Vehicular Mobile Commerce: Applications, Challenges, and Research Problems

With an increasing number of vehicles with significant computing and communication, many applications such as vehicular Internet hot-spots, digital and entertainment content\u27s broadcast, Intelligent Transportation Systems applications, and highway management will become possible. This vehicular mobile commerce will actively involve vehicles and users in both extending the existing mobile commerce applications to the vehicular environment and creating many more new and suitable applications. Before vehicular mobile commerce becomes a practical reality, many technical, structural and user issues must be addressed. In this paper, we identify and discuss several vehicular mobile commerce applications as well as wireless and networking challenges. We present possible solutions for vehicular mobile commerce and define several research problems that should be undertaken

Design of secure mobile payment protocols for restricted connectivity scenarios

The emergence of mobile and wireless networks made posible the extensión of electronic commerce to a new area of research: mobile commerce called m-commerce, which includes mobile payment), that refers to any e-commerce transaction made from a mobile device using wireless networks. Most of the mobile payment systems found in the literatura are based on the full connectivity scenario where all the entities are directly connected one to another but do not support business models with direct communication restrictions between the entities of the system is not a impediment to perform comercial transactions. It is for this reason that mobile payment systems that consider those situations where direct communications between entities of the system is not posible (temporarily or permanently) basically due to the impossibility of one of the entities connected to the Internet are required. In order to solve the current shortage in the scientific world of previous research works that address the problema of on-line payment from mobile devices in connectivity restricted scenarios, in this thesis we propose a set of secure payment protocols (that use both symmetric and non-traditional asymmetric cryptography), which have low computational power requirements, are fit for scenarios with communications restrictions (where at least two of the entities of the system cannot exchange information in a direct way and must do it through another entity) and offer the same security capabilities as those protocols designed for full connectivity scenarios. The proposed protocols are applicable to other types of networks, such as vehicular ad hoc network (VANETs), where services exist which require on-line payment and scenarios with communication restrictions.On the other hand, the implementation (in a multiplatform programming language) of the designed protocols shows that their performance is suitable for devices with limited computational power.Postprint (published version

Anonymous network access using the digital marketplace

With increasing usage of mobile telephony, and the trend towards additional mobile Internet usage, privacy and anonymity become more and more important. Previously-published anonymous communication schemes aim to obscure their users' network addresses, because real-world identity can be easily be derived from this information. We propose modifications to a novel call-management architecture, the digital marketplace, which will break this link, therefore enabling truly anonymous network access

Hybrid-Vehfog: A Robust Approach for Reliable Dissemination of Critical Messages in Connected Vehicles

Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANET) enable efficient communication between vehicles with the aim of improving road safety. However, the growing number of vehicles in dense regions and obstacle shadowing regions like Manhattan and other downtown areas leads to frequent disconnection problems resulting in disrupted radio wave propagation between vehicles. To address this issue and to transmit critical messages between vehicles and drones deployed from service vehicles to overcome road incidents and obstacles, we proposed a hybrid technique based on fog computing called Hybrid-Vehfog to disseminate messages in obstacle shadowing regions, and multi-hop technique to disseminate messages in non-obstacle shadowing regions. Our proposed algorithm dynamically adapts to changes in an environment and benefits in efficiency with robust drone deployment capability as needed. Performance of Hybrid-Vehfog is carried out in Network Simulator (NS-2) and Simulation of Urban Mobility (SUMO) simulators. The results showed that Hybrid-Vehfog outperformed Cloud-assisted Message Downlink Dissemination Scheme (CMDS), Cross-Layer Broadcast Protocol (CLBP), PEer-to-Peer protocol for Allocated REsource (PrEPARE), Fog-Named Data Networking (NDN) with mobility, and flooding schemes at all vehicle densities and simulation times

A New Vehicle Localization Scheme Based on Combined Optical Camera Communication and Photogrammetry

The demand for autonomous vehicles is increasing gradually owing to their enormous potential benefits. However, several challenges, such as vehicle localization, are involved in the development of autonomous vehicles. A simple and secure algorithm for vehicle positioning is proposed herein without massively modifying the existing transportation infrastructure. For vehicle localization, vehicles on the road are classified into two categories: host vehicles (HVs) are the ones used to estimate other vehicles' positions and forwarding vehicles (FVs) are the ones that move in front of the HVs. The FV transmits modulated data from the tail (or back) light, and the camera of the HV receives that signal using optical camera communication (OCC). In addition, the streetlight (SL) data are considered to ensure the position accuracy of the HV. Determining the HV position minimizes the relative position variation between the HV and FV. Using photogrammetry, the distance between FV or SL and the camera of the HV is calculated by measuring the occupied image area on the image sensor. Comparing the change in distance between HV and SLs with the change in distance between HV and FV, the positions of FVs are determined. The performance of the proposed technique is analyzed, and the results indicate a significant improvement in performance. The experimental distance measurement validated the feasibility of the proposed scheme