Energy Efficient UAV-Assisted Emergency Communication with Reliable Connectivity and Collision Avoidance

Emergency communication is vital for search and rescue operations following natural disasters. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) can significantly assist emergency communication by agile positioning, maintaining connectivity during rapid motion, and relaying critical disaster-related information to Ground Control Stations (GCS). Designing effective routing protocols for relaying crucial data in UAV networks is challenging due to dynamic topology, rapid mobility, and limited UAV resources. This paper presents a novel energy-constrained routing mechanism that ensures connectivity, inter-UAV collision avoidance, and network restoration post-UAV fragmentation while adapting without a predefined UAV path. The proposed method employs improved Q learning to optimize the next-hop node selection. Considering these factors, the paper proposes a novel, Improved Q-learning-based Multi-hop Routing (IQMR) protocol. Simulation results validate IQMRs adaptability to changing system conditions and superiority over QMR, QTAR, and QFANET in energy efficiency and data throughput. IQMR achieves energy consumption efficiency improvements of 32.27%, 36.35%, and 36.35% over QMR, Q-FANET, and QTAR, along with significantly higher data throughput enhancements of 53.3%, 80.35%, and 93.36% over Q-FANET, QMR, and QTAR.Comment: 13 page

Network Centralities in Quantum Entanglement Distribution due to User Preferences

Quantum networks are of great interest of late which apply quantum mechanics to transfer information securely. One of the key properties which are exploited is entanglement to transfer information from one network node to another. Applications like quantum teleportation rely on the entanglement between the concerned nodes. Thus, efficient entanglement distribution among network nodes is of utmost importance. Several entanglement distribution methods have been proposed in the literature which primarily rely on attributes, such as, fidelities, link layer network topologies, proactive distribution, etc. This paper studies the centralities of the network when the link layer topology of entanglements (referred to as entangled graph) is driven by usage patterns of peer-to-peer connections between remote nodes (referred to as connection graph) with different characteristics. Three different distributions (uniform, gaussian, and power law) are considered for the connection graph where the two nodes are selected from the same distribution. For the entangled graph, both reactive and proactive entanglements are employed to form a random graph. Results show that the edge centralities (measured as usage frequencies of individual edges during entanglement distribution) of the entangled graph follow power law distributions whereas the growth in entanglements with connections and node centralities (degrees of nodes) are monomolecularly distributed for most of the scenarios. These findings will help in quantum resource management, e.g., quantum technology with high reliability and lower decoherence time may be allocated to edges with high centralities

Coverage Enhancement of PBCH using Reduced Search Viterbi for MTC in LTE-Advanced Networks

Abstract-Machine Type Communication (MTC) is becoming an integral part of the Long Term Evolution -Advanced (LTE-A) cellular network. Challenges arise when some of the MTC devices, due to the nature of their applications, are deployed in low signal locations. As per 3GPP requirements, there is a need for additional coverage enhancement up to 20 dB in comparison with LTE category 1 UE for MTC devices. In the previous works reported till now, Repetition Coding is proposed as an effective technique to achieve the required coverage enhancements at cost of longer decoding time. In low signal conditions where many repetitions are required to build the SNR needed, the decoding delay may be unacceptable. For a LTE-A MTC UE, Physical Broadcast CHannel (PBCH) decoding has a very important role and fast, efficient decoding of PBCH will help to improve the device performance. In this paper, we propose to use well established technique called Reduced Search (RS) Viterbi to improve PBCH decoding performance without compromising the time-to-decode. RS Viterbi technique utilizes a priori knowledge of transmitted bits to reduce the size and complexity of trellis, which in turn also reduces probability of choosing incorrect path, i.e., error. Up to 2.2 dB SNR gain is seen in simulation using the RS Viterbi decoding against the conventional Viterbi decoding, which will contribute in improving the sensitivity of MTC devices for better reachability

Evolutionary Game Theory-Based Collaborative Sensing Model in Emergency CRAHNs

Game theory has been a tool of choice for modeling dynamic interactions between autonomous systems. Cognitive radio ad hoc networks (CRAHNs) constituted of autonomous wireless nodes are a natural fit for game theory-based modeling. The game theory-based model is particularly suitable for “collaborative spectrum sensing” where each cognitive radio senses the spectrum and shares the results with other nodes such that the targeted sensing accuracy is achieved. Spectrum sensing in CRAHNs, especially when used in emergency scenarios such as disaster management and military applications, needs to be not only accurate and resource efficient, but also adaptive to the changing number of users as well as signal-to-noise ratios. In addition, spectrum sensing mechanism must also be proactive, fair, and tolerant to security attacks. Existing work in collaborative spectrum sensing has mostly been confined to resource efficiency in static systems using request-based reactive sensing resulting in high latencies. In this paper, evolutionary game theory (EGT) is used to model the behavior of the emergency CRAHNS, providing an efficient model for collaborative spectrum sensing. The resulting implementation model is adaptive to the changes in its environment such as signal-to-noise ratio and number of users in the network. The analytical and simulation models presented validate the system design and the desired performance

Perils of the web : cyber security and internet safety

Today almost half of the global population is online and an estimated 3.2 billion people stay connected: falling victims to cybercrimes and cyberbullying; suffering from Internet Addiction and cyber-related disorders; cheated by other online users and haunted by their own past mistakes suddenly posted online. On the Internet every information may become a permanent record, following the users who were not aware of the consequences of their ‘click’ when they shared a photo, posted a text, or filled a form, not knowing who was on the other end. A friend of a cyber-friend may turn into a cyberbully, online love affairs may end in cyberstalking, sharing too much information may lead to cybercrimes, Internet frauds and identity thefts. Very often the recklessness or unawareness of Internet users make them vulnerable to all sorts of cyber abuse. How can we protect ourselves and make cyberspace a safer place? This interdisciplinary volume seeks to explore the practical dimensions of cyber threats and the changes cyber space brought to the social and cultural environment we have known so far