A Novel Airborne Self-organising Architecture for 5G+ Networks

Network Flying Platforms (NFPs) such as unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned balloons or drones flying at low/medium/high altitude can be employed to enhance network coverage and capacity by deploying a swarm of flying platforms that implement novel radio resource management techniques. In this paper, we propose a novel layered architecture where NFPs, of various types and flying at low/medium/high layers in a swarm of flying platforms, are considered as an integrated part of the future cellular networks to inject additional capacity and expand the coverage for exceptional scenarios (sports events, concerts, etc.) and hard-to-reach areas (rural or sparsely populated areas). Successful roll-out of the proposed architecture depends on several factors including, but are not limited to: network optimisation for NFP placement and association, safety operations of NFP for network/equipment security, and reliability for NFP transport and control/signaling mechanisms. In this work, we formulate the optimum placement of NFP at a Lower Layer (LL) by exploiting the airborne Self-organising Network (SON) features. Our initial simulations show the NFP-LL can serve more User Equipment (UE)s using this placement technique.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, conference paper in IEEE VTC-Fall 2017, in Proceedings IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC-Fall 2017), Toronto, Canada, Sep. 201

Totally connected healthcare with TV white spaces

Recent technological advances in electronics, wireless communications and low cost medical sensors generated a plethora of Wearable Medical Devices (WMDs), which are capable of generating considerably large amounts of new, unstructured real-time data. This contribution outlines how this data can be propagated to a healthcare system through the internet, using long distance Radio Access Networks (RANs) and proposes a novel communication system architecture employing White Space Devices (WSD) to provide seamless connectivity to its users. Initial findings indicate that the proposed communication system can facilitate broadband services over a large geographical area taking advantage of the freely available TV White Spaces (TVWS)

UMOD : a device for monitoring postoperative urination

A Urine Monitoring Device (UMOD) has been designed and implemented for monitoring postoperative urination. This device has been created primarily to assist nurses and doctors monitor patients during their postoperative and recovery period. Furthermore, to reduce the burden of the nursing staff required to regularly monitor and empty the urine bags saving them precious time. The device consists of a stand and a load cell where the urine bag is attached. The stand is light and can easily move shall the patient require to move. An ESP Wi-Fi microprocessor module is used to calculate the rate of flow of urine in real time, identify and ignore any false readings due to accidental movements of the urine bag using an accelerometer and transmit the readings to a server / cloud through the local Wi-Fi

The challenges of balancing safety and security in implantable medical devices

Modern Implantable Medical Devices (IMDs), implement capabilities that have contributed significantly to patient outcomes, as well as quality of life. The ever increasing connectivity of IMD's does raise security concerns though there are instances where implemented security measures might impact on patient safety. The paper discusses challenges of addressing both of these attributes in parallel

Blockchain-Based Energy Trading in ElectricVehicle Enabled Microgrids

This article presents a blockchain-basedscheme for energy trading between electric vehicles(prosumers) and critical load (consumer) in a mi-crogrid. Unlike traditional wholesale energy mar-kets where retailers sell energy to consumers, ourproposed model directly connects prosumers withconsumers to exchange energy. We exploit blockchaintechnology to establish a trusted energy tradingecosystem. The article provides an overview of theblockchain enabled architecture that facilitates peer-to-peer energy trade in a logical network, using thebuilding blocks provided by 5G network. An energytrading prototype is developed to remotely monitorenergy trading activities between prosumers and con-sumer, using graphical user interface. Experimentalresults based on a real map of Paisley illustrate thatthe energy trading system is effective in finding,associating and routing prosumers to consumers,while protecting privacy of entities. Numerical resultsshow a favorable performance of our optimizationmodel in comparison to traditional frameworks

MedSecurance Project: advanced security-for-safety assurance for medical device IoT (IoMT)

The MedSecurance project focus on identifying new challenges in cyber security with focus on hardware and software medical devices in the context of emerging healthcare architectures. In addition, the project will review best practice and identify gaps in the guidance, particularly the guidance stipulated by the medical device regulation and directives. Finally, the project will develop comprehensive methodology and tooling for the engineering of trustworthy networks of inter-operating medical devices, that shall have security-for-safety by design, with a strategy for device certification and certifiable dynamic network composition, ensuring that patient safety is safeguarded from malicious cyber actors and technology “accidents”.This work is co-funded by the HORIZON.2.1 - Health Programme of the European Commission, Grant Agreement number: 101095448 - Advanced Security-for-safety Assurance for Medical Device IoT (MEDSECURANCE).Peer ReviewedArticle signat per 29 autors/es: Parisis GALLOS (a), Rance DeLONG (b), Nicholas MATRAGKAS (c), Allan BLANCHARD (c), Chokri MRAIDHA (c), Gregory EPIPHANIOU (d), Carsten MAPLE (d), Konstantinos KATZIS (e), Jaime DELGADO (f), Silvia LLORENTE (f), Pedro MALÓ (g), Bruno ALMEIDA (g), Andreas MENYCHTAS (h), Christos PANAGOPOULOS (h), Ilias MAGLOGIANNIS (h), Petros PAPACHRISTOU (i), Mariana SOARES (j), Paula BREIA (j), Ana Cristina VIDAL (j), Martin RATZ (k), Ross WILLIAMSON (k), Eduard ERWEE (k), Lukasz STASIAK (k), Orfeu FLORES (l), Carla CLEMENTE (l), John MANTAS (a), Patrick WEBER (a), Theodoros N. ARVANITIS (m) and Scott HANSEN (b) // (a) European Federation of Medical Informatics, Switzerland; (b) The Open Group, UK; (c) CEA, List, Université Paris-Saclay, France; (d) University of Warwick, UK; (e) European University Cyprus, Cyprus; (f) Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Spain; (g) Unparallel Innovation, Portugal; (h) BioAssist S.A., Greece; (i) HYGEIA Medical Group, Greece; (j) Centro Garcia de Orta, Hospital Garcia de Orta, Portugal; (k) Doccla AB, Sweden; (l) STAB VIDA, Portugal m University of Birmingham, UKObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::3 - Salut i BenestarPostprint (published version

Wavelet analysis applied on temporal data sets in order to reveal possible pre-seismic radio anomalies and comparison with the trend of the raw data

Since 2009, several radio receivers have been installed throughout Europe in order to realize the INFREP European radio network for studying the VLF (10-50 kHz) and LF (150-300 kHz) radio precursors of earthquakes. Precursors can be related to “anomalies” in the night-time behavior of VLF signals. A suitable method of analysis is the use of the Wavelet spectra. Using the “Morlet function”, the Wavelet transform of a time signal is a complex series that can be usefully represented by its square amplitude, i.e. considering the so-called Wavelet power spectrum. The power spectrum is a 2D diagram that, once properly normalized with respect to the power of the white noise, gives information on the strength and precise time of occurrence of the various Fourier components, which are present in the original time series. The main difference between the Wavelet power spectra and the Fourier power spectra for the time series is that the former identifies the frequency content along the operational time, which cannot be done with the latter. Anomalies are identified as regions of the Wavelet spectrogram characterized by a sudden increase in the power strength. On January 30, 2020 an earthquake with Mw= 6.0 occurred in Dodecanese Islands. The results of the Wavelet analysis carried out on data collected some INFREP receivers is compared with the trends of the raw data. The time series from January 24, 2020 till January 31, 2000 was analyzed. The Wavelet spectrogram shows a peak corresponding to a period of 1 day on the days before January 30. This anomaly was found for signals transmitted at the frequencies 19,58 kHz, 20, 27 kHz, 23,40 kHz with an energy in the peak increasing from 19,58 kHz to 23,40 kHz. In particular, the signal at the frequency 19,58 kHz, shows a peak on January 29, while the frequencies 20,27 kHz and 23,40 kHz are characterized by a peak starting on January 28 and continuing to January 29. The results presented in this work shows the perspective use of the Wavelet spectrum analysis as an operational tool for the detection of anomalies in VLF and LF signal potentially related to EQ precursors

5G and beyond networks

This chapter investigates the Network Layer aspects that will characterize the merger of the cellular paradigm and the IoT architectures, in the context of the evolution towards 5G-and-beyond, including some promising emerging services as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or Base Stations, and V2X communications

Creating XML/PHP interface for BAN interoperability

Recent advances in medical and electronic technologies have introduced the use of Body Area Networks as a part of e-health, for constant and accurate monitoring of patients and the transmission as well as processing of the data to develop a holistic Electronic Health Record. The rising global population, different BAN manufacturers and a variety of medical systems pose the issue of interoperability between BANs and systems as well as the proper way to propagate medical data in an organized and efficient manner. In this paper, we describe BANs and propose the use of certain web technologies to address this issue