Access and Routing in Aeronautical Ad-hoc Networks

National audienceAeronautical Ad hoc NETworks (AANET) have been proposed in previous studies as an alternative to cellular or satellite transmissions for “datalink” communications between commercial aviation aircraft in flight and air traffic services on the ground. After an introduction on the specificities of civil aviation communications, we present the channel access and routing challenges for AANETs. We finally propose an innovative communication architecture for AANETs

Progressively communicating rich telemetry from autonomous underwater vehicles via relays

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution June 2012As analysis of imagery and environmental data plays a greater role in mission construction and execution, there is an increasing need for autonomous marine vehicles to transmit this data to the surface. Without access to the data acquired by a vehicle, surface operators cannot fully understand the state of the mission. Communicating imagery and high-resolution sensor readings to surface observers remains a significant challenge – as a result, current telemetry from free-roaming autonomous marine vehicles remains limited to ‘heartbeat’ status messages, with minimal scientific data available until after recovery. Increasing the challenge, longdistance communication may require relaying data across multiple acoustic hops between vehicles, yet fixed infrastructure is not always appropriate or possible. In this thesis I present an analysis of the unique considerations facing telemetry systems for free-roaming Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) used in exploration. These considerations include high-cost vehicle nodes with persistent storage and significant computation capabilities, combined with human surface operators monitoring each node. I then propose mechanisms for interactive, progressive communication of data across multiple acoustic hops. These mechanisms include wavelet-based embedded coding methods, and a novel image compression scheme based on texture classification and synthesis. The specific characteristics of underwater communication channels, including high latency, intermittent communication, the lack of instantaneous end-to-end connectivity, and a broadcast medium, inform these proposals. Human feedback is incorporated by allowing operators to identify segments of data thatwarrant higher quality refinement, ensuring efficient use of limited throughput. I then analyze the performance of these mechanisms relative to current practices. Finally, I present CAPTURE, a telemetry architecture that builds on this analysis. CAPTURE draws on advances in compression and delay tolerant networking to enable progressive transmission of scientific data, including imagery, across multiple acoustic hops. In concert with a physical layer, CAPTURE provides an endto- end networking solution for communicating science data from autonomous marine vehicles. Automatically selected imagery, sonar, and time-series sensor data are progressively transmitted across multiple hops to surface operators. Human operators can request arbitrarily high-quality refinement of any resource, up to an error-free reconstruction. The components of this system are then demonstrated through three field trials in diverse environments on SeaBED, OceanServer and Bluefin AUVs, each in different software architectures.Thanks to the National Science Foundation, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for their funding of my education and this work

Security in Delay Tolerant Networks

Delay- and Disruption-tolerant wireless networks (DTN), or opportunistic networks, represent a class of networks where continuous end-to-end connectivity may not be possible. DTN is a well recognized area in networking research and has attracted extensive attentions from both network designers and application developers. Applications of this emergent communication paradigm are wide ranging and include sensor networks using scheduled intermittent connectivity, vehicular DTNs for dissemination of location-dependent information (e.g., local ads, traffic reports, parking information, etc.), pocket-switched networks to allow humans to communicate without network infrastructure, and underwater acoustic networks with moderate delays and frequent interruptions due to environmental factors, etc. Security is one of the main barriers to wide-scale deployment of DTNs, but has gained little attention so far. On the one hand, similar to traditional mobile ad hoc networks, the open channel and multi-hop transmission have made DTNs vulnerable to various security threats, such as message modification/injection attack or unauthorized access and utilization of DTN resources. On the other hand, the unique security characteristics of DTNs including: long round-trip delay, frequent disconnectivity, fragmentation, opportunistic routing as well as limited computational and storage capability, make the existing security protocols designed for the conventional ad hoc networks unsuitable for DTNs. Therefore, a series of new security protocols are highly desired to meet stringent security and efficiency requirements for securing DTNs. In this research, we focus on three fundamental security issues in DTNs: efficient DTN message (or bundle) authentication, which is a critical security service for DTN security; incentive issue, which targets at stimulating selfish nodes to forward data for others; and certificate revocation issue, which is an important part of public key management and serves the foundation of any DTN security protocols. We have made the following contributions: First of all, the unique ``store-carry-and-forward'' transmission characteristic of DTNs implies that bundles from distinct/common senders may opportunistically be buffered at some common intermediate nodes. Such a ``buffering'' characteristic distinguishes DTN from any other traditional wireless networks, for which intermediate cache is not supported. To exploit such buffering opportunities, we propose an Opportunistic Batch Bundle Authentication Scheme (OBBA) to dramatically reduce the bundle authentication cost by seamlessly integrating identity-based batch signatures and Merkle tree techniques. Secondly, we propose a secure multi-layer credit based incentive scheme to stimulate bundle forwarding cooperation among DTNs nodes. The proposed scheme can be implemented in a fully distributed manner to thwart various attacks without relying on any tamper-proof hardware. In addition, we introduce several efficiency-optimization techniques to improve the overall efficiency by exploiting the unique characteristics of DTNs. Lastly, we propose a storage-efficient public key certificate validation method. Our proposed scheme exploits the opportunistic propagation to transmit Certificate Revocation List (CRL) list while taking advantage of bloom filter technique to reduce the required buffer size. We also discuss how to take advantage of cooperative checking to minimize false positive rate and storage consumption. For each research issue, detailed simulation results in terms of computational time, transmission overhead and power consumption, are given to validate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed security solutions

Mesh Networking in Cyber-Physical Production Systems: Towards Modular Industrial Equipment Integration

Ensuring uninterrupted interaction of modular industrial equipment units is one of the most important engineering tasks. The concept of Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) assumes that the distributed network should correspond to the current industrial process and be able to quickly reorganize it when changes occur. If composition of the equipment becomes more complicated, a standard topology with one central control node might get ineffective. This article describes the application of mesh-network technology to ensure the interaction of industrial devices and sensors included in the modular equipment. Virtual deployment of the network and a description network nodes interaction including new node registration in the dispatcher registry are given

Smart Devices and Systems for Wearable Applications

Wearable technologies need a smooth and unobtrusive integration of electronics and smart materials into textiles. The integration of sensors, actuators and computing technologies able to sense, react and adapt to external stimuli, is the expression of a new generation of wearable devices. The vision of wearable computing describes a system made by embedded, low power and wireless electronics coupled with smart and reliable sensors - as an integrated part of textile structure or directly in contact with the human body. Therefore, such system must maintain its sensing capabilities under the demand of normal clothing or textile substrate, which can impose severe mechanical deformation to the underlying garment/substrate. The objective of this thesis is to introduce a novel technological contribution for the next generation of wearable devices adopting a multidisciplinary approach in which knowledge of circuit design with Ultra-Wide Band and Bluetooth Low Energy technology, realization of smart piezoresistive / piezocapacitive and electro-active material, electro-mechanical characterization, design of read-out circuits and system integration find a fundamental and necessary synergy. The context and the results presented in this thesis follow an “applications driven” method in terms of wearable technology. A proof of concept has been designed and developed for each addressed issue. The solutions proposed are aimed to demonstrate the integration of a touch/pressure sensor into a fabric for space debris detection (CApture DEorbiting Target project), the effectiveness of the Ultra-Wide Band technology as an ultra-low power data transmission option compared with well known Bluetooth (IR-UWB data transmission project) and to solve issues concerning human proximity estimation (IR-UWB Face-to-Face Interaction and Proximity Sensor), wearable actuator for medical applications (EAPtics project) and aerospace physiology countermeasure (Gravity Loading Countermeasure Skinsuit project)

On Energy Efficient Computing Platforms

In accordance with the Moore's law, the increasing number of on-chip integrated transistors has enabled modern computing platforms with not only higher processing power but also more affordable prices. As a result, these platforms, including portable devices, work stations and data centres, are becoming an inevitable part of the human society. However, with the demand for portability and raising cost of power, energy efficiency has emerged to be a major concern for modern computing platforms. As the complexity of on-chip systems increases, Network-on-Chip (NoC) has been proved as an efficient communication architecture which can further improve system performances and scalability while reducing the design cost. Therefore, in this thesis, we study and propose energy optimization approaches based on NoC architecture, with special focuses on the following aspects. As the architectural trend of future computing platforms, 3D systems have many bene ts including higher integration density, smaller footprint, heterogeneous integration, etc. Moreover, 3D technology can signi cantly improve the network communication and effectively avoid long wirings, and therefore, provide higher system performance and energy efficiency. With the dynamic nature of on-chip communication in large scale NoC based systems, run-time system optimization is of crucial importance in order to achieve higher system reliability and essentially energy efficiency. In this thesis, we propose an agent based system design approach where agents are on-chip components which monitor and control system parameters such as supply voltage, operating frequency, etc. With this approach, we have analysed the implementation alternatives for dynamic voltage and frequency scaling and power gating techniques at different granularity, which reduce both dynamic and leakage energy consumption. Topologies, being one of the key factors for NoCs, are also explored for energy saving purpose. A Honeycomb NoC architecture is proposed in this thesis with turn-model based deadlock-free routing algorithms. Our analysis and simulation based evaluation show that Honeycomb NoCs outperform their Mesh based counterparts in terms of network cost, system performance as well as energy efficiency.Siirretty Doriast

Proceedings Work-In-Progress Session of the 13th Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium

The Work-In-Progress session of the 13th IEEE Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS\u2707) presents papers describing contributions both to state of the art and state of the practice in the broad field of real-time and embedded systems. The 17 accepted papers were selected from 19 submissions. This proceedings is also available as Washington University in St. Louis Technical Report WUCSE-2007-17, at http://www.cse.seas.wustl.edu/Research/FileDownload.asp?733. Special thanks go to the General Chairs – Steve Goddard and Steve Liu and Program Chairs - Scott Brandt and Frank Mueller for their support and guidance

Satellites d'observation et réseaux de capteurs autonomes au service de l'environnement

La collecte d’informations et leur transmission au travers d’un réseau de communications peut être effectuée par des réseaux de capteurs autonomes ainsi que par des satellites d’observation. L’utilisation conjointe de ces réseaux fournirait des données complémentaires et permettrait à l’Humanité de pérenniser son avenir en comprenant les mécanismes du monde qui l’entoure. Ces dernières années, le secteur spatial a montré une volonté d’unifier et de faciliter la réutilisation des développements réalisés avec la création de filières de plateformes multi-missions ainsi que la définition de protocoles applicables à différents contextes. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’étudier les caractéristiques des différentes technologies d’observation afin d’en exploiter les points communs. À ces fins, nous nous intéressons aux technologies et aux architectures utilisées dans de tels contextes. Nous proposons alors une architecture de réseau répondant aux contraintes des systèmes les plus communément utilisés dans un tel cadre. Les principales contraintes des scénarios d’observation sont liées à la forte intermittence des liens et donc au manque de connexité du réseau. Nous nous orientons donc vers une solution ayant recours au concept de réseaux tolérants au délai. Dans un tel contexte, l’existence d’une route entre la source et la destination n’est pas garantie. C’est pourquoi les protocoles de communication utilisés propagent généralement plusieurs exemplaires d’un même message vers plusieurs entités afin d’augmenter le taux de délivrance. Nous avons souhaité diminuer l’utilisation des ressources du réseau tout en conservant des performances similaires afin d’augmenter l’efficacité du réseau. Après avoir proposé une architecture commune, nous nous sommes focalisés sur les spécificités des différents segments de notre réseau afin de répondre localement à ces problèmes. Pour le segment satellite, nous nous sommes plus spécialement concentrés sur les techniques de gestion de mémoire. Nous considérons un satellite défilant avec une mémoire embarquée limitée, collectant des données en provenance de passerelles. Il s’agit alors de sélectionner les messages les plus urgents quitte à déposer sur une autre passerelle les messages moins contraints. Sur le réseau de capteurs terrestre, nous nous sommes focalisés sur la diminution de l’utilisation des ressources du réseau. Pour cela nous avons utilisé l’historique des rencontres entre les nœuds et analysé l’influence de la quantité de mémoire allouée aux accusés de réception sur les performances du réseau. Nous sommes parvenus à atteindre des performances supérieures aux solutions existantes à moindre frais. Les solutions proposées peuvent être mises en œuvre et appliquées dans différents contextes applicatifs. ABSTRACT : Data gathering and transmission through a communicating network can be obtained thanks to wireless sensor networks and observation satellites. Using both these technologies will allow mankind to build a sustainable future by understanding the world around. In recent years, space actors have demonstrated a will to reuse the developed technologies by creating multiple programs platforms and defining context-agnostic protocols. The goal of this thesis is to study the characteristics of several observation technologies to exploit their similarities. We analyse the existing technologies and architectures in several contexts. Then, we propose a networking architecture handling constraints of most commonly used systems in such a context. The main constraints of observation scenarios are due to the links intermittence and lack of network connectivity. We focus on a solution using the delay tolerant networking concept. In such a context, a path between source and destination might not exist at all time. That is why most proposed protocols send multiple copies of a message to increase the delivery ratio. We wanted to decrease network resource use while keeping a similar performance to increase network efficiency. After having proposed a common architecture, we focused on particularities of each network segment to solve problems locally. Concerning the satellite part, we focused specifically on memory management techniques. We considered a low earth orbit satellite with a limited on-board buffer, gathering data from gateways. The goal is then to select the most urgent messages even though the least urgent ones are sent back to the ground. On the terrestrial sensor network part, we focused on the decrease of network resource use. We used the history of encounters between nodes and analysed the influence of the proportion of memory allocated to acknowledgements on network performance. We achieved better performance than existing solutions and at lower cost. The proposed solutions can be deployed and applied in several applications

Asynchronous epidemic algorithms for consistency in large-scale systems

Achieving and detecting a globally consistent state is essential to many services in the large and extreme-scale distributed systems, especially when the desired consistent state is critical for services operation. Centralised and deterministic approaches for synchronisation and distributed consistency are not scalable and not fault-tolerant. Alternatively, epidemic-based paradigms are decentralised computations based on randomised communications. They are scalable, resilient, fault-tolerant, and converge to the desired target in logarithmic time with respect to system size. Thus, many distributed services have adopted epidemic protocols to achieve the consensus and the consistent state, mainly due to scalability concerns. The convergence of epidemic protocols is stochastically guaranteed. However, the detection of the convergence is probabilistic and non-explicit. In a real-world environment, systems are unreliable, and epidemic protocols cannot converge to the desired state. Thus, achieving convergence by itself does not ensure making a system-wide consistent state under dynamic conditions. The research work presented in this thesis introduces the Phase Transition Algorithm (PTA) to achieve distributed consistent state based on the explicit detection of convergence. Each phase in PTA is a decentralised decision-making process that implements epidemic data aggregation, in which the detection of convergence implies achieving a global agreement. The phases in PTA can be cascaded to achieve higher certainty as desired. Following the PTA, two epidemic protocols, namely PTP and ECP, are proposed to acquire of consensus, i.e. for the consistency in data dissemination and data aggregation. The protocols are examined through simulations, and experimental results have validated the protocols ability to achieve and explicitly detect the consensus among system nodes. The research work has also studied the epidemic data aggregation under nodes churn and network failures, in which the analysis has identified three phases of the aggregation process. The investigations have shown a different impact of nodes churn on each phase. The phase that is critical for the aggregation process has been studied further, which led to propose new robust data aggregation protocols, REAP and REAP+. Each protocol has a different decentralised replication method, and both implements distributed failure detection and instantaneous mass restoration mechanisms. Simulations have validated the protocols, and results have shown protocols ability to converge, detect convergence, and produce competitive accuracy under various levels of nodes churn. Furthermore, distributed consistency in continuous systems is addressed in the research. The work has proposed a novel continuous epidemic protocol with the adaptive restart mechanism. The protocol restarts either upon the detection of system convergence or upon the detection of divergence. Also, the protocol introduces the seed selection method for the peak data distribution in decentralised approaches, which was a challenge that requires single-point initialisation and leader-election step. The simulations validated the performance of the algorithm under static and dynamic conditions and approved that convergence and divergence detection accuracy can be tuned as desired. Finally, the research work shows that combining and integrating of the proposed protocols enables extreme-scale distributed systems to achieve and detect global consistent states even under realistic and dynamical conditions