Ram Kumar

Bio: Ram Kumar is an academic researcher from University of Agder. The author has contributed to research in topics: The Internet & Wireless network. The author has an hindex of 5, co-authored 7 publications receiving 52 citations.

An integrated wireless communication architecture for maritime sector

Abstract: The rapid evolution of terrestrial wireless systems has brought mobile users more and more desired communication services. Maritime customers are asking for the same, such as the concepts of "Broadband at Sea" and "Maritime Internet". Quite a lot of research work has focused on the development of new and better maritime communication technologies, but less attention has been paid on interworking of multiple maritime wireless networks or on satisfying service provisioning. To address this, an integrated wireless Communication Architecture for Maritime Sector (CAMS) has been introduced in this article. CAMS is aimed at 1) granting maritime customers uninterrupted connectivity through the best available network and 2) providing them with the best-provisioned communication services in terms of mobility, security and Quality of Experience (QoE). To address mobility challenge, the IEEE 802.21 standard is recommended to be used in CAMS in order to achieve seamless handover. CAMS provides application-level QoE support attending to the limited communication resources (e.g. bandwidth) at sea. Certain security considerations have also been proposed to supplement this architecture.

Fifth Generation Networking Principles for a Service Driven Future Internet Architecture

Abstract: The vision of all-IP networks where IP forms the simple common layer understandable across the whole network has undeniable advantages. However, such simplicity comes as a major hurdle to flexibility and functionality to the architecture. This is evident from the increasingly numerous and complex engineering solutions and optimizations required to accommodate essential qualities like mobility, security, realtime communication support etc or to mitigate the shortcomings inherent in the `traditional Internet' architecture. While a clean slate approach to address these shortcomings is not an option in a realistic scenario, it is important to examine the architecture as a whole to address emerging network requirements and overcome existing shortcomings at the architecture level rather than engineering solutions to an existing inefficient one. This architectural re-examination should also facilitate discussion into what design principles for future generations of Network Architectures which will eventually replace the design tenets for the current Internet. While 3G and 4G systems were more focussed on convergence towards an All-IP network and some improvements in the core network, the architectural design remains stagnant with layered paradigms and inherent inefficiencies. A departure from this shackled approach could be the distinguishing feature of 5G systems and beyond. We claim that there is a pressing need to move towards a Next Generation Network architecture built to natively support requirements such as network resource abstraction, mobility, security, enhanced routing, privacy, context communications, QoS, parallel processing, heterogeneous networking etc. Instead of treating the network as just providing connectivity specified by endpoints, it is of great advantage to applications to recognise it as a service characterized by attributes, abstracted to a higher level to represent a collection of capabilities that the network offers. This uniform high level abstraction can effectively mask the heterogeneity and implementation discrepancies in the underlying infrastructure. Besides, in a network environment where an connectivity instance might transverse diverse business/ownership/capability domains, the approach proposed in this article can provide a transparent abstraction for resource negotiations across the domain to be available for end-to-end setup. This architectural change should also be manifested according to the principles of SOA to ensure interoperability, backwards compatibility and migration. In this article, we introduce a Service Oriented framework and network architecture aimed at tackling the heterogeneity of emerging requirements and proposed solutions into a coherent interoperable architecture using Web Services specifications as the basic standards. We propose to model the new architecture on relationships between entities and discuss the motivation this new architecture in the form of a new framework called ROSA.

Formal verification of a Cooperative Automatic Repeat reQuest MAC protocol

Abstract: Cooperative communications, in which a relay node helps the source node to deliver its packets to the destination node, are able to obtain significant benefits in terms of transmission reliability, coverage extension and energy efficiency. A Cooperative Automatic Repeat reQuest (C-ARQ) MAC protocol has been recently proposed to exploit cooperative diversity at the MAC layer. In this paper, we validate the integrity and the validity of the C-ARQ protocol using formal methods. The protocol logic is modeled in SDL and implemented in PROMELA. The functionality of the C-ARQ protocol is verified through simulations and verifications using SPIN.

Towards a relation oriented service architecture

Abstract: Over the past three decades, the Internet has evolved from a point to point, open, academic network to an applications and services oriented critical infrastructure. The Internet has become a vital component of society today, from its simple origin as an academic research project. During this transition, numerous applications and usages of the network emerged that cannot be efficiently implemented by adhering to the original design tenets of the Internet. Some of the tenets have been broken, others diluted and new ones are emerging to accommodate new paradigms. Moreover, applications and services have been moving slowly but consistently towards a uniform model based on Service Oriented Approach (SOA). The shift towards abstract models, objects and services however is not efficiently supported by the underlying delivery platforms, especially the legacy Internet architecture. An architectural rethinking is necessary at the network level well to accommodate future services, applications and routing priorities. We argue that there is a pressing need to move towards a next generation network architecture built to natively support network resource abstraction, mobility, security, enhanced routing, privacy, context communications, QoS, parallel processing, heterogeneous networking etc. This change should be manifested according to the principles of SOA to ensure interoperability, backwards compatibility and migration. In this paper, we propose 'relationship' as the glue that can hold together various available services and discuss the motivation behind the thoughts to introduce the tenets for the new architecture in the form of a new framework called ROSA. We define 'Relation' as an association among dynamically collaborating nodes, devices and services in a network, characterized by 'relationship metrics'.

Using SIP Presence for Remote Service Awareness

Abstract: Residential networks usually protect its devices and services behind firewalls and use private IP addresses. Therefore, appliances within a residential network cannot be discovered and utilized from external networks by standardized technologies as UPnP. In this paper, we present our concept of “Service Presence”, based on the 3GPP Presence Service that makes the service presence information remotely discoverable.

A Survey of Opportunistic Offloading

Abstract: This paper surveys the literature of opportunistic offloading. Opportunistic offloading refers to offloading traffic originally transmitted through the cellular network to opportunistic network, or offloading computing tasks originally executed locally to nearby devices with idle computing resources through opportunistic network. This research direction is recently emerged, and the relevant research covers the period from 2009 to date, with an explosive trend over the last four years. We provide a comprehensive review of the research field from a multi-dimensional view based on application goal, realizing approach, offloading direction, etc. In addition, we pinpoint the major classifications of opportunistic offloading, so as to form a hierarchical or graded classification of the existing works. Specifically, we divide opportunistic offloading into two main categories based on application goal: traffic offloading or computation offloading. Each category is further divided into two smaller categories: with and without offloading node selection, which bridges between subscriber node and the cellular network, or plays the role of computing task executor for other nodes. We elaborate, compare, and analyze the literatures in each classification from the perspectives of required information, objective, etc. We present a complete introductory guide to the researches relevant to opportunistic offloading. After summarizing the development of the research direction and offloading strategies of the current state-of-the-art, we further point out the important future research problems and directions.

Behavioral modeling and automated verification of a Cloud-based framework to share the knowledge and skills of human resources

Abstract: Introducing the Expert Cloud to find, share, exploit, manage and employ the HR.Describing the state diagram of the Expert Cloud.Defining a Kripke structure of the Expert Cloud to provide the relationship between the expanded model and the original state diagram structure.Defining the expected properties of the structure and composition of the Expert Cloud by means of temporal logic languages.Implementing the structure and composition of the Expert Cloud by NuSMV model checker. Expert Cloud as a new class of Cloud computing systems by employing the Internet infrastructures and Cloud computing concepts enables its users to request the skill, knowledge and expertise of human resources without any information about their location. It makes the communication between the HRs more efficient, reduces the cost of service, increases the variety of knowledge and information, facilitates employment of the HR in organizations, decreases customer response time and improves the service delivery methods. However, one facet that is still being less cared and that may introduce potential errors and faults regards the architectural problems and components analysis of Expert Cloud. Therefore, in this paper, we verify and check the specification, composition and architecture of the Expert Cloud via NuSMV model checker, Argo UML and Rebeca Verifier tools. The approach extracts the checking properties in the form of LTL and CTL formulas of control behaviors and automatically verifies the properties in operational behaviors. Also, experimental results indicate that the system is reachable, fair and deadlock-free.

A Novel Wireless Sensor Network Frame for Urban Transportation

Abstract: The rapid progress in the research and development of electronics, sensing, signal processing, and communication networks has significantly advanced the state of applications of intelligent transportation systems (ITSs). However, efficient and low-cost methods for gathering information in large-scale roads are lacking. Consequently, wireless sensor network (WSN) technologies that are low cost, low power, and self-configuring are a key function in ITS. The potential application scenarios and design requirements of WSN for urban transportation (WSN-UT) are proposed in this work. A customized network topology is designed to meet the special requirements, and WSN-UT is specifically tailored for UT applications. WSN-UT enables users to obtain traffic and road information directly from the local WSN within its wireless scope instead of the remote ITS data center. WSN-UT can be configured according to different scenario requirements. A three-level subsystem and a configuration and service subsystem constitute the WSN-UT network frame, and the service/interface and protocol algorithms for every subsystem level are designed for WSN-UT.

A survey based analysis of propagation models over the sea

Abstract: The design of communication architecture over a sea environment is challenging since it requires careful analysis of different factors such as multipath propagation, antenna characteristics and mobility that affect a signal. Although existing work has addressed a few factors, there is no work which provides a complete analysis of path loss incorporating such factors and how they affect on Received Signal Level. To get a clear picture of what work has been proposed in the literature, we present a survey article that gathers information about various propagation models used and proposed for maritime environment. We analyze each work based on the simulation set up, number of factors considered, error differences between simulated and experimental data and so on. We believe this article will help to identify the current state in simulation and analysis of communication links over the sea environment.