Showing papers by "Antonio Iera published in 2016"

Information-centric networking for the internet of things: challenges and opportunities

Abstract: In view of evolving the Internet infrastructure, ICN is promoting a communication model that is fundamentally different from the traditional IP address-centric model. The ICN approach consists of the retrieval of content by (unique) names, regardless of origin server location (i.e., IP address), application, and distribution channel, thus enabling in-network caching/replication and content-based security. The expected benefits in terms of improved data dissemination efficiency and robustness in challenging communication scenarios indicate the high potential of ICN as an innovative networking paradigm in the IoT domain. IoT is a challenging environment, mainly due to the high number of heterogeneous and potentially constrained networked devices, and unique and heavy traffic patterns. The application of ICN principles in such a context opens new opportunities, while requiring careful design choices. This article critically discusses potential ways toward this goal by surveying the current literature after presenting several possible motivations for the introduction of ICN in the context of IoT. Major challenges and opportunities are also highlighted, serving as guidelines for progress beyond the state of the art in this timely and increasingly relevant topic.

Energy Efficient IoT Data Collection in Smart Cities Exploiting D2D Communications

Abstract: Fifth Generation (5G) wireless systems are expected to connect an avalanche of “smart” objects disseminated from the largest “Smart City” to the smallest “Smart Home”. In this vision, Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A) is deemed to play a fundamental role in the Internet of Things (IoT) arena providing a large coherent infrastructure and a wide wireless connectivity to the devices. However, since LTE-A was originally designed to support high data rates and large data size, novel solutions are required to enable an efficient use of radio resources to convey small data packets typically exchanged by IoT applications in “smart” environments. On the other hand, the typically high energy consumption required by cellular communications is a serious obstacle to large scale IoT deployments under cellular connectivity as in the case of Smart City scenarios. Network-assisted Device-to-Device (D2D) communications are considered as a viable solution to reduce the energy consumption for the devices. The particular approach presented in this paper consists in appointing one of the IoT smart devices as a collector of all data from a cluster of objects using D2D links, thus acting as an aggregator toward the eNodeB. By smartly adapting the Modulation and Coding Scheme (MCS) on the communication links, we will show it is possible to maximize the radio resource utilization as a function of the total amount of data to be sent. A further benefit that we will highlight is the possibility to reduce the transmission power when a more robust MCS is adopted. A comprehensive performance evaluation in a wide set of scenarios will testify the achievable gains in terms of energy efficiency and resource utilization in the envisaged D2D-based IoT data collection.

A Constrained Coalition Formation Game for Multihop D2D Content Uploading

Abstract: This paper investigates relay-based schemes in cellular systems, where multihop device-to-device (D2D) communications are exploited for content uploading toward the eNodeB. All user equipments (UEs) are sources of their own content and form a multihop D2D chain, with the head of the chain being in charge of uploading all the generated content to the eNodeB. By pooling the cellular radio resources assigned to the D2D chain and by using high-quality short-range radio links, the proposed cooperative content uploading scheme guarantees lower upload delays than in the traditional cellular mode operation. To model the D2D chain formation in a cell and to best characterize self-interested users concerned about their own payoff, a constrained coalition formation game is defined, where each UE is a player whose cost is identified as the content upload time. The solution of the game determines the stable feasible partition for the UEs in the cell. We demonstrate through simulations that with this solution the content uploading time is reduced by 52% with respect to the traditional cellular mode.

Multicast Resource Allocation Enhanced by Channel State Feedbacks for Multiple Scalable Video Coding Streams in LTE Networks

Abstract: The growing demand for mobile multicast services, such as Internet Protocol television (IPTV) and video streaming, requires effective radio resource management (RRM) to handle traffic with strict quality-of-service constraints over Long-Term Evolution (LTE) and beyond systems Special care is needed to limit system performance degradation when multiple multicast streams are simultaneously transmitted To this aim, this paper proposes an RRM policy based on a subgrouping technique for the delivery of scalable multicast video flows in a cell Our proposal enhances the legacy multicast transmission over LTE systems by exploiting multiuser diversity and the users' channel quality feedbacks Moreover, it is designed to take advantage of the frequency selectivity in the subgroup formation Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme, which outperforms existing approaches from the literature It succeeds in achieving higher spectral efficiency and guaranteeing adequate video quality to all multicast receivers and improved quality to those with good channel conditions

Toward trusted, social-aware D2D connectivity: bridging across the technology and sociality realms

Abstract: Driven by the unprecedented increase of mobile data traffic, D2D communications technology is rapidly moving into the mainstream of the 5G networking landscape. While D2D connectivity originally emerged as a technology enabler for public safety services, it is likely to remain at the heart of the 5G ecosystem by spawning a wide diversity of proximate applications and services. In this work, we argue that the widespread adoption of the direct communications paradigm is unlikely without embracing the concepts of trust and social-aware cooperation between end users and network operators. However, such adoption remains conditional on identifying adequate incentives that engage humans and their connected devices in a plethora of collective activities. To this end, the mission of our research is to advance the vision of social-aware and trusted D2D connectivity, as well as to facilitate its further adoption. We begin by reviewing the various types of underlying incentives with the emphasis on sociality and trust, discuss these factors specifically for humans and for networked devices (machines), and also propose a novel framework allowing construction of much needed incentive-aware D2D applications. Our supportive system-level performance evaluations suggest that trusted and social-aware direct connectivity has the potential to decisively augment network performance. We conclude by outlining the future perspectives of its development across the research and standardization sectors.

Tag-based cooperative data gathering and energy recharging in wide area RFID sensor networks

Abstract: The Wireless Identification and Sensing Platform (WISP) conjugates the identification potential of the RFID technology and the sensing and computing capability of the wireless sensors. Practical issues, such as the need of periodically recharging WISPs, challenge the effective deployment of large-scale RFID sensor networks (RSNs) consisting of RFID readers and WISP nodes. In this view, the paper proposes cooperative solutions to energize the WISP devices in a wide-area sensing network while reducing the data collection delay. The main novelty is the fact that both data transmissions and energy transfer are based on the RFID technology only: RFID mobile readers gather data from the WISP devices, wirelessly recharge them, and mutually cooperate to reduce the data delivery delay to the sink. Communication between mobile readers relies on two proposed solutions: a tag-based relay scheme, where RFID tags are exploited to temporarily store sensed data at pre-determined contact points between the readers; and a tag-based data channel scheme, where the WISPs are used as a virtual communication channel for real time data transfer between the readers. Both solutions require: (i) clustering the WISP nodes; (ii) dimensioning the number of required RFID mobile readers; (iii) planning the tour of the readers under the energy and time constraints of the nodes. A simulative analysis demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed solutions when compared to non-cooperative approaches. Differently from classic schemes in the literature, the solutions proposed in this paper better cope with scalability issues, which is of utmost importance for wide area networks.

A Unified Approach for Efficient Delivery of Unicast and Multicast Wireless Video Services

Abstract: Recently, mobile multimedia services have represented an increasingly large source of revenue for the telecommunication industry. Subscribers are often interested in simultaneously receiving the same data flow and, hence, they fuel the growing demand for multicast multimedia services. Therefore, the design of efficient radio resource management strategies to jointly handle multicast and more traditional unicast traffic and to increase user satisfaction is of primary importance for the successful deployment of future mobile networks. This paper proposes an efficient radio resource management framework to handle unicast and multicast multi-layer video services. The proposed virtual unified group (VUG) approach makes use of a channel-aware subgrouping principle to provide fair throughput to both unicast and multicast users. The idea is to assign unicast subscribers to a virtual group, thus allowing them to compete for network resources on an equal footing with multicast users. Simulations highlight the benefits that VUG provides in a long term evolution network scenario, under different traffic load conditions, in terms of throughput and fairness in the distribution of resources to unicast and multicast users.

Recharging versus replacing sensor nodes using mobile robots for network maintenance

Abstract: Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been of very high interest for the research community for years, but the quest for deploying a self-sustained network and effectively prolonging its lifetime has not found a satisfactory answer yet. Two main approaches can be identified that target this objective: either "recharging" or "replacing" the sensor nodes that are running out of energy. Of particular interest are solutions where mobile robots are used to execute the above mentioned tasks to automatically and autonomously maintain the WSN, thus reducing human intervention. Recently, the progress in wireless power transfer techniques has boosted research activities in the direction of battery recharging, with high expectations for its application to WSNs. Similarly, also sensor replacement techniques have been widely studied as a means to provide service continuity in the network. The objective of this paper is to investigate the limitations and the advantages of these two research directions. Key decision points must be identified for effectively supporting WSN self-maintenance: (i) which sensor nodes have to be recharged/replaced; (ii) in which order the mobile robot is serving (i.e., recharging/replacing) the nodes and by following which path; (iii) how much energy is delivered to a sensor when recharged. The influence that a set of parameters, relative to both the sensors and the mobile robot, has on the decisions will be considered. Centralized and distributed solutions are compared in terms of effectiveness in prolonging the network lifetime and in allowing network self-sustainability. The performance evaluation in a variety of scenarios and network settings offers the opportunity to draw conclusions and to discuss the boundaries for one technique being preferable to the other.

Trusted D2D-based data uploading in in-band narrowband-IoT with social awareness

Abstract: Fifth generation (5G) systems are expected to introduce a revolution in the ICT domain with innovative networking features, such as device-to-device (D2D) communications. Accordingly, in-proximity devices directly communicate with each other, thus avoiding routing the data across the network infrastructure. This innovative technology is deemed to be also of high relevance to support effective heterogeneous objects interconnection within future IoT ecosystems. However, several open challenges shall be solved to achieve a seamless and reliable deployment of proximity-based communications. In this paper, we give a contribution to trust and security enhancements for opportunistic hop-by-hop forwarding schemes that rely on cellular D2D communications. To tackle the presence of malicious nodes in the network, reliability and reputation notions are introduced to model the level of trust among involved devices. To this aim, social-awareness of devices is accounted for, to better support D2D-based multihop content uploading. Our simulative results in small-scale IoT environments, demonstrate that data loss due to malicious nodes can be drastically reduced and gains in uploading time be reached with the proposed solution.

Virtual code resource allocation for energy-aware MTC access over 5G systems

Abstract: The enormous traffic of machine-type communications (MTC) expected over 5G exacerbates the limitations of access schemes currently under investigation in the literature. This scenario becomes more challenging when considering smart city environments, which introduce further issues due to the heterogeneity in the level of residual battery energy of involved machines. Novel solutions are, therefore, required, which aim at drastically reducing the collision probability of devices with critical level of residual battery energy. In this paper, we propose a virtual code resource allocation (VCRA) approach which extends the code-expanded strategy to support a high number of devices simultaneously accessing the system. Besides, a virtual resource allocation scheme to guarantee energy-priority in the access procedure is introduced. The idea behind our proposal is the definition of different access levels that exploit disjoint sets of access codewords, properly tailored to guarantee high capacity for each access level. Simulation results show to the effectiveness of our scheme in terms of ( i ) reducing the collision probability of machines with limited battery capabilities also in scenarios with very high cell load and ( ii ) enhancing the efficiency with respect to legacy code-expanded strategy.

A low computational-cost subgrouping multicast scheme for emerging 5G-satellite networks

Abstract: Multimedia content delivery over satellite system is considered as a promising service in the future fifth generation (5G) cellular systems. The aim of this work is to design a low-computational radio resource management (RRM) multicast algorithm, named Near-Optimal Subgroup Solution (NOSS), for efficiently managing multimedia video content delivery over satellite network. The idea is to perform the radio spectrum allocation on a per-group basis, thus splitting all the multicast members into different subgroups according to the experienced channel quality. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed approach is able to overcome the limitation of the previous techniques proposed in literature in terms of user throughput. As a further result, the proposed NOSS approach resulted to be also efficient in terms of fairness and robust to the long propagation delay of satellite links.

Mobility-aware energy-quality trade-off for video delivery in dense heterogeneous networks

Abstract: The latest increase in number of smart user mobile devices and user expectations for high-quality rich media services has determined a growing demand for network resources, putting pressure on the existing network infrastructure. Dense Heterogeneous Networks (DenseNets) are a promising solution to this problem, supported by various individual networks and different technologies deployed within the same area. In such networks, mobile users face an important choice of what individual network to connect to in order to balance energy saving and delivery performance. This paper proposes an Energy saving-focused Mobility-Aware Network Selection (EMANS) algorithm which provides a good trade-off between energy consumption and resulted quality when delivering video content. EMANS includes an adaptive method to adjust the delivered video stream bitrate based on the available network resources such as it maintains good user perceived quality levels. Furthermore, EMANS reduces the number of handovers in comparison with other state-of-the-art approaches.

Enhanced C-RAN Architecture Supporting SDN and NFV Functionalities for D2D Communications

Abstract: Future Fifth Generation (5G) cellular systems will be characterized by ultra-dense areas, where users are gradually asking for new multimedia applications and hungry-bandwidth services. Therefore, a promising solution to boost and optimize this future wireless heterogeneous networks is represented by the Cloud Radio Access Network (C-RAN) with the joint use of Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV). In such a scenario, low power base stations and device-to-device communications (D2D), involved into traditional cellular network, represented a possible solution to offload the heavy traffic of macrocells, while guaranteeing user experience as well. Nevertheless, the high centralization and the limited-capacity backhauls makes it difficult to perform centralized control plane functions on a large network scale. To address this issue, we investigate the integration of two enabling technologies for C-RAN (i.e., SDN and NFV) in the current 5G heterogeneous wireless architecture in order to exploit properly proximity-based transmissions among devices. Then, in order to validate the applicability of our proposed architecture, we consider the case of D2D pair handover where we show that our solution is able to decrease the number of signaling messages needed to handoff the D2D pair from a source to a target base station and, at the same time, the time execution for the entire handover process.

The Internet of Things Moves into the Cloud

Abstract: This tutorial has three main objectives: (1) Providing insights into the evolution that the IoT has gone through since its introduction. The idea of IoT has evolved over time with the advent of new enabling technologies: new concepts, such as cloud computing, information centric networking, big data, and social networking, have already partially impacted and still are impacting on this paradigm. This trend will surely continue, given the importance of the relevant applications. In this tutorial we will illustrate the evolution of the IoT classifying different generations and give a modern definition of the phenomenon. In this way the audience will become aware of the differences between IoT and the technologies often confused with it (such as sensor networks, RFID systems, M2M, etc.). (2) Presenting the role that Cloud computing technology can play in the support of the IoT. In the IoT most objects (even the smartest) do not have the (energy, processing, and communication) capabilities to run the services that users expect. Accordingly several solutions have been proposed to offload processing to the cloud. Several possibilities can be considered in this context depending on whether the cloud will just be the responsible for the storage, management, and retrieval of the data generated by smart objects or will provide the environment where virtualized digital instances of the objects and/or the service they offer will run. In this tutorial we will provide a critical overview of the most important solutions proposed so far in the literature. (3) Showing a practical example of cloud support for IoT objects and service virtualization in the cloud. Finally, we will present a specific solution for supporting IoT in the cloud. More specifically we will show the architecture, the tools utilized to virtualize objects, and the APIs offered to application developers. In this way most of the concepts depicted throughout the tutorial will be illustrated from a practical point of view.

Game Theoretic Approaches for Wireless Cooperative Content-Sharing

Abstract: This chapter provides an overview of game theoretic solutions in a wireless application of particular interest for multimedia and social interactions in modern telecommunication systems. In particular, coalitional games, bargaining solutions and fairness and stability issues will be investigated within wireless cooperative content-sharing. According to this paradigm, users download portions of data of common interest over long-range cellular links while exchanging the downloaded portions over short-range radio links. Expected benefits, which are natural incentives to cooperation, may be in terms of content price, energy consumption, and transfer delay reduction. Significant research activity has been conducted to design strategies that simultaneously exploit the multiple radio interfaces of modern wireless devices and maximize the gain. A valid solution for the cooperative content-sharing application should be based on fairness in the utility distribution among the involved nodes which can be eased by exploiting the game theoretic approaches presented in this chapter. Game Theoretic Approaches for Wireless Cooperative Content-Sharing Leonardo Militano Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Italy Antonio Iera Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Italy Francesco Scarcello University of Calabria, Italy Antonella Molinaro Mediterranea University of Reggio Calabria, Italy

Demystifying Competition and Cooperation Dynamics of the Aerial mmWave Access Market.

Abstract: Cellular has always relied on static deployments for providing wireless access. However, even the emerging fifth-generation (5G) networks may face difficulty in supporting the increased traffic demand with rigid, fixed infrastructure without substantial over-provisioning. This is particularly true for spontaneous large-scale events that require service providers to augment capacity of their networks quickly. Today, the use of aerial devices equipped with high-rate radio access capabilities has the potential to offer the much needed "on-demand" capacity boost. Conversely, it also threatens to rattle the long-standing business strategies of wireless operators, especially as the "gold rush" for cheaper millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum lowers the market entry barriers. However, the intricate structure of this new market presently remains a mystery. This paper sheds light on competition and cooperation behavior of dissimilar aerial mmWave access suppliers, concurrently employing licensed and license-exempt frequency bands, by modeling it as a vertically differentiated market where customers have varying preferences in price and quality. To understand viable service provider strategies, we begin with constructing the Nash equilibrium for the initial market competition by employing the Bertrand and Cournot games. We then conduct a unique assessment of short-term market dynamics, where two licensed-band service providers may cooperate to improve their competition positions against the unlicensed-band counterpart intruding the market. Our unprecedented analysis studies the effects of various market interactions, price-driven demand evolution, and dynamic profit balance in this novel type of ecosystem.

Assessing the Performance of a Novel Tag-Based Reader-to-Reader Communication Paradigm Under Noisy Channel Conditions

Abstract: The widespread deployment of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and readers paved the way for research activities focused on applications that go well beyond the mere identification of people and goods. In this context, the paper investigates an innovative paradigm, according to which the residual data storage capacity of passive RFID tags is used as a kind of “virtual” communication channel to exchange data in RFID ecosystems of the Internet of Things (IoT). The performance of the paradigm is assessed through the evaluation of a number of important communication parameters, such as goodput and delay. The analytical study, validated through simulations, evaluates the impact that the following key parameters have on the system performance: 1) radio channel errors; 2) collisions; 3) number of involved readers; 4) memory block reading size under noisy channel conditions; and 5) heterogeneous storage capacity of available tags. This allows obtaining design directives for a well-performing implementation of the proposed communication paradigm. In particular, accounting for the negative effects of channel errors on the system goodput, in this paper, we highlight the relationship between optimal memory reading block size and channel errors to maximize the communication performance.

Design and Implementation of a CoAP-Compliant Solution for RFID Inclusion in the Internet of Things

Abstract: Recent technological advancements allowed widening the applicability scope of the RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology from item identification to sensor-enabled computation platforms This feature, added to the native radio energy-harvesting capability and the extremely low power consumption, has attracted the interest of research and industrial communities and pushed them to include the RFID technology into a global network of interconnected objects, as envisaged by the Internet of Things paradigm In the last few years, standardization bodies have made significant efforts to design lightweight approaches, such as CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol), to efficiently manage resource-constrained nodes by using traditional web interfaces; nevertheless, RFID integration is not addressed yet In this paper, we propose a CoAP-compliant solution where RFID tags, behaving as virtual CoAP servers, are directly accessible by remote CoAP clients via a reader, which acts as a CoAP proxy A real testbed, addressing key aspects, such as tag addressing, discovery and management of CoAP requests via RFID operations, is deployed to validate the feasibility of the proposal Experimental results show rapid response times: less than 60 ms are requested for resource retrieval, while from 80 to 360 ms for sending data to the RFID device, depending on the tag memory dimension

Multimedia content diffusion approach for emerging 5G mobile social networks

Abstract: In the emerging Fifth Generation (5G) systems mobile social networks will play an important role for disseminating information and multimedia contents. In such a scenario, short range transmissions and multicast services are considered as promising technologies in order to disseminate contents as fast as possible. This paper proposes a viral information diffusion approach for improving the information diffusion time among a large number of users. A novel expected information diffusion time is considered by taking into account system metrics on both network and social side. In particular, we defined a new metric named social network contact time which describes the social interaction time between a generic user and the social platform. We compared the proposed approach with conventional multicast scheme and social information diffusion approach based on distance. Results show that the proposed viral algorithm achieves considerable gains in term of information diffusion time and data rate per UE. In particular, the gain experienced by the users in term of content dissemination varies between the 14% and 48%.

Optimizing Point-to-Multipoint Transmissions in High Speed Packet Access Networks

Abstract: In this paper an innovative Radio Resource Management (RRM) algorithm is proposed with the purpose of increasing High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) performances, in terms of system capacity and service quality, when the Multimedia Broadcast Multicast Services (MBMS) is supplied. The proposed RRM algorithm exploits channel quality indications to set up point-to-multipoint connections to subgroups of multicast users and to select the proper modulation and coding schemes on the downlink. The number of subgroups is determined through an optimization technique that also takes into account the user satisfaction. An exhaustive simulation campaign is conducted to compare the proposed algorithm with the most promising approaches in the literature. Comparisons aim to assess the capability of the proposed RRM algorithm to efficiently manage group oriented services by providing an increment in terms of user satisfaction.