Survey and Systematization of Secure Device Pairing

Secure Device Pairing (SDP) schemes have been developed to facilitate secure communications among smart devices, both personal mobile devices and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. Comparison and assessment of SDP schemes is troublesome, because each scheme makes different assumptions about out-of-band channels and adversary models, and are driven by their particular use-cases. A conceptual model that facilitates meaningful comparison among SDP schemes is missing. We provide such a model. In this article, we survey and analyze a wide range of SDP schemes that are described in the literature, including a number that have been adopted as standards. A system model and consistent terminology for SDP schemes are built on the foundation of this survey, which are then used to classify existing SDP schemes into a taxonomy that, for the first time, enables their meaningful comparison and analysis.The existing SDP schemes are analyzed using this model, revealing common systemic security weaknesses among the surveyed SDP schemes that should become priority areas for future SDP research, such as improving the integration of privacy requirements into the design of SDP schemes. Our results allow SDP scheme designers to create schemes that are more easily comparable with one another, and to assist the prevention of persisting the weaknesses common to the current generation of SDP schemes.Comment: 34 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, accepted at IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials 2017 (Volume: PP, Issue: 99

Implementing opportunistic spectrum access in LTE-Advanced

Long term evolution advanced (LTE-A) has emerged as a promising mobile broadband access technology aiming to cope with the increasing traffic demand in wireless networks. However, the enhanced spectral efficiency offered by LTE-A may become futile without a better management of scarce and overcrowded electromagnetic spectrum. In this sense, cognitive radio (CR) has been proposed as a potential solution to the problem of spectrum scarcity. Among all the mechanisms provided by CR, opportunistic spectrum access (OSA) aims at a dynamic and seamless use of certain licensed bands provided the licensee is not harmfully affected. This operation requires spectral awareness in order to avoid interferences with licensed systems. In spite of implementing some spectrum sensing mechanisms, LTE-A technology lacks other tools that are needed in order to improve the knowledge of the radio environment. This work studies the adoption of a Geo-located data base (Geo-DB) that cooperatively retrieves and maintains information regarding the location of unutilized portions of spectrum potentially available for OSA. Moreover, the potential benefit of this LTE-compliant OSA solution is evaluated using a calibrated simulation tool, by which numerical results allow us to optimally configure the system and show that the proposed opportunistic system is able to significantly improve its performance.The authors would like to thank the funding received from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion within the Project number TEC2011-27723-C02-02 and from the Ministerio de Industria, Turismo y Comercio TSI-020100-2011-266 funds. This article had been written in the framework of the CELTIC project CP08-001 COMMUNE. Study by X. Gelabert is funded by the BP-DGR 2010 scholarship (ref. 00192). The authors would like to acknowledge the contributions of their colleagues.Osa Ginés, V.; Herranz Claveras, C.; Monserrat Del Río, JF.; Gelabert, X. (2012). Implementing opportunistic spectrum access in LTE-Advanced. EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications and Networking. 2012(99):1-17. https://doi.org/10.1186/1687-1499-2012-99S117201299Martín-Sacristán D, Monserrat JF, Cabrejas-Peñuelas J, Calabuig D, Garrigas S, Cardona N: On the way towards fourth-generation mobile: 3GPP LTE and LTE-Advanced. EURASIP J Wirel Commun Netw 2009, 2009: 1-10.Ratasuk R, Tolli D, Ghosh A: Carrier aggregation in LTE-Advanced. In IEEE 71st Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC 2010-Spring). Taipei; 2010:1-5.Wang H, Rosa C, Pedersen K: Performance of uplink carrier aggregation in LTE-advanced systems. In IEEE 72nd Vehicular Technology Conference Fall (VTC 2010-Fall). Ottawa; 2010:1-5.Tandra R, Sahai A, Mishra S: What is a spectrum hole and what does it take to recognize one? 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Wireless body sensor networks for health-monitoring applications

This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in Physiological Measurement. The publisher is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/0967-3334/29/11/R01

Optimal channel allocation with dynamic power control in cellular networks

Techniques for channel allocation in cellular networks have been an area of intense research interest for many years. An efficient channel allocation scheme can significantly reduce call-blocking and calldropping probabilities. Another important issue is to effectively manage the power requirements for communication. An efficient power control strategy leads to reduced power consumption and improved signal quality. In this paper, we present a novel integer linear program (ILP) formulation that jointly optimizes channel allocation and power control for incoming calls, based on the carrier-to-interference ratio (CIR). In our approach we use a hybrid channel assignment scheme, where an incoming call is admitted only if a suitable channel is found such that the CIR of all ongoing calls on that channel, as well as that of the new call, will be above a specified value. Our formulation also guarantees that the overall power requirement for the selected channel will be minimized as much as possible and that no ongoing calls will be dropped as a result of admitting the new call. We have run simulations on a benchmark 49 cell environment with 70 channels to investigate the effect of different parameters such as the desired CIR. The results indicate that our approach leads to significant improvements over existing techniques.Comment: 11 page

Smartening the Environment using Wireless Sensor Networks in a Developing Country

The miniaturization process of various sensing devices has become a reality by enormous research and advancements accomplished in Micro Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) and Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) lithography. Regardless of such extensive efforts in optimizing the hardware, algorithm, and protocols for networking, there still remains a lot of scope to explore how these innovations can all be tied together to design Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) for smartening the surrounding environment for some practical purposes. In this paper we explore the prospects of wireless sensor networks and propose a design level framework for developing a smart environment using WSNs, which could be beneficial for a developing country like Bangladesh. In connection to this, we also discuss the major aspects of wireless sensor networks.Comment: 5 page

Applications of Soft Computing in Mobile and Wireless Communications

Soft computing is a synergistic combination of artificial intelligence methodologies to model and solve real world problems that are either impossible or too difficult to model mathematically. Furthermore, the use of conventional modeling techniques demands rigor, precision and certainty, which carry computational cost. On the other hand, soft computing utilizes computation, reasoning and inference to reduce computational cost by exploiting tolerance for imprecision, uncertainty, partial truth and approximation. In addition to computational cost savings, soft computing is an excellent platform for autonomic computing, owing to its roots in artificial intelligence. Wireless communication networks are associated with much uncertainty and imprecision due to a number of stochastic processes such as escalating number of access points, constantly changing propagation channels, sudden variations in network load and random mobility of users. This reality has fuelled numerous applications of soft computing techniques in mobile and wireless communications. This paper reviews various applications of the core soft computing methodologies in mobile and wireless communications