalise from known misuses to new unseen misuses. Two distinct approaches are evident. One attempts to encode knowledge of known misuses, typically within rules, and use this to screen events. This approach cannot generally detect misuses for which it has not been programmed, i.e. it is prone to issuing false negatives. The other attempts to `learn' the features of event patterns that constitute normal behaviour, and, by observing patterns that do not match expected behaviour, detect when a misuse has occurred. This approach is prone to issuing false positives, i.e. inferring misuse from innocent patterns of behaviour that the system was not trained to recognise. Contemporary approaches are seen to favour hybridisation, often combining detection or localisation mechanisms for both abnormal and normal behaviour, the former to capture known cases of misuse, the latter to capture unknown cases. In some systems, these mechanisms even work together to update each other to increase detection rates and lower false positive rates. It is concluded that hybridisation offers the most promising future direction, but that a rule or state based component is likely to remain, being the most natural approach to the correlation of complex events. The challenge, then, is to mitigate the weaknesses of canonical programmed systems such that learning, generalisation and adaptation are more readily facilitated

An adaptive, fault-tolerant system for road network traffic prediction using machine learning

This thesis has addressed the design and development of an integrated system for real-time traffic forecasting based on machine learning methods. Although traffic prediction has been the driving motivation for the thesis development, a great part of the proposed ideas and scientific contributions in this thesis are generic enough to be applied in any other problem where, ideally, their definition is that of the flow of information in a graph-like structure. Such application is of special interest in environments susceptible to changes in the underlying data generation process. Moreover, the modular architecture of the proposed solution facilitates the adoption of small changes to the components that allow it to be adapted to a broader range of problems. On the other hand, certain specific parts of this thesis are strongly tied to the traffic flow theory. The focus in this thesis is on a macroscopic perspective of the traffic flow where the individual road traffic flows are correlated to the underlying traffic demand. These short-term forecasts include the road network characterization in terms of the corresponding traffic measurements –traffic flow, density and/or speed–, the traffic state –whether a road is congested or not, and its severity–, and anomalous road conditions –incidents or other non-recurrent events–. The main traffic data used in this thesis is data coming from detectors installed along the road networks. Nevertheless, other kinds of traffic data sources could be equally suitable with the appropriate preprocessing. This thesis has been developed in the context of Aimsun Live –a simulation-based traffic solution for real-time traffic prediction developed by Aimsun–. The methods proposed here is planned to be linked to it in a mutually beneficial relationship where they cooperate and assist each other. An example is when an incident or non-recurrent event is detected with the proposed methods in this thesis, then the simulation-based forecasting module can simulate different strategies to measure their impact. Part of this thesis has been also developed in the context of the EU research project "SETA" (H2020-ICT-2015). The main motivation that has guided the development of this thesis is enhancing those weak points and limitations previously identified in Aimsun Live, and whose research found in literature has not been especially extensive. These include: • Autonomy, both in the preparation and real-time stages. • Adaptation, to gradual or abrupt changes in traffic demand or supply. • Informativeness, about anomalous road conditions. • Forecasting accuracy improved with respect to previous methodology at Aimsun and a typical forecasting baseline. • Robustness, to deal with faulty or missing data in real-time. • Interpretability, adopting modelling choices towards a more transparent reasoning and understanding of the underlying data-driven decisions. • Scalable, using a modular architecture with emphasis on a parallelizable exploitation of large amounts of data. The result of this thesis is an integrated system –Adarules– for real-time forecasting which is able to make the best of the available historical data, while at the same time it also leverages the theoretical unbounded size of data in a continuously streaming scenario. This is achieved through the online learning and change detection features along with the automatic finding and maintenance of patterns in the network graph. In addition to the Adarules system, another result is a probabilistic model that characterizes a set of interpretable latent variables related to the traffic state based on the traffic data provided by the sensors along with optional prior knowledge provided by the traffic expert following a Bayesian approach. On top of this traffic state model, it is built the probabilistic spatiotemporal model that learns the dynamics of the transition of traffic states in the network, and whose objectives include the automatic incident detection.Esta tesis ha abordado el diseño y desarrollo de un sistema integrado para la predicción de tráfico en tiempo real basándose en métodos de aprendizaje automático. Aunque la predicción de tráfico ha sido la motivación que ha guiado el desarrollo de la tesis, gran parte de las ideas y aportaciones científicas propuestas en esta tesis son lo suficientemente genéricas como para ser aplicadas en cualquier otro problema en el que, idealmente, su definición sea la del flujo de información en una estructura de grafo. Esta aplicación es de especial interés en entornos susceptibles a cambios en el proceso de generación de datos. Además, la arquitectura modular facilita la adaptación a una gama más amplia de problemas. Por otra parte, ciertas partes específicas de esta tesis están fuertemente ligadas a la teoría del flujo de tráfico. El enfoque de esta tesis se centra en una perspectiva macroscópica del flujo de tráfico en la que los flujos individuales están ligados a la demanda de tráfico subyacente. Las predicciones a corto plazo incluyen la caracterización de las carreteras en base a las medidas de tráfico -flujo, densidad y/o velocidad-, el estado del tráfico -si la carretera está congestionada o no, y su severidad-, y la detección de condiciones anómalas -incidentes u otros eventos no recurrentes-. Los datos utilizados en esta tesis proceden de detectores instalados a lo largo de las redes de carreteras. No obstante, otros tipos de fuentes de datos podrían ser igualmente empleados con el preprocesamiento apropiado. Esta tesis ha sido desarrollada en el contexto de Aimsun Live -software desarrollado por Aimsun, basado en simulación para la predicción en tiempo real de tráfico-. Los métodos aquí propuestos cooperarán con este. Un ejemplo es cuando se detecta un incidente o un evento no recurrente, entonces pueden simularse diferentes estrategias para medir su impacto. Parte de esta tesis también ha sido desarrollada en el marco del proyecto de la UE "SETA" (H2020-ICT-2015). La principal motivación que ha guiado el desarrollo de esta tesis es mejorar aquellas limitaciones previamente identificadas en Aimsun Live, y cuya investigación encontrada en la literatura no ha sido muy extensa. Estos incluyen: -Autonomía, tanto en la etapa de preparación como en la de tiempo real. -Adaptación, a los cambios graduales o abruptos de la demanda u oferta de tráfico. -Sistema informativo, sobre las condiciones anómalas de la carretera. -Mejora en la precisión de las predicciones con respecto a la metodología anterior de Aimsun y a un método típico usado como referencia. -Robustez, para hacer frente a datos defectuosos o faltantes en tiempo real. -Interpretabilidad, adoptando criterios de modelización hacia un razonamiento más transparente para un humano. -Escalable, utilizando una arquitectura modular con énfasis en una explotación paralela de grandes cantidades de datos. El resultado de esta tesis es un sistema integrado –Adarules- para la predicción en tiempo real que sabe maximizar el provecho de los datos históricos disponibles, mientras que al mismo tiempo también sabe aprovechar el tamaño teórico ilimitado de los datos en un escenario de streaming. Esto se logra a través del aprendizaje en línea y la capacidad de detección de cambios junto con la búsqueda automática y el mantenimiento de los patrones en la estructura de grafo de la red. Además del sistema Adarules, otro resultado de la tesis es un modelo probabilístico que caracteriza un conjunto de variables latentes interpretables relacionadas con el estado del tráfico basado en los datos de sensores junto con el conocimiento previo –opcional- proporcionado por el experto en tráfico utilizando un planteamiento Bayesiano. Sobre este modelo de estados de tráfico se construye el modelo espacio-temporal probabilístico que aprende la dinámica de la transición de estadosPostprint (published version