Presence-based architecture for wireless sensor networks using publish/subscribe paradigm

Ubiquitous communication is a key component of Ambient Intelligence, enabling objects to communicate with each-other by means of a wireless ad-hoc network. A presence service allows knowing the availability or responsiveness status of elements in a communication (entities). Traditionally, only human use this service, however all smart devices or objects (with embedded wireless sensor nodes) could interact with each other thus a presence service could also enhance communication among them. To achieve this objective we look into existing protocols to propose the requirements needed to provide presence service on Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN). The main contribution of this paper is the discussion of requirements for presence services on WSN and the new proposed architecture to cope with presence services in WSN.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Presence-based integration of wireless sensor network and IP multimedia subsystem : architecture implementation and case studies

Services are the main driving forces of the Telecommunication industry. In old days the traditional networks e.g. PSTN and mobile cellular networks provide basic services to customers such as voice call, SMS. Unlike mobile cellular networks, Internet provides wide variety of services that allow users to communicate in different ways for example E-mail, WWW, VoIP, and Instant Messaging. To benefit from these Internet (IP) based services and to support new value-added services in mobile cellular networks, the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is defined. It aims at convergence of Internet and the cellular world. IMS introduced an architectural framework envisioned by telecom experts for providing wide variety of multimedia services for example Presence, Context-based applications, Conferencing, Video-on-Demand, Instant Messaging to name just a few. The main ingredients of these services are data which can be either provided by users or derived from external sources (other networks). In recent years, Wireless Sensor Networks have emerged as networks of tiny devices, sensor nodes. WSNs are characteristically different from existing networks. In general, a WSN is a data oriented network in which sensors sense physical environment and produce data to deliver it to interested applications. These applications are usually external to WSN and reside in an external network (e.g. IMS). The applications or services use this physical data to deliver enhanced services such as context-based services to mobile users. The challenge is to integrate WSN with IMS so that the WSN data can be accessible to IMS services or applications. This thesis exploits a presence-based approach for the integration of WSN and IMS network. A standard interface for data exchange between WSN and IMS has been devised in the Telecommunication Service Engineering group. The data exchange between WSN and IMS services/applications is realized as a publish-subscribe mechanism. In publish-subscribe mechanism the applications subscribe to WSN services (data) and get notified when sensors report any data while the WSN is acting as publisher to publish sensor data to IMS. The presence-based WSN -- IMS architecture provides an abstraction to services and applications for accessing variety of sensed data from different WSNs. The presence based WSN-IMS architecture realizes two main architectural entities, the integrated WSN-IMS gateway and an IMS extended presence server. These two architectural entities play a key role in interworking of WSN and IMS network. The overall architecture has been implemented and tested with prototype applications as well as a performance evaluation has been done to see the efficiency and applicability of the integrated architectur

Integrating Context-Awareness in the IP Multimedia Subsystem for Enhanced Session Control and Service Provisioning Capabilities

The 3GPP-defined IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) is becoming the de-facto standard for IP-based multimedia communication services. It consists of an overlay control and service layer that is deployed on top of IP-based mobile and fixed networks. This layer encompasses a set of common functions (e.g. session control functions allowing the initiation/modification/termination of sessions) and service logics that are needed for the seamless provisioning of IP multimedia services to users, via different access technologies. As it continues to evolve, the IMS still faces several challenges including: the enabling of innovative and personalized services that would appeal to users and increase network operators' revenues; its interaction with other types of networks (e.g. wireless sensor networks) as means to enhance its capabilities; and the support of advanced QoS schemes that would manage the network resources in an efficient and adaptive manner. The context-awareness concept, which comes from the pervasive computing field, signifies the ability to use situational information (or context) in support to operations and decision making and for the provision of relevant services to the user. Context-awareness is considered to enhance users' experience and is seen as an enabler to adaptability and service personalization - two capabilities that could play important roles in telecommunication environments. This thesis focuses on the introduction of the context-awareness technology in the IMS, as means to enhance its session control and service provisioning capabilities. It starts by presenting the necessary background information, followed by a derivation of requirements and a review of the related work. To ensure the availability of contextual information within the network, we then propose an architecture for context information acquisition and management in the IMS. This architecture leverages and extends the 3GPP presence framework. Building on the capabilities of this architecture, we demonstrate how the managed information could be integrated in IMS operations, at the control and service levels. Showcasing control level integration, we propose a novel context-aware call differentiation framework as means to offer enhanced QoS support (for sessions/calls) in IMS-based networks. This framework enables the differentiation between different categories of calls at the IMS session control level, via dynamic and adaptive resource allocation, in addition to supporting a specialized charging model. Furthermore, we also propose a framework for enhanced IMS emergency communication services. This framework addresses the limitations of existing IP-based emergency solutions, by offering three main improvements: a QoS-enhanced emergency service; a context-aware personalized emergency service; and a conferencing-enhanced emergency service. We demonstrate the use of context awareness at the IMS service level using two new context-aware IMS applications. Finally, to validate our solutions and evaluate their performance, we build various proof-of-concept prototypes and OPNET simulation model

A SIP-based Programming Framework for Advanced Telephony Applications

International audienceThe scope of telephony is significantly broadening, providing users with a variety of communication modes, including presence status, instant messaging and videoconferencing. Furthermore, telephony is being increasingly combined with a number of non-telephony, heterogeneous resources, consisting of software entities, such as Web services, and hardware entities, such as location-tracking devices. This heterogeneity, compounded with the intricacies of underlying technologies, make the programming of new telephony applications a daunting task. This paper proposes an approach to supporting the development of advanced telephony applications. To do so, we introduce a declarative language over Java to define the entities of a target telephony application area. This definition is passed to a generator to produce a Java programming framework, dedicated to the application area. The generated frameworks provide service discovery and high-level communication mechanisms. These mechanisms are automatically mapped into SIP, making our approach compatible with existing SIP infrastructures and entities. Our work is implemented and has been validated on various advanced telephony applications

An Overlay Gateway for the Integration of IP Multimedia Subsystem and Mobile Sink Based-Wireless Sensor Networks

RÉSUMÉ D'une part les Réseaux de Capteurs (WSN par ses sigles en anglais) constituent un domaine de recherche qui a reçu beaucoup d'attention de la part de la communauté scientifique grâce à ses avantages en différents domaines. Chaque réseau est généralement conçu à partir de périphériques de petite taille appelés capteurs qui peuvent capter, effectuer des calculs et communiquer entre eux. De plus, inclure des stations de base mobiles dans les réseaux de capteurs sans fils s'est avéré utile dans une large gamme de scénarios puisque ces derniers permettent d'améliorer la durée de vie globale du réseau et d'augmenter la capacité de transmission de données. D'autre part, le sous-système IP Multimédia (IMS) vise à fournir un accès aux réseaux cellulaires à l'ensemble des services Internet. Il s'agit d'une surcouche de contrôle implantée sur une couche IP dont les objectifs sont de fournir et maintenir une qualité de service (QoS) donnée, un schéma de chargement équitable et des services intégrés; le tout en utilisant des interfaces standards. Combiner les fonctionnalités d‟IMS et l‟ensemble d'informations contextuelles capturées par les stations de base des réseaux de capteurs sans fils ouvre la porte à une nouvelle gamme de services multimédias. Cette dissertation propose une architecture de surcouche pour l'intégration des IMS avec les réseaux de capteurs sans fils. Le service "présence" sert de point d'entrée au domaine des IMS. La passerelle, qui constitue le coeur de notre architecture, est une couche de recouvrement construite sur les mêmes téléphones mobiles qui agissent également en tant que canaux mobiles, publicateurs / écouteurs de présence et périphériques utilisateurs. ----------ABSTRACT On one hand, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are a research area that has been gaining attention from the research community. They are made up of small scale devices called sensors that can sense, compute and communicate. Moreover, including mobile sinks in WSNs has shown to be useful in a wide range of scenarios since they can improve the overall network lifetime and increase data capacity. On the other hand, the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) aims to provide cellular access to all Internet services. It is an overlay control layer on top of an IP layer whose goals is based in provisioning of Quality of Service (QoS), a fair charging scheme and integrated services through standard interfaces. Combining the capabilities of IMS with the rich set of contextual information captured by mobile sink WSNs opens the door to a wide range of novel multimedia services. This dissertation proposes an overlay architecture for the integration of IMS with mobile sink-based WSN. The Presence service is used as entry point to the IMS world. The gateway which is the heart of our architecture is an overlay built on top of the very same mobile phones that act as mobile sinks, presence publishers / watchers, and end-user devices

Experimental Evaluation of a SIP-Based Home Gateway with Multiple Wireless Interfaces for Domotics Systems

In modern houses, the presence of sensors and actuators is increasing, whilecommunication servicesandentertainment systemshad long since settled into everyday life. The utilization of wireless communication technologies, such as ZigBee, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, is attractive because of their short installation times and low costs. The research is moving towards the integration of the various home appliances and devices into a single domotics system, able to exploit the cooperation among the diverse subsystems and offer the end-user a single multiservice platform. In this scenario, the paper presents the experimental evaluation of a domotics framework centered on a SIP-based home gateway (SHG). While SIP is used to build a common control plane, the SHG is in charge of translating the user commands from and to the specific domotics languages. The analysis has been devoted to assess both the performance of the SHG software framework and the negative effects produced by the simultaneous interference among the three widespread wireless technologies

Threats and perspective for the Internet of Things

Il paradigma di ubiquitous computing sta lentamente entrando nella vita di tutti i giorni, gli utenti sono sempre connessi e una nuova esigenza di monitoraggio e controllo sta nascendo. Dispositivi di comunicazione intelligenti, le reti domestiche multimediali e l’automazione industriale sono alcune coniugazioni possibili del paradigma di ubiquitous computing che sono ora disponibili per l’utente finale. La diffusione di questi sistemi è infatti destinata a crescere, spinta da entrambi i mondi accademico e industriale la quantità di lavoro di ricerca in questo campo è in aumento, e diverse aziende hanno messo le proprie soluzioni sul mercato. Nella visione di molti, l’utente sarebbe poi in grado di godere dei vantaggi di un sistema intelligente e impercettibile che si adatta all’ambiente ed ai suoi bisogni e unisce tutte le applicazioni e i servizi in un unico sistema integrato e facile da controllare. In questo lavoro vengono valutate alcune delle sfide architettoniche di questo nuovo modo di interagire tra l’utente e il suo ambiente circostante. Vengono mostrate la progettazione e la realizzazione di un SIP-based Home Gateway per il controllo remoto di Smart Objects in un ambiente domotico. È presentata anche un’architettura basata sul protocollo SIP per realizzare un sistema di domotica capace di interagire con dispositivi eterogenei e con varie interfacce utente, l’architettura si basa sull’uso del protocollo SIP come piano di controllo comune ed è centrata sul SIP Gateway Home. Per valutare le capacità del sistema descritto abbiamo effettuato anche una valutazione delle prestazioni, considerando i due problemi principali per questo tipo di dispositivi: scalabilita ad un elevato numero di richieste di servizio per secondo e l’interferenza/coesistenza di dispositivi appartenenti a diverse tecnologie/standard (ZigBee, Bluetooth, e Wi-Fi) presenti sullo stesso dispositivo. Sono stati valutati anche i problemi di sicurezza attraverso lo studio sperimentale di un Intrusion Detection System per attenuare tali problemi

A Presence-Based Architecture for a Gateway to Integrate Vehicular Ad-Hoc Networks (VANETs), the IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs)

Résumé Le IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) est un sujet de recherche qui attire l’attention de la communauté de recherche. Il a comme but de fournir un accès mobile aux différents services internet. Il s’agit d’une architecture de contrôle au-dessus de la couche IP dont le but est de fournir une qualité de service, services intégrés et un système de tarification équitable à travers des interfaces standards. D’autre part, le réseau Ad-hoc de véhicules (VANETs) fournit un nouveau moyen de communication sans-fil entre les véhicules circulants à grande vitesse ainsi que les équipements installés tout au long des côtés de la route. Cette technologie ouvre la porte pour développer des applications diverses comme la génie de trafic, gestion du trafic, diffusion d’information en cas d’urgence pour éviter des situations critiques, divertissement et bien d’autres choses. VANETs forme une sous-classe des réseaux Ad-hoc mobile dont la performance est fortement liée au protocole de routage utilisé dans le réseau. L’intégration des deux technologies, IMS et VANET, permettra de mettre en œuvre de nouveaux services multimédias. Ce mémoire de maîtrise propose une architecture d’une passerelle incorporant ces deux technologies ensemble. Étant donné que les deux architectures utilisent des formats de communication différents, on a conçu un middleware afin d’adapter le format en fonction de la destination et de choisir la meilleur stratégie de livraison d’information entre eux. La passerelle, qui est le cœur de notre architecture, est une couche au-dessus du IMS et le VANET. ----------ABSTRACT On one hand, IP Multimedia Subsystems (IMS) are a research area that has been gaining attention from the research community. It aims to provide cellular access to all Internet services. It is a control architecture on the top of the IP layer whose goal is dependent on the provision of the Quality of Service (QoS), integrated services and fair charging scheme throughout standard interfaces. On the other hand, Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs) are a new communication paradigm that enables the wireless communication between vehicles moving with high speeds, as well as the vehicles and the road side equipments found along the roads. This opened the door to develop several new applications like, traffic engineering, traffic management, dissemination of emergency information to avoid critical situations, comfort and entertainment and other user applications. Moreover, VANETs are a sub-class of mobile ad-hoc networks; the performance of the communication depends on how better the routing takes place in the network. Routing of data depends on the routing protocols being used in the network. Combining the capabilities of IMS world with the VANET world opens the door to deploy a wide range of novel multimedia services. This dissertation proposes a presence-based architecture for the integration of IMS with VANETs. The presence of the middleware is used to make an instantaneous awareness of the VANETs changes as well as of the IMS format and to select the best delivery strategy between the two architectures. The gateway which is the heart of our architecture is an overlay built on the top of the IMS as well as the VANETs