MARGOT: Dynamic IoT Resource Discovery for HADR Environments

Smart City services leverage sophisticated IT architectures whose assets are deployed in dynamic and heterogeneous computing and communication scenarios. Those services are particularly interesting for Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations in urban environments, which could improve Situation Awareness by exploiting the Smart City IT infrastructure. To this end, an enabling requirement is the discovery of the available Internet-of-Things (IoT) resources, including sensors, actuators, services, and computing resources, based on a variety of criteria, such as geographical location, proximity, type of device, type of capability, coverage, resource availability, and communication topology / quality of network links. To date, no single standard has emerged that has been widely adopted to solve the discovery challenge. Instead, a variety of different standards have been proposed and cities have either adopted one that is convenient or reinvented a new standard just for themselves. Therefore, enabling discovery across different standards and administrative domains is a fundamental requirement to enable HADR operations in Smart Cities. To address these challenges, we developed MARGOT (Multi-domain Asynchronous Gateway Of Things), a comprehensive solution for resource discovery in Smart City environments that implements a distributed and federated architecture and supports a wide range of discovery protocols

Case study on using the user-centric-backhaul scheme to unlock the realistic backhaul

The fifth generation of mobile networks (5G) is maturing fast and the target year 2020 is around the corner. However, the realistic backhaul network may not be ready for 5G arrival as it is likely to converge to 5G requirements at a slower pace than the radio counterpart. In this work, we develop a method that identifies pertinent backhaul upgrade stages that are ranked based on their associated cost. First, the User-centric- backhaul (UCB) scheme is employed to reveal the bottlenecks of the incumbent backhaul network, as perceived by users and holistic network. A multi- hop hybrid backhaul modelling framework is then employed to quantify possible rectifications that would deliver the highest improvement at the lowest cost. These are implemented and the results are verified following another usage of UCB. A case study is presented that demonstrates the strength of this method in enabling an effective and cost efficient evolution road map towards the 5G backhaul

Information Sharing Solutions for Nato Headquarters

NATO is an Alliance of 26 nations that operates on a consensus basis, not a majority basis. Thorough and timely information exchange between nations is fundamental to the Business Process. Current technology and practices at NATO HQ are inadequate to meet modern-day requirements despite the availability of demonstrated and accredited Cross-Domain technology solutions. This lack of integration between networks is getting more complicated with time, as nations continue to invest in IT and ignore the requirements for inter-networked gateways. This contributes to inefficiencies, fostering an atmosphere where shortcuts are taken in order to get the job done. The author recommends that NATO HQ should improve its presence on the Internet, building on the desired tenets of availability and security

Netcentric Warfare Revisited (NCW): It's Origin and Its Future ... Revisited

Chris Gunderson is a Research Associate at the Naval Postgraduate School. He is the principal investigator of the Open Enterprise Information System (OEIS) research initiative. This project sponsored by the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and executed in the Northern Virginia. The project objective is to help the government improve its flawed information technology acquisition process through four key activities: Establish a collaborative network of government, industry, and academic experts who have succeeded at some aspect of OEIS; Study Internet successful stories and distill the lessons learned; Embed lessons learned into familiar government acquisition artifacts; Work with early adopting pilot projects to verify, validate, refine, and document best practicesIt has been a decade since Cebrowski and Gartska, and Alberts, Gartska, and Klein published their watershed Network‐Centric Warfare (NCW) Naval Institute Proceedings article and book, respectively. Through the lens of hindsight, this paper examines how their theories and predictions have held up. The authors find that the tenets of NCW have proven valid. Despite pro forma policy to the contrary, the US Defense community has substantially eschewed Cebrowski et al. in actual practice. Ironically, Al Qaeda has implemented the principles and achieved an advantage from them. Meanwhile, lessons learned in the 21st Century suggest two subtle improvements to the original NCW theory. First, success at NCW requires instantiating “smart push” of valued information at the right time (VIRT) as a key tactic. Second, success at NCW requires rapid, agile, “network‐centric” acquisition conducted literally within the commercial ecosystem of the World Wide Web

Leveraging and Fusing Civil and Military Sensors to support Disaster Relief Operations in Smart Environments

Natural disasters occur unpredictably and can range in severity from something locally manageable to large scale events that require external intervention. In particular, when large scale disasters occur, they can cause widespread damage and overwhelm the ability of local governments and authorities to respond. In such situations, Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) is essential for a rapid and robust Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operation. These type of operations bring to bear the Command and Control (C2) and Logistics capabilities of the military to rapidly deploy assets to help with the disaster relief activities. Smart Cities and Smart Environments, embedded with IoT, introduce multiple sensing modalities that typically provide wide coverage over the deployed area. Given that the military does not own or control these assets, they are sometimes referred to as gray assets, which are not as trustworthy as blue assets, owned by the military. However, leveraging these gray assets can significantly improve the ability for the military to quickly obtain Situational Awareness (SA) about the disaster and optimize the planning of rescue operations and allocation of resources to achieve the best possible effects. Fusing the information from the civilian IoT sensors with the custom military sensors could help validate and improve trust in the information from the gray assets. The focus of this paper is to further examine this challenge of achieving Civil-Military cooperation for HADR operations by leveraging and fusing information from gray and blue assets

New Secure IoT Architectures, Communication Protocols and User Interaction Technologies for Home Automation, Industrial and Smart Environments

Programa Oficial de Doutoramento en Tecnoloxías da Información e das Comunicacións en Redes Móbiles. 5029V01Tese por compendio de publicacións[Abstract] The Internet of Things (IoT) presents a communication network where heterogeneous physical devices such as vehicles, homes, urban infrastructures or industrial machinery are interconnected and share data. For these communications to be successful, it is necessary to integrate and embed electronic devices that allow for obtaining environmental information (sensors), for performing physical actuations (actuators) as well as for sending and receiving data (network interfaces). This integration of embedded systems poses several challenges. It is needed for these devices to present very low power consumption. In many cases IoT nodes are powered by batteries or constrained power supplies. Moreover, the great amount of devices needed in an IoT network makes power e ciency one of the major concerns of these deployments, due to the cost and environmental impact of the energy consumption. This need for low energy consumption is demanded by resource constrained devices, con icting with the second major concern of IoT: security and data privacy. There are critical urban and industrial systems, such as tra c management, water supply, maritime control, railway control or high risk industrial manufacturing systems such as oil re neries that will obtain great bene ts from IoT deployments, for which non-authorized access can posse severe risks for public safety. On the other hand, both these public systems and the ones deployed on private environments (homes, working places, malls) present a risk for the privacy and security of their users. These IoT deployments need advanced security mechanisms, both to prevent access to the devices and to protect the data exchanged by them. As a consequence, it is needed to improve two main aspects: energy e ciency of IoT devices and the use of lightweight security mechanisms that can be implemented by these resource constrained devices but at the same time guarantee a fair degree of security. The huge amount of data transmitted by this type of networks also presents another challenge. There are big data systems capable of processing large amounts of data, but with IoT the granularity and dispersion of the generated information presents a new scenario very di erent from the one existing nowadays. Forecasts anticipate that there will be a growth from the 15 billion installed devices in 2015 to more than 75 billion devices in 2025. Moreover, there will be much more services exploiting the data produced by these networks, meaning the resulting tra c will be even higher. The information must not only be processed in real time, but data mining processes will have to be performed to historical data. The main goal of this Ph.D. thesis is to analyze each one of the previously described challenges and to provide solutions that allow for an adequate adoption of IoT in Industrial, domestic and, in general, any scenario that can obtain any bene t from the interconnection and exibility that IoT brings.[Resumen] La internet de las cosas (IoT o Internet of Things) representa una red de intercomunicaciones en la que participan dispositivos físicos de toda índole, como vehículos, viviendas, electrodomésticos, infraestructuras urbanas o maquinaria y dispositivos industriales. Para que esta comunicación se pueda llevar a cabo es necesario integrar elementos electr onicos que permitan obtener informaci on del entorno (sensores), realizar acciones f sicas (actuadores) y enviar y recibir la informaci on necesaria (interfaces de comunicaciones de red). La integración y uso de estos sistemas electrónicos embebidos supone varios retos. Es necesario que dichos dispositivos presenten un consumo reducido. En muchos casos deberían ser alimentados por baterías o fuentes de alimentación limitadas. Además, la gran cantidad de dispositivos que involucra la IoT hace necesario que la e ciencia energética de los mismos sea una de las principales preocupaciones, por el coste e implicaciones medioambientales que supone el consumo de electricidad de los mismos. Esta necesidad de limitar el consumo provoca que dichos dispositivos tengan unas prestaciones muy limitadas, lo que entra en conflicto con la segunda mayor preocupación de la IoT: la seguridad y privacidad de los datos. Por un lado existen sistemas críticos urbanos e industriales, como puede ser la regulación del tráfi co, el control del suministro de agua, el control marítimo, el control ferroviario o los sistemas de producción industrial de alto riesgo, como refi nerías, que son claros candidatos a benefi ciarse de la IoT, pero cuyo acceso no autorizado supone graves problemas de seguridad ciudadana. Por otro lado, tanto estos sistemas de naturaleza publica, como los que se desplieguen en entornos privados (viviendas, entornos de trabajo o centros comerciales, entre otros) suponen un riesgo para la privacidad y también para la seguridad de los usuarios. Todo esto hace que sean necesarios mecanismos de seguridad avanzados, tanto de acceso a los dispositivos como de protección de los datos que estos intercambian. En consecuencia, es necesario avanzar en dos aspectos principales: la e ciencia energética de los dispositivos y el uso de mecanismos de seguridad e ficientes, tanto computacional como energéticamente, que permitan la implantación de la IoT sin comprometer la seguridad y la privacidad de los usuarios. Por otro lado, la ingente cantidad de información que estos sistemas puede llegar a producir presenta otros dos retos que deben ser afrontados. En primer lugar, el tratamiento y análisis de datos toma una nueva dimensión. Existen sistemas de big data capaces de procesar cantidades enormes de información, pero con la internet de las cosas la granularidad y dispersión de los datos plantean un escenario muy distinto al actual. La previsión es pasar de 15.000.000.000 de dispositivos instalados en 2015 a más de 75.000.000.000 en 2025. Además existirán multitud de servicios que harán un uso intensivo de estos dispositivos y de los datos que estos intercambian, por lo que el volumen de tráfico será todavía mayor. Asimismo, la información debe ser procesada tanto en tiempo real como a posteriori sobre históricos, lo que permite obtener información estadística muy relevante en diferentes entornos. El principal objetivo de la presente tesis doctoral es analizar cada uno de estos retos (e ciencia energética, seguridad, procesamiento de datos e interacción con el usuario) y plantear soluciones que permitan una correcta adopción de la internet de las cosas en ámbitos industriales, domésticos y en general en cualquier escenario que se pueda bene ciar de la interconexión y flexibilidad de acceso que proporciona el IoT.[Resumo] O internet das cousas (IoT ou Internet of Things) representa unha rede de intercomunicaci óns na que participan dispositivos físicos moi diversos, coma vehículos, vivendas, electrodomésticos, infraestruturas urbanas ou maquinaria e dispositivos industriais. Para que estas comunicacións se poidan levar a cabo é necesario integrar elementos electrónicos que permitan obter información da contorna (sensores), realizar accións físicas (actuadores) e enviar e recibir a información necesaria (interfaces de comunicacións de rede). A integración e uso destes sistemas electrónicos integrados supón varios retos. En primeiro lugar, é necesario que estes dispositivos teñan un consumo reducido. En moitos casos deberían ser alimentados por baterías ou fontes de alimentación limitadas. Ademais, a gran cantidade de dispositivos que se empregan na IoT fai necesario que a e ciencia enerxética dos mesmos sexa unha das principais preocupacións, polo custo e implicacións medioambientais que supón o consumo de electricidade dos mesmos. Esta necesidade de limitar o consumo provoca que estes dispositivos teñan unhas prestacións moi limitadas, o que entra en con ito coa segunda maior preocupación da IoT: a seguridade e privacidade dos datos. Por un lado existen sistemas críticos urbanos e industriais, como pode ser a regulación do tráfi co, o control de augas, o control marítimo, o control ferroviario ou os sistemas de produción industrial de alto risco, como refinerías, que son claros candidatos a obter benefi cios da IoT, pero cuxo acceso non autorizado supón graves problemas de seguridade cidadá. Por outra parte tanto estes sistemas de natureza pública como os que se despreguen en contornas privadas (vivendas, contornas de traballo ou centros comerciais entre outros) supoñen un risco para a privacidade e tamén para a seguridade dos usuarios. Todo isto fai que sexan necesarios mecanismos de seguridade avanzados, tanto de acceso aos dispositivos como de protección dos datos que estes intercambian. En consecuencia, é necesario avanzar en dous aspectos principais: a e ciencia enerxética dos dispositivos e o uso de mecanismos de seguridade re cientes, tanto computacional como enerxéticamente, que permitan o despregue da IoT sen comprometer a seguridade e a privacidade dos usuarios. Por outro lado, a inxente cantidade de información que estes sistemas poden chegar a xerar presenta outros retos que deben ser tratados. O tratamento e a análise de datos toma unha nova dimensión. Existen sistemas de big data capaces de procesar cantidades enormes de información, pero coa internet das cousas a granularidade e dispersión dos datos supón un escenario moi distinto ao actual. A previsión e pasar de 15.000.000.000 de dispositivos instalados no ano 2015 a m ais de 75.000.000.000 de dispositivos no ano 2025. Ademais existirían multitude de servizos que farían un uso intensivo destes dispositivos e dos datos que intercambian, polo que o volume de tráfico sería aínda maior. Do mesmo xeito a información debe ser procesada tanto en tempo real como posteriormente sobre históricos, o que permite obter información estatística moi relevante en diferentes contornas. O principal obxectivo da presente tese doutoral é analizar cada un destes retos (e ciencia enerxética, seguridade, procesamento de datos e interacción co usuario) e propor solucións que permitan unha correcta adopción da internet das cousas en ámbitos industriais, domésticos e en xeral en todo aquel escenario que se poda bene ciar da interconexión e flexibilidade de acceso que proporciona a IoT

CONCEPTUALIZATION AND ANALYSIS OF USING UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES AS COMMUNICATIONS RELAYS IN A GPS-DENIED ENVIRONMENT

Many armed forces are becoming network-centric and highly interconnected. This transformation, along with decentralized decision-making, has been enabled by technological advancements in the digital battlefield. As the battlefield evolves and missions require units to be mobile and support numerous tactical capabilities, the current concept of deploying static radio-relay nodes to extend the range of communication may no longer be suitable. Hence, this thesis aims to design an operational concept using unmanned aerial systems such as aerostats and tactical drones to provide beyond line-of-sight communication for tactical forces while overcoming the limitations in a GPS-denied environment. The proposed concept is divided into three phases to assess operational and communication system needs, given Federal Communications Commission regulations that set the maximum effective isotropic radiated power in the industrial, scientific, and medical band at 36 dBm. The maximum communication range between two nodes can be studied using the Friis propagation equation. In addition, Simulink software is used to study the effective application throughput with respect to distance. From the analysis, IEEE 802.11ax can provide a higher data throughput and support both 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz frequency bands. Using a simulated environment and operational scenario, the estimated number of aerial systems required to provide communication coverage for a 50 km by 50 km area is determined.Captain, Singapore ArmyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

A Survey on Virtualization of Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are gaining tremendous importance thanks to their broad range of commercial applications such as in smart home automation, health-care and industrial automation. In these applications multi-vendor and heterogeneous sensor nodes are deployed. Due to strict administrative control over the specific WSN domains, communication barriers, conflicting goals and the economic interests of different WSN sensor node vendors, it is difficult to introduce a large scale federated WSN. By allowing heterogeneous sensor nodes in WSNs to coexist on a shared physical sensor substrate, virtualization in sensor network may provide flexibility, cost effective solutions, promote diversity, ensure security and increase manageability. This paper surveys the novel approach of using the large scale federated WSN resources in a sensor virtualization environment. Our focus in this paper is to introduce a few design goals, the challenges and opportunities of research in the field of sensor network virtualization as well as to illustrate a current status of research in this field. This paper also presents a wide array of state-of-the art projects related to sensor network virtualization

ANDROID BASED HOME AUTOMATION AND ENERGY CONSERVATION

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) consists of three main components: nodes, gateways, and software. The spatially distributed measurement nodes interface with sensors to monitor assets or their environment. In a WSN network the devices are connected to WSN nodes wherein the entire nodes uses Zigbee network to transfer the status of connected applications to a controller which controls the whole applications but the main drawback of Wireless sensor networks is its high interference, low coverage area and ability to control only low power devices. In order to overcome these drawbacks Android equipped devices are used to control the applications over GPRS network. Android equipped devices allow the user to control various applications over wireless networks. Being an open sourced platform it allows the user to design a custom module which controls the home applications by connecting the android equipped device and its corresponding home applications to an MCU wherein it uses relay circuits to connect the entire applications using GPRS network to connect the application controller and the android device. These devices can be used to control industrial applications, home applications like light, fan etc., and thereby conserving electricity