Reliability of Mobile Agents for Reliable Service Discovery Protocol in MANET

Recently mobile agents are used to discover services in mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) where agents travel through the network, collecting and sometimes spreading the dynamically changing service information. But it is important to investigate how reliable the agents are for this application as the dependability issues(reliability and availability) of MANET are highly affected by its dynamic nature.The complexity of underlying MANET makes it hard to obtain the route reliability of the mobile agent systems (MAS); instead we estimate it using Monte Carlo simulation. Thus an algorithm for estimating the task route reliability of MAS (deployed for discovering services) is proposed, that takes into account the effect of node mobility in MANET. That mobility pattern of the nodes affects the MAS performance is also shown by considering different mobility models. Multipath propagation effect of radio signal is considered to decide link existence. Transient link errors are also considered. Finally we propose a metric to calculate the reliability of service discovery protocol and see how MAS performance affects the protocol reliability. The experimental results show the robustness of the proposed algorithm. Here the optimum value of network bandwidth (needed to support the agents) is calculated for our application. However the reliability of MAS is highly dependent on link failure probability

A multi-agent system to support location based group decision making in mobile teams

This paper describes an agent-based approach for developing a location-based asynchronous group decision-support system for mobile teams. The approach maximises the use of reusable service components (GSCmas — generic service component for multi-agent systems) as the main interaction mechanism between agents to allow flexible support of a new group-decision process. The paper describes the architecture of a GSCmas and provides details of how the GSCmas is integrated within a decision support system. Finally a system (mPower) based on the proposed approach is introduced and applied to a location-based group decision problem

A cooperative cellular and broadcast conditional access system for Pay-TV systems

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2009 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other users, including reprinting/ republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted components of this work in other works.The lack of interoperability between Pay-TV service providers and a horizontally integrated business transaction model have compromised the competition in the Pay-TV market. In addition, the lack of interactivity with customers has resulted in high churn rate and improper security measures have contributed into considerable business loss. These issues are the main cause of high operational costs and subscription fees in the Pay-TV systems. As a result, this paper presents the Mobile Conditional Access System (MICAS) as an end-to-end access control solution for Pay-TV systems. It incorporates the mobile and broadcasting systems and provides a platform whereby service providers can effectively interact with their customers, personalize their services and adopt appropriate security measurements. This would result in the decrease of operating expenses and increase of customers' satisfaction in the system. The paper provides an overview of state-of-the-art conditional access solutions followed by detailed description of design, reference model implementation and analysis of possible MICAS security architectures.Strategy & Technology (S&T) Lt

An Approach to Agent-Based Service Composition and Its Application to Mobile

This paper describes an architecture model for multiagent systems that was developed in the European project LEAP (Lightweight Extensible Agent Platform). Its main feature is a set of generic services that are implemented independently of the agents and can be installed into the agents by the application developer in a flexible way. Moreover, two applications using this architecture model are described that were also developed within the LEAP project. The application domain is the support of mobile, virtual teams for the German automobile club ADAC and for British Telecommunications

Design and experimental validation of a software-defined radio access network testbed with slicing support

Network slicing is a fundamental feature of 5G systems to partition a single network into a number of segregated logical networks, each optimized for a particular type of service or dedicated to a particular customer or application. The realization of network slicing is particularly challenging in the Radio Access Network (RAN) part, where multiple slices can be multiplexed over the same radio channel and Radio Resource Management (RRM) functions shall be used to split the cell radio resources and achieve the expected behaviour per slice. In this context, this paper describes the key design and implementation aspects of a Software-Defined RAN (SD-RAN) experimental testbed with slicing support. The testbed has been designed consistently with the slicing capabilities and related management framework established by 3GPP in Release 15. The testbed is used to demonstrate the provisioning of RAN slices (e.g., preparation, commissioning, and activation phases) and the operation of the implemented RRM functionality for slice-aware admission control and scheduling.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Mobility Management in beyond 3G-Environments

Beyond 3G-environments are typically defined as environments that integrate different wireless and fixed access network technologies. In this paper, we address IP based Mobility Management (MM) in beyond 3G-environments with a focus on wireless access networks, motivated by the current trend of WiFi, GPRS, and UMTS networks. The GPRS and UMTS networks provide countrywide network access, while the WiFi networks provide network access in local areas such as city centres and airports. As a result, mobile end-users can be always on-line and connected to their preferred network(s), these network preferences are typically stored in a user profile. For example, an end-user who wishes to be connected with highest bandwidth could be connected to a WiFi network when available and fall back to GPRS when moving outside the hotspot area.\ud In this paper, we consider a combination of MM for legacy services (like web browsing, telnet, etc.) using Mobile IP and multimedia services using SIP. We assume that the end-user makes use of multi-interface terminals with the capability of selecting one or more types of access networks\ud based on preferences. For multimedia sessions, like VoIP or streaming video, we distinguish between changes in network access when the end-user is in a session or not in a session. If the end-user is not in a session, he or she needs to be able to start new sessions and receive invitations for new sessions. If the end-user is in a session, the session needs to be handed over to the new access network as seamless as possible from the perspective of the end-user. We propose an integrated but flexible solution to these problems that facilitates MM with a customizable transparency to applications and end-users

Digital Ecosystems: Ecosystem-Oriented Architectures

We view Digital Ecosystems to be the digital counterparts of biological ecosystems. Here, we are concerned with the creation of these Digital Ecosystems, exploiting the self-organising properties of biological ecosystems to evolve high-level software applications. Therefore, we created the Digital Ecosystem, a novel optimisation technique inspired by biological ecosystems, where the optimisation works at two levels: a first optimisation, migration of agents which are distributed in a decentralised peer-to-peer network, operating continuously in time; this process feeds a second optimisation based on evolutionary computing that operates locally on single peers and is aimed at finding solutions to satisfy locally relevant constraints. The Digital Ecosystem was then measured experimentally through simulations, with measures originating from theoretical ecology, evaluating its likeness to biological ecosystems. This included its responsiveness to requests for applications from the user base, as a measure of the ecological succession (ecosystem maturity). Overall, we have advanced the understanding of Digital Ecosystems, creating Ecosystem-Oriented Architectures where the word ecosystem is more than just a metaphor.Comment: 39 pages, 26 figures, journa

The simplicity project: easing the burden of using complex and heterogeneous ICT devices and services

As of today, to exploit the variety of different "services", users need to configure each of their devices by using different procedures and need to explicitly select among heterogeneous access technologies and protocols. In addition to that, users are authenticated and charged by different means. The lack of implicit human computer interaction, context-awareness and standardisation places an enormous burden of complexity on the shoulders of the final users. The IST-Simplicity project aims at leveraging such problems by: i) automatically creating and customizing a user communication space; ii) adapting services to user terminal characteristics and to users preferences; iii) orchestrating network capabilities. The aim of this paper is to present the technical framework of the IST-Simplicity project. This paper is a thorough analysis and qualitative evaluation of the different technologies, standards and works presented in the literature related to the Simplicity system to be developed