Multiparty/Multimedia Conferencing in Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks for Improving Communications between Firefighters

In current practice, firefighters’ communications systems are verbal, using a simplex Radio Frequency (RF) system (walkie-talkie). They use a push-to-talk mechanism in which only one person can talk at any time and all other firefighters will hear the messages. They use special codes (e.g. 1008, 1009, etc.) to express their current situation. Firefighters of the same team need to be in visual contact with each other at all times. This RF system does not support other functionalities (e.g. video communications, conference calls). In addition, because communication between firefighters is a flat structure, private communications is not possible. Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (MANETs) are infrastructure-less and self-organized wireless networks of mobile devices, which are not based on any centralized control. MANETs are suitable for the hosting of a wide range of applications in emergency situations, such as natural or human-induced disasters, and military and commercial settings. Multimedia conferencing is an important category of application that can be deployed in MANETs. This includes well-known sets of applications, such as audio/video conferencing, data communications, and multiplayer games. Conferencing can be defined as the conversational exchange of data content between several parties. Conferencing requires, at the very least, the opening of two sessions: a call signaling session, and a media handling session. Call signaling is used to set up, modify, and terminate the conference. Media handling is used to cover the transportation of the media, and to control/manage the media mixers and media connections. So far, very little attention has been devoted to the firefighters’ communication system. In the present work, we focus on building a new communication system for firefighters using multimedia conferencing/sub-conferencing in MANETs. The background information for the firefighters’ current communications system and MANETs, along with the multimedia conferencing, is provided. The limitations of this system are determined, and the requirements are derived to determine the functionalities of a better communication system that will overcome current limitations. We have proposed a cluster-based signaling architecture that meets our requirements. We have also identified a state-of-the-art media handling and mixing system that meets most of our requirements, and have adapted it to inter-work with our signaling system. We have implemented the proposed architecture using SIP signaling protocol. Performance measurements have been performed on the prototype. Through experiments, we have found that the new multimedia communication system is a very promising approach to solve the current firefighters’ communication problems

Blockchain and FL-based Network Resource Management for Interactive Immersive Services

Advanced services leveraged for future smart cities have played a significant role in the advancement of 5G networks towards the 6G vision. Interactive immersive applications are an example of those enabled services. Such applications allow for the interaction between multiple users in a 3D environment created by virtual presentations of real objects and participants using various technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), Extended Reality (XR), Digital Twin (DT) and holography. These applications require advanced computing models which allow for the processing of massive gathered amounts of data. Motions, gestures and object modification should be captured, added to the virtual environment, and shared with all the participants. Relying only on the cloud to process this data can cause significant delays. Therefore, a hybrid cloud/edge architecturewith an intelligent resource orchestration mechanism, that is able to allocate the available capacities efficiently is necessary. In this paper, a blockchain and federated learning-enabled predicted edge-resource allocation (FLP-RA) algorithm is introduced to manage the allocation of computing resources in B5G networks. It allows for smart edge nodes to train their local data and share it with other nodes to create a global estimation of future network loads. As such, nodes are able to make accurate decisions to distribute the available resources to provide the lowest computing delay

Digital twin for healthcare immersive services: fundamentals, architectures, and open issues

Digital Twin (DT) and Immersive Services (XR) technologies are revolutionizing the medical sector through designing applications that support virtual representation and interactive reality. Both technologies leverage one another to advance healthcare services and provide professionals a virtual environment where they can interact with the digital information of their patients more conveniently. The integration of DT and XR technologies enables the creation of advanced 3D models of patients (e.g., organs or body) based on their accurate real data gathered and processed by the DT improving traditional healthcare treatments such as telemedicine, training, and consultation. This chapter introduces the DT technology in immersive healthcare services and presents its benefits to the medical sector. It discusses the various requirements and protocols to build immersive models of the DT using advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML)-based mechanisms. The chapter also proposes various paradigms that can be used to enable rapid deployment of these models, meeting the strict demands of the medical sector in terms of efficiency, accuracy, and precision

Edge Intelligence for Empowering IoT-based Healthcare Systems

The demand for real-time, affordable, and efficient smart healthcare services is increasing exponentially due to the technological revolution and burst of population. To meet the increasing demands on this critical infrastructure, there is a need for intelligent methods to cope with the existing obstacles in this area. In this regard, edge computing technology can reduce latency and energy consumption by moving processes closer to the data sources in comparison to the traditional centralized cloud and IoT-based healthcare systems. In addition, by bringing automated insights into the smart healthcare systems, artificial intelligence (AI) provides the possibility of detecting and predicting high-risk diseases in advance, decreasing medical costs for patients, and offering efficient treatments. The objective of this article is to highlight the benefits of the adoption of edge intelligent technology, along with AI in smart healthcare systems. Moreover, a novel smart healthcare model is proposed to boost the utilization of AI and edge technology in smart healthcare systems. Additionally, the paper discusses issues and research directions arising when integrating these different technologies together.Comment: This paper has been accepted in IEEE Wireless Communication Magazin

Blockchain and Fog Computining for Cyberphysical Systems: The Case of Smart Industry

© 1970-2012 IEEE. Blockchain and fog computing are being evaluated as potential support for software and a wide spectrum of critical applications. This article presents the knowledge of blockchain and fog computing required to improve cyberphysical systems. Emerging challenges and issues are also discussed

Blockchain-assisted Decentralized Virtual Prosumer Grouping for P2P Energy Trading

© 2020 IEEE. Energy trading systems have revolutionized by taking advantage of energy users who produce surplusenergy. In the cyberphysical energy sharing systems, the participation of such consumers who can also sell their residuum energy for profit, namely prosumers, is critical for the sustainable and efficient energy sharing procedure and requires improved prosumer management. The idea of grouping the prosumers for better profits is a promising approach for prosumer management which is currently carried out in centralized manner; that face trust, security and scalability issues. Hence, a strong tool that can protect the prosumer privacy; log the changes for audit purposes and eventually improve the performance of the system is necessary. This paper proposes a blockchain-assisted approach using smart contracts for improved scalability and decentralization of the prosumer grouping mechanism in the context of P2P energy trading. The results show around 38.7% improvement in the performance and scalability of the system

An Adaptive UAV Positioning Model for Sustainable Smart Transportation

Several research works are being considered to adopt the use of UAVs to support smart transportation systems due to their movement flexibility. In this article, a UAV-supported vehicular network solution is developed which considers both power and coverage limitations of UAVs to attain the vision of sustainable smart cities. Nodes communicate with each other through the 5G connection and ad-hoc links. The solution is solved for as a predictive optimization problem that determines the height of the UAV to dynamically change it to ensure the optimal communication coverage of vehicular nodes. Moreover, the solution considers UAV energy consumption constraints when setting the optimal height of the UAV. Additionally, the optimal distance between every two adjacent UAVs is also considered to avoid any coverage overlapping while protecting their connectivity. Extensive evaluations were considered in terms of both implementation and simulation to test the proposed model. Evaluation results show that the proposed solution can predict vehicle traffic patterns accurately to ensure proper adjustments of the UAV height. Moreover, network coverage is ensured for areas with and without fixed BS availability with the support of the self-positioning UAVs while adhering to QoS requirements

Evaluation of Deep Learning Models in ITS Software-Defined Intrusion Detection Systems

Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), mainly Autonomous Vehicles (AV\u27s), are susceptible to security and safety problems that risk the users\u27 lives. Sophisticated threats can damage the security of AV\u27s communications and computational capabilities, slowing down their integration into our daily lives. Cyber-attacks are getting more complex, posing greater hurdles in identifying intrusions effectively. Failing to prevent the intrusions could tarnish the security services\u27 reliability, including data confidentiality, authenticity, and reliability. IDS is an overall prediction paradigm for detecting malicious network traffic in the ITS. This article studies the role of machine or deep learning in Software Defined-Intrusion Detection System (SD-IDS) in ITS; discusses the mathematical analysis of existing deep learning models and evaluates their performances on the basis of the various metrics (i.e., accuracy, precision, recall, f-measure) to observe which model gives the best results for the existing state of art. The results show that improved Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) is best suited for the detection of SD-IDS attacks in the data plane and control plane

AI-based Blockchain for the Metaverse: Approaches and Challenges

The recent advances in AI have enabled novel approaches and remarkable enhancements in the provision of existing services and applications. The metaverse is one of the emerging applications that got the advantages of this technological progression. Due to the cooperation between several cutting-edge technologies including IoT, digital twin (DT), and big data, the metaverse highly relies on the manipulation of an immense amount of gathered data. In this context, security is a major challenge, and as such, blockchain brings several advantages to the metaverse ecosystem as it allows secure and transparent data storage. However, with the dynamic nature of such an ecosystem and the fast variation in its AI-based services, the traditional blockchain features (e.g. smart contracts and consensus protocols) will face big challenges to meet the needed dynamic service requirements and scalability. This positioning paper proposes the concept of using a blockchain governed by AI to leverage the various features and advantages of blockchain services. The paper provides a review of the role of blockchain in the metaverse, challenges that arise, and then the role of AI in building intelligent blockchain features and their impact on the metaverse ecosystem