Empowering the Internet of Vehicles with Multi-RAT 5G Network Slicing

Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is a hot research niche exploiting the synergy between Cooperative Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) and the Internet of Things (IoT), which can greatly benefit of the upcoming development of 5G technologies. The variety of end-devices, applications, and Radio Access Technologies (RATs) in IoV calls for new networking schemes that assure the Quality of Service (QoS) demanded by the users. To this end, network slicing techniques enable traffic differentiation with the aim of ensuring flow isolation, resource assignment, and network scalability. This work fills the gap of 5G network slicing for IoV and validates it in a realistic vehicular scenario. It offers an accurate bandwidth control with a full flow-isolation, which is essential for vehicular critical systems. The development is based on a distributed Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) architecture, which provides flexibility for the dynamic placement of the Virtualized Network Functions (VNFs) in charge of managing network traffic. The solution is able to integrate heterogeneous radio technologies such as cellular networks and specific IoT communications with potential in the vehicular sector, creating isolated network slices without risking the Core Network (CN) scalability. The validation results demonstrate the framework capabilities of short and predictable slice-creation time, performance/QoS assurance and service scalability of up to one million connected devices.EC/H2020/825496/EU/5G for cooperative & connected automated MOBIility on X-border corridors/5G-MOBI

Implantación de plataforma virtual en prácticas docentes interuniversitarias en el Internet de las Cosas

Las titulaciones compartidas e impartidas por distintas instituciones universitarias están cobrando gran auge, ya que permiten aunar esfuerzos y ofrecer títulos interdisciplinares que aprovechan la sinergia entre profesorado diverso. No obstante, la descentralización de los estudiantes conlleva el reto de mantener la calidad y homogeneidad de la docencia en todas las instituciones implicadas, especialmente en las sesiones prácticas. Por este motivo, en este trabajo se propone una metodología docente en una asignatura de Internet de las Cosas en un máster interuniversitario impartido por dos centros españoles, que requiere tratar con grupos de estudiantes heterogéneos y material para prácticas distinto en ambas sedes. Se ha desarrollado un sistema de prácticas presenciales y virtuales que es común para el alumnado de ambas instituciones, de modo que ambos grupos realizan las mismas sesiones aun no disponiendo de un equipamiento de prácticas homogéneo. Las prácticas tienen un enfoque técnico, incluyendo el montaje y programación de circuitos electrónicos con Arduino y su interconexión con una plataforma de Internet de las Cosas en la nube. Mientras que los estudiantes presenciales tienen acceso a los componentes hardware del sistema a desplegar, los que asisten en remoto realizan el mismo montaje a través de una plataforma de simulación on-line, permitiendo desarrollos equivalentes y un seguimiento homogéneo en el ejercicio docente. La propuesta se encuentra actualmente en fase de ejecución y este trabajo presenta sus principales características, identificando los retos para los siguientes cursos académicos.The degrees shared by different universities are gaining momentum lately. They allow to combine efforts and offer interdisciplinary degrees to students, taking advantage of the synergy among diverse teaching staff. However, the decentralization of students brings the challenge of maintaining quality and homogeneity of education, especially in practical sessions. For this reason, this paper proposes a teaching methodology in a subject focused on the Internet of Things (IoT). This subject is framed in an interuniversity master taught by two Spanish centers, which requires dealing with heterogeneous students and equipment for practices in both venues. Therefore, a common laboratory program has been developed for the students of both institutions, so that both groups perform the same laboratory sessions even if they do not have a homogeneous equipment. The practices have an eminent technical approach, including the assembly and programming of electronic circuits with Arduino and its interconnection with an IoT platform in the cloud. While the face-to-face students have access to the real hardware components, those who attend remotely do the same work through an on-line simulation platform, allowing equivalent developments and a homogeneous follow-up of sessions. The proposed teaching methodology is currently in its execution phase and this paper presents its main features, identifying major challenges for the coming years.Este trabajo ha sido realizado con el soporte del proyecto PERSEIDES (TIN2017-86885-R) del Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, del Programa Ramón y Cajal (RYC-2017-23823) del Misterio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades, así como del programa “Ayudas para la Excelencia de los Equipos de Investigación Avanzada en Ciberseguridad“ del INCIBE (INCIBEI-2015-27363)

MIGRATE: mobile device virtualisation through state transfer

Delegation of processing tasks to the network has moved from cloud-based schemes to edge computing solutions where nearby servers process requests in a timely manner. Virtualisation technologies have recently given data cloud and network providers the required flexibility to offer such on-demand resources. However, the maintenance of close computing resources presents a challenge when the served devices are on the move. In this case, if processing continuity is desired, a transference of processing resources and task state should be committed to maintain the service to end devices. The solution here presented, MIGRATE, proposes the concept of virtual mobile devices (vMDs) implemented as Virtual Functions (VxF) and acting as virtual representatives of physical processing devices. vMDs are instantiated at the edge of the access network, following a Multi-Access Edge Computing (MEC) approach, and move across different virtualisation domains. MIGRATE provides seamless and efficient transference of these software entities to follow the real location of mobile devices and continue supporting their physical counterparts. Software Defined Networks and Management and Operation functions are exploited to “migrate” vMDs to new virtualisation domains by forwarding data flows to the former domain until the new one is prepared, while a distributed data base avoids the transference of data. The solution has been deployed in a reference vehicular scenario at the Institute of Telecommunications Aveiro premises within the 5GINFIRE European project. In particular, the system has been evaluated under different virtualisation domains to study the operation of the migration approach in a vehicular monitoring scenario. The results validate the system from the application viewpoint with a Web monitoring tool, and the migration of the digital twin provided as VxF is analysed attending to the modification of data flows, indicating a seamless transition between virtualisation domains in a timely manner.publishe

Sistemas de gestión de contenido web: Uso y estudio comparativo inicial de su seguridad

[ES] Los Sistemas de Gestión de Contenido Web (Web Content Management Systems, WCMS) han ganado mucha popularidad debido a la facilidad que aportan a la hora de crear páginas o portales web, sites de comercio electrónico, etc. En este trabajo se explica de forma resumida cómo es el manejo los WCMS y qué se puede lograr con su uso. Para ello, trabajaremos con tres de los más populares WCMS de tipo open-source empleados hoy en día, Joomla, Wordpress y Drupal, y veremos las ventajas e inconvenientes de trabajar con cada uno de ellos. Con este fin, crearemos tres web iguales en requisitos y funcionalidades, una con cada WCMS, y se analizará cualitativamente la complejidad de cada uno de ellos. Finalmente, realizaremos un análisis básico de seguridad de las webs creadas, informando de sus posibles vulnerabilidades, explicando cómo mejorar su seguridad, qué fallos no debemos cometer y qué WCMS es inicialmente más seguro/vulnerable.This research was supported by the AEI/FEDER, UE project grant TEC2016-76465-C2-1-R (AIM).Aledo-Hernández, A.; Guillén-Pérez, A.; Martinez-Caro, J.; Sanchez-Iborra, R.; Cano, M. (2018). Sistemas de gestión de contenido web: Uso y estudio comparativo inicial de su seguridad. En XIII Jornadas de Ingeniería telemática (JITEL 2017). Libro de actas. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 86-92. https://doi.org/10.4995/JITEL2017.2017.6558OCS869

State of the Art in LP-WAN Solutions for Industrial IoT Services

The emergence of low-cost connected devices is enabling a new wave of sensorization services. These services can be highly leveraged in industrial applications. However, the technologies employed so far for managing this kind of system do not fully cover the strict requirements of industrial networks, especially those regarding energy efficiency. In this article a novel paradigm, called Low-Power Wide Area Networking (LP-WAN), is explored. By means of a cellular-type architecture, LP-WAN–based solutions aim at fulfilling the reliability and efficiency challenges posed by long-term industrial networks. Thus, the most prominent LP-WAN solutions are reviewed, identifying and discussing the pros and cons of each of them. The focus is also on examining the current deployment state of these platforms in Spain. Although LP-WAN systems are at early stages of development, they represent a promising alternative for boosting future industrial IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) networks and services

LPWAN and Embedded Machine Learning as Enablers for the Next Generation of Wearable Devices

The penetration of wearable devices in our daily lives is unstoppable. Although they are very popular, so far, these elements provide a limited range of services that are mostly focused on monitoring tasks such as fitness, activity, or health tracking. Besides, given their hardware and power constraints, wearable units are dependent on a master device, e.g., a smartphone, to make decisions or send the collected data to the cloud. However, a new wave of both communication and artificial intelligence (AI)-based technologies fuels the evolution of wearables to an upper level. Concretely, they are the low-power wide-area network (LPWAN) and tiny machine-learning (TinyML) technologies. This paper reviews and discusses these solutions, and explores the major implications and challenges of this technological transformation. Finally, the results of an experimental study are presented, analyzing (i) the long-range connectivity gained by a wearable device in a university campus scenario, thanks to the integration of LPWAN communications, and (ii) how complex the intelligence embedded in this wearable unit can be. This study shows the interesting characteristics brought by these state-of-the-art paradigms, concluding that a wide variety of novel services and applications will be supported by the next generation of wearables

State of the Art in LP-WAN Solutions for Industrial IoT Services

The emergence of low-cost connected devices is enabling a new wave of sensorization services. These services can be highly leveraged in industrial applications. However, the technologies employed so far for managing this kind of system do not fully cover the strict requirements of industrial networks, especially those regarding energy efficiency. In this article a novel paradigm, called Low-Power Wide Area Networking (LP-WAN), is explored. By means of a cellular-type architecture, LP-WAN–based solutions aim at fulfilling the reliability and efficiency challenges posed by long-term industrial networks. Thus, the most prominent LP-WAN solutions are reviewed, identifying and discussing the pros and cons of each of them. The focus is also on examining the current deployment state of these platforms in Spain. Although LP-WAN systems are at early stages of development, they represent a promising alternative for boosting future industrial IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) networks and services

Eco-Efficient Mobility in Smart City Scenarios

Cooperative-Intelligent Transportation Systems (C-ITS) have brought a technological revolution, especially for ground vehicles, in terms of road safety, traffic efficiency, as well as in the experience of drivers and passengers. So far, these advances have been focused on traditional transportation means, leaving aside the new generation of personal vehicles that are nowadays flooding our streets. Together with bicycles and motorcycles, personal mobility devices such as segways or electric scooters are firm sustainable alternatives that represent the future to achieve eco-friendly personal mobility in urban settings. In a near future, smart cities will become hyper-connected spaces where these vehicles should be integrated within the underlying C-ITS ecosystem. In this paper, we provide a wide overview of the opportunities and challenges related to this necessary integration as well as the communication solutions that are already in the market to provide these moving devices with low-cost and efficient connectivity. We also present an On-Board Unit (OBU) prototype with different communication options based on the Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) paradigm and several sensors to gather environmental information to facilitate eco-efficiency services. As the attained results suggest, this module allows personal vehicles to be fully integrated in smart city environments, presenting the possibilities of LoRaWAN and Narrow Band-Internet of Things (NB-IoT) communication technologies to provide vehicle connectivity and enable mobile urban sensing