Showing papers on "Communications protocol published in 2014"

P4: programming protocol-independent packet processors

Abstract: P4 is a high-level language for programming protocol-independent packet processors. P4 works in conjunction with SDN control protocols like OpenFlow. In its current form, OpenFlow explicitly specifies protocol headers on which it operates. This set has grown from 12 to 41 fields in a few years, increasing the complexity of the specification while still not providing the flexibility to add new headers. In this paper we propose P4 as a strawman proposal for how OpenFlow should evolve in the future. We have three goals: (1) Reconfigurability in the field: Programmers should be able to change the way switches process packets once they are deployed. (2) Protocol independence: Switches should not be tied to any specific network protocols. (3) Target independence: Programmers should be able to describe packet-processing functionality independently of the specifics of the underlying hardware. As an example, we describe how to use P4 to configure a switch to add a new hierarchical label.

Amplification Hell: Revisiting Network Protocols for DDoS Abuse

Abstract: In distributed reflective denial-of-service (DRDoS) attacks, adversaries send requests to public servers (e.g., open recursive DNS resolvers) and spoof the IP address of a victim. These servers, in turn, flood the victim with valid responses and – unknowingly – exhaust its bandwidth. Recently, attackers launched DRDoS attacks with hundreds of Gb/s bandwidth of this kind. While the attack technique is well-known for a few protocols such as DNS, it is unclear if further protocols are vulnerable to similar or worse attacks. In this paper, we revisit popular UDP-based protocols of network services, online games, P2P filesharing networks and P2P botnets to assess their security against DRDoS abuse. We find that 14 protocols are susceptible to bandwidth amplification and multiply the traffic up to a factor 4670. In the worst case, attackers thus need only 0.02% of the bandwidth that they want their victim(s) to receive, enabling far more dangerous attacks than what is known today. Worse, we identify millions of public hosts that can be abused as amplifiers. We then analyze more than 130 real-world DRDoS attacks. For this, we announce bait services to monitor their abuse and analyze darknet as well as network traffic from large ISPs. We use traffic analysis to detect both, victims and amplifiers, showing that attackers already started to abuse vulnerable protocols other than DNS. Lastly, we evaluate countermeasures against DRDoS attacks, such as preventing spoofing or hardening protocols and service configurations. We shows that carefully-crafted DRDoS attacks may evade poorly-designed rate limiting solutions. In addition, we show that some attacks evade packet-based filtering techniques, such as port-, contentor length-based filters.

Development of Autonomous Car—Part I: Distributed System Architecture and Development Process

Abstract: An autonomous car is a self-driving vehicle that has the capability to perceive the surrounding environment and navigate itself without human intervention. For autonomous driving, complex autonomous driving algorithms, including perception, localization, planning, and control, are required with many heterogeneous sensors, actuators, and computers. To manage the complexity of the driving algorithms and the heterogeneity of the system components, this paper applies distributed system architecture to the autonomous driving system, and proposes a development process and a system platform for the distributed system of an autonomous car. The development process provides the guidelines to design and develop the distributed system of an autonomous vehicle. For the heterogeneous computing system of the distributed system, a system platform is presented, which provides a common development environment by minimizing the dependence between the software and the computing hardware. A time-triggered network protocol, FlexRay, is applied as the main network of the software platform to improve the network bandwidth, fault tolerance, and system performance. Part II of this paper will provide the evaluation of the development process and system platform by using an autonomous car, which has the ability to drive in an urban area.

Systems and methods for error injection in data storage systems

Abstract: Embodiments of the solid-state storage system provided herein are configured to perform improved mechanisms for testing of error recovery of solid state storage devices. In some embodiments, the system is configured to introduce or inject errors into data storage commands or operations performed in the non-volatile memory. Injected errors include corruption of data stored in the non-volatile memory, deliberate failure to execute storage operations, and errors injected into communication protocols used between various elements of the device. In some embodiments, injected errors can include direct errors that trigger an immediate execution of error recovery mechanisms and delayed errors that trigger execution of error recovery mechanisms at a later time. Error recovery mechanisms can be tested in an efficient, reliable, and deterministic manner to help ensure effective operation of storage devices. The integrity of non-volatile memory can also be tested.

Internet of things communication protocol capable of being encrypted dynamically

Abstract: The invention discloses an Internet of things communication protocol capable of being encrypted dynamically, and relates to the Internet of things and the technical field of communication. The Internet of things communication protocol capable of being encrypted dynamically is proposed for solving the ineffective data encryption and no encryption problems which are ubiquitous in Internet of things communication. The Internet of things communication protocol capable of being encrypted dynamically is characterized by comprising a communication frame (10) supporting dynamic encryption, a server-side dynamic encryption and decryption module (30) and a client-side dynamic encryption and decryption module (40). The Internet of things communication protocol capable of being encrypted dynamically has the advantages that encryption keys and an encryption algorithm change randomly and dynamically, the risk that communication ciphertext in the network is broken is lowered greatly, and communication safety is enhanced.

MaxiNet: Distributed emulation of software-defined networks

Abstract: Network emulations are widely used for testing novel network protocols and routing algorithms in realistic scenarios. Up to now, there is no emulation tool that is able to emulate large software-defined data center networks that consist of several thousand nodes. Mininet is the most common tool to emulate Software-Defined Networks of several hundred nodes. We extend Mininet to span an emulated network over several physical machines, making it possible to emulate networks of several thousand nodes on just a handful of physical machines. This enables us to emulate, e.g., large data center networks. To test this approach, we additionally introduce a traffic generator for data center traffic. Since there are no data center traffic traces publicly available we use the results of two recent traffic studies to create synthetic traffic. We show the design and discuss some challenges we had in building our traffic generator. As a showcase for our work we emulated a data center consisting of 3200 hosts on a cluster of only 12 physical machines. We show the resulting workloads and the trade-offs involved.

User profile exchange via vehicle supported communications protocol

Abstract: A system to access one or more user profiles that govern one or more vehicle functions The system cooperates with a processor and verification module which are adapted to verify, using one or more of biometric information, gesture recognition, facial recognition and device identification information, that a user has authority to access the one or more user profiles, where the one or more profiles are stored in one or more of a vehicle, a cloud and a communications device An edit module is further provided and adapted to allow the user to make one or more edits to the one or more user profiles

Smart Home Area Networks Protocols within the Smart Grid Context

Abstract: The Internet of things (IoT) applications are becoming one of the emerging smart grid enabling technologies. Smart home appliances are one the beneficiary of such applications. Machine-to-Machine and Man-to-Machine are the basic IoT communication platforms that enable home appliances to communicate with each other to be more efficiently operated. In a recent search for the IoT communication protocols that are utilized in smart home appliances, there was no inclusive reference that contains and describes the smart home area networks and guides the research and development (R&D) professionals to select the suitable protocol for an application. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the home area network (HAN) communication protocols that are used to enable bidirectional communication between the home owners, utilities and smart home appliances. The paper presents the most utilized HANs wired and wireless communication protocols and discusses their characteristics, advantages and disadvantages.

nDPI: Open-source high-speed deep packet inspection

Abstract: Network traffic analysis was traditionally limited to packet header, because the transport protocol and application ports were usually sufficient to identify the application protocol. With the advent of port-independent, peer-to-peer, and encrypted protocols, the task of identifying application protocols became increasingly challenging, thus creating a motivation for creating tools and libraries for network protocol classification. This paper covers the design and implementation of nDPI, an open-source library for protocol classification using both packet header and payload. nDPI was extensively validated in various monitoring projects ranging from Linux kernel protocol classification, to analysis of 10 Gbit traffic, reporting both high protocol detection accuracy and efficiency. Keywords—Passive traffic classification, Deep Packet Inspection, network traffic monitoring

Rethinking the Internet of Things: A Scalable Approach to Connecting Everything

Abstract: Over the next decade, most devices connected to the Internet will not be used by people in the familiar way that personal computers, tablets and smart phones are. Billions of interconnected devices will be monitoring the environment, transportation systems, factories, farms, forests, utilities, soil and weather conditions, oceans and resources. Many of these sensors and actuators will be networked into autonomous sets, with much of the information being exchanged machine-to-machine directly and without human involvement. Machine-to-machine communications are typically terse. Most sensors and actuators will report or act upon small pieces of information - chirps. Burdening these devices with current network protocol stacks is inefficient, unnecessary and unduly increases their cost of ownership. This must change. The architecture of the Internet of Things must evolve now by incorporating simpler protocols toward at the edges of the network, or remain forever inefficient. Rethinking the Internet of Things describes reasons why we must rethink current approaches to the Internet of Things. Appropriate architectures that will coexist with existing networking protocols are described in detail. An architecture comprised of integrator functions, propagator nodes, and end devices, along with their interactions, is explored. What youll learn Discusses the difference between the "normal" Internet and the Internet of Things. Describes a new architecture and its components in the "chirp" context. Explains the shortcomings of IP for IoT. Describes the anatomy of the IoT. Describes how to build a suitable network to maximize the amazing potential of the IoT. Who this book is for Thought leaders, executives, architectural, standards and development leaders in the evolving IoT industry. Corporations and organizations whose commercial products could be adapted simply to be functioning devices on the IOT while saving billions of dollars in unnecessary costs or proprietary designs. Those who wish to capitalize on technology change and those interested in the Internet, its capabilities and the need to improve it.

Wireless sensor network lifetime maximization by optimal sensor deployment, activity scheduling, data routing and sink mobility

Abstract: The longevity of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) is a crucial concern that significantly influences their applicability in a specific context. Most of the related literature focuses on communication protocols aiming to reduce the energy consumption which would eventually lead to longer network lifetimes. On the other hand, a limited number of studies concentrate on providing a unifying frame to investigate the integrated effect of the important WSN design decisions such as sensor places, activity schedules, data routes, trajectory of the mobile sink(s), along with the tactical level decisions including the data propagation protocols. However, a monolithic mathematical optimization model with a practically applicable, efficient, and accurate solution method is still missing. In this study, we first provide a mathematical model which integrates WSN design decisions on sensor places, activity schedules, data routes, trajectory of the mobile sink(s) and then present two heuristic methods for the solution of the model. We demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the heuristics on several randomly generated problem instances on the basis of extensive numerical experiments.

TCP-Like Molecular Communications

Abstract: In this paper, we present a communication protocol between a pair of biological nanomachines, i.e., a transmitter and a receiver, built upon molecular communications in an aqueous environment. In our proposal, the receiver, acting as a control node, sends a connection setup signal to the transmitter, which stokes molecules, to start molecule transmission. The molecules transmitted by the transmitter propagate in the environment and are absorbed by the receiver through its receptors. When the receiver absorbs the desired quantity of molecules, it releases a tear-down signal to notify the transmitter to stop the transmission. The proposed protocol implements a bidirectional communication by using a number of techniques originally designed for the TCP. In fact, the proposed protocol is connection-oriented and uses the TCP-like probing to find a suitable transmission rate between the transmitter and the receiver to avoid receiver congestion. Unlike the TCP, however, explicit acknowledgments are not used since they would degrade the communication throughput due to the large delay, which is a characteristic feature of molecular communications. Thus, the proposed protocol uses implicit acknowledgments, and feedback signals are sent by the receiver to throttle the transmission rate at the transmitter, i.e., explicit negative feedback. We also present the results of an extensive simulation campaign, used to validate the proposed protocol and to properly dimension the main protocol parameters.

System architecture for wireless sensor networks

Abstract: System and three generations of a hardware platform designed to address the needs of wireless sensor networks. Our operating system, called TinyOS uses an event based execution model to provide support for finegrained concurrency and incorporates a highly efficient component model. TinyOS enables us to use a hardware architecture that has a single processor time shared between both application and protocol processing. We show how a virtual partitioning of computational resources not only leads to efficient resource utilization but allows for a rich interface between application and protocol processing. This rich interface, in turn, allows developers to exploit application specific communication protocols that significantly improve system performance. The hardware platforms we develop are used to validate a generalized architecture that is technology independent. Our general architecture contains a single central controller that performs both application and protocol-level processing. For flexibility, this controller is directly connected to the RF transceiver.

Design of a Reconfigurable RFID Sensing Tag as a Generic Sensing Platform Toward the Future Internet of Things

Abstract: This paper introduces a semipassive, reconfigurable UHF RF identification (RFID) sensing tag operating as the generic sensing platform (GSP) and the sensing nodes of the future Internet of Things (IoT). For generic real-time data acquisition, this new platform offers multiple inexpensive, plug-and-play sensing channels for the appended physical sensors. This new tag can be dynamically reconfigured to operate as a continuous data transmitting/receiving platform (online mode) or a data logging device (offline mode). In the offline mode, for accommodating and managing the high volume of data acquired by the tag sensors, a novel memory management scheme is designed and implemented. Furthermore, the platform employs an innovative data communication strategy that is compatible with the current electronic product code (EPC) Gen-2 communications protocols to facilitate the sensing data communications and other information exchange between the sensing node and the routing tier of IoT. Finally, the designed tag has been successfully deployed and tested in an experimental IoT setup for its performance evaluation as a GSP.

Medium Access Control Protocols in Cognitive Radio Networks: Overview and General Classification

Abstract: The Cognitive Radio and the Cognitive Radio Networks have recently become one of the most intensively studied paradigms in wireless communications. The main distinctive characteristic with respect to the radio environmental conditions in which the Cognitive Radio Network operates is the time/frequency/space-dependent availability of the spectral resources, a phenomenon commonly referred as spectrum hete-rogeneity. This phenomenon imposes redefinition of the protocol stack by introducing new communication protocols for the Cognitive Radio Network including new Medium Access Control protocols. The Cognitive MAC (C-MAC) protocols employ number of mechanisms that address spectrum heterogeneity and provide technical strategies for smart exploitation of spectrum's current underutilized time/space/frequency regions that enables large spectrum efficiency gains while maximizing the transparency of the Cognitive Radio Networks to the primary system. The classification and systematization of the existing C-MAC proposals is a complex task due to many C-MAC related aspects. This survey introduces and develops generic, modular and easily extensible layout for classification and systematization of C-MAC protocols referred as C-MAC cycle. Each C-MAC protocol can be easily fragmented, mapped and visualized using the C-MAC cycle, regardless of the operational scenario and settings. The survey offers extensive overview on the state-of-the-art advances in C-MAC protocol engineering by reviewing existing and up-to-date technical solutions, identifies their basic characteristics and maps them into the C-MAC cycle. The survey also highlights the role of regulative and standardization activities on C-MAC cycle.

TCP-like molecular communications

Abstract: In this paper, we present a communication protocol between a pair of biological nanomachines, transmitter and receiver, built upon molecular communications in an aqueous environment. In our proposal, the receiver, acting as a control node, sends a connection setup signal to the transmitter, which stokes molecules, to start molecule transmission. The molecules transmitted by the transmitter propagate in the environment and are absorbed by the receiver through its receptors. When the receiver absorbs the desired quantity of molecules, it releases a tear-down signal to notify the transmitter to stop the transmission. The proposed protocol implements a bidirectional communication by using a number of techniques originally designed for the TCP. In fact, the proposed protocol is connection-oriented, and uses the TCP-like probing to find a suitable transmission rate between transmitter and receiver so as to avoid receiver congestion. Unlike the TCP, however, explicit acknowledgments are not used, since they would degrade the communication throughput due to the large delay, a characteristic feature of molecular communications. Thus, the proposed protocol uses implicit acknowledgments, and feedback signals are sent by the receiver to throttle the transmission rate at the transmitter, i.e., explicit negative feedbacks. We also present the results of an extensive simulation campaign, used to validate the proposed protocol and to properly dimension the main protocol parameters.

Time-Triggered Ethernet

Abstract: TTEthernet is intended as cross-industry communication infrastructure: originally designed according to aerospace standards, it is scalable in several directions. This chapter discusses two particular configurations of TTEthernet representing the extremes of the possible configuration space: a master-based configuration and a dual-fault-tolerant configuration. The chapter also introduces three roles in the synchronization algorithms of TTEthernet: the synchronization master (SM), the compression master (CM), and the synchronization client (SC). The TTEthernet start-up protocol is only executed between the SMs and the CMs. TTEthernet defines the term traffic class to differentiate communication modes. TTEthernet network configurations may differ with respect to the number of end systems and the number of switches, as well as their connecting topology. The TTEthernet switches allow communication of all traffic classes at line-rate communication speeds. TTEthernet is an integrative communication protocol capable of communicating frames of the three traffic classes on the same physical network.

Efficient Privacy-Preserving Authentication in Wireless Mobile Networks

Abstract: Secure authentication in roaming services is being designed to allow legal users to get access to wireless network services when they are away from their home location Recently, to protect the location privacy of users, there have been researches on anonymous authentication In particular, anonymous authentication without the participation of home servers has attracted considerable interest owing to its influence on the communication efficiency Unfortunately, the previously proposed anonymous authentication schemes have serious practical shortcomings, such as high communication and computation costs and huge revocation lists In this paper, we propose a novel three-round anonymous roaming protocol that does not require the participation of home servers The proposed protocol uses a pseudo-identity-based signcryption scheme to perform efficient revocation with a short revocation list and efficient authentication The use of a signcryption algorithm minimizes the number of pseudo-identities stored in a Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) card with limited storage capacity The authentication efficiency is also higher than that of existing protocols The proposed protocol is formally proved in the Canetti-Krawczyk (CK) model

TempLab: a testbed infrastructure to study the impact of temperature on wireless sensor networks

Abstract: Temperature has a strong impact on the operations of all electrical and electronic components. In wireless sensor nodes, temperature variations can lead to loss of synchronization, degradation of the link quality, or early battery depletion, and can therefore affect key network metrics such as throughput, delay, and lifetime. Considering that most outdoor deployments are exposed to strong temperature variations across time and space, a deep understanding of how temperature affects network protocols is fundamental to comprehend flaws in their design and to improve their performance. Existing testbed infrastructures, however, do not allow to systematically study the impact of temperature on wireless sensor networks.In this paper we present TempLab, an extension for wireless sensor network testbeds that allows to control the on-board temperature of sensor nodes and to study the effects of temperature variations on the network performance in a precise and repeatable fashion. TempLab can accurately reproduce traces recorded in outdoor environments with fine granularity, while minimizing the hardware costs and configuration overhead. We use TempLab to analyse the detrimental effects of temperature variations (i) on processing performance, (ii) on a tree routing protocol, and (iii) on CSMA-based MAC protocols, deriving insights that would have not been revealed using existing testbed installations.

Priority- and Delay-Aware Medium Access for Wireless Sensor Networks in the Smart Grid

Abstract: Monitoring smart-grid assets in a timely manner is highly desired for emerging smart-grid applications such as transformer monitoring, capacitor bank control, plug-in hybrid-electric-vehicle load management, and power quality assessment. Wireless sensor and actor networks (WSANs) are anticipated to be widely utilized in a wide range of smart-grid applications due to their numerous advantages along with their successful adoption in various critical areas including military and health. For resource-constrained WSANs, transmitting delay-critical data from smart-grid assets calls for data prioritization and delay responsiveness. In this paper, we introduce two medium-access approaches, namely, delay-responsive cross-layer (DRX) data transmission and fair and delay-aware cross-layer (FDRX) data transmission, which aim to address the delay and service requirements of smart grids. DRX is based on delay-estimation and data-prioritization steps that are performed by the application layer, in addition to the MAC layer parameters responding to the delay requirements of the smart-grid application and the network condition. On the other hand, FDRX incorporates fairness into DRX by preventing a few nodes from dominating the communication channel. We provide a comprehensive performance evaluation of those approaches. We show that DRX reduces the end-to-end delay while FDRX has lower collision rate compared with DRX. We outline the tradeoffs regarding these approaches and draw future research directions for robust communication protocols for smart-grid monitoring applications.

Distributed Channel Allocation Protocols for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract: Interference between concurrent transmissions can cause severe performance degradation in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). While multiple channels available in WSN technology such as IEEE 802.15.4 can be exploited to mitigate interference, channel allocation can have a significant impact on the performance of multi-channel communication. This paper proposes a set of distributed protocols for channel allocation in WSNs with theoretical bounds. We first consider the problem of minimizing the number of channels needed to remove interference in a WSN, and propose both receiver-based and link-based distributed channel allocation protocols. Then, for WSNs with an insufficient number of channels, we formulate a fair channel allocation problem whose objective is to minimize the maximum interference (MinMax) experienced by any transmission link in the network. We prove that MinMax channel allocation is NP-hard, and propose a distributed link-based MinMax channel allocation protocol. Finally, we propose a distributed protocol for link scheduling based on MinMax channel allocation that creates a conflict-free schedule for transmissions. The proposed decentralized protocols are efficient, scalable, and adaptive to channel condition and network dynamics. Simulations based on the topologies and data traces collected from a WSN testbed of 74 TelosB motes have shown that our channel allocation protocols significantly outperform a state-of-the-art channel allocation protocol.

Wireless Sensor Network-based air quality monitoring system

Abstract: This paper proposes a simple Wireless Sensor Network (WSN)-based air quality monitoring system (WSN-AQMS) for industrial and urban areas. The proposed framework comprises a set of gas sensors (ozone, CO, and NO2) that are deployed on stacks and infrastructure of a Zigbee WSN and a central server to support both short-term real-time incident management and a long-term strategic planning. This architecture would use open-hardware open-software gas sensing capable motes [6] made by Libelium. These motes use the ZigBee communication protocol and provide a real-time low cost monitoring system through the use of low cost, low data rate, and low power wireless communication technology. The proposed monitoring system can be transferred to or shared by other applications. We also introduce a simple but efficient clustering protocol dubbed hereafter “Clustering Protocol for Air Sensor network” (CPAS) for the proposed WSN-AQMS framework. CPAS proves to be efficient in terms of network energy consumption, network lifetime, and the rate at which data is communicated.

Communication protocols in integrated systems

Abstract: Systems and methods comprise a gateway that includes a processor coupled to a security system at a premises via a channel. The channel comprises a protocol of the security system that is a proprietary bus protocol of the control panel of the security system. A touchscreen at the premises is coupled to the gateway and presents user interfaces. The user interfaces include a security interface that provides control of functions of the security system and access to data collected by the security system, and a network interface that provides access to network devices. A camera is located at the premises and coupled to the gateway. A security server at a remote location is coupled to the gateway. The security server comprises a client interface through which remote client devices exchange data with the gateway and the security system.

Multiprotocol intelligent household gateway apparatus and system thereof

Abstract: The invention supports access and integration of multiple heterogeneous networks including a wireless network, an on-site bus, an Ethernet and the like, and provides a household gateway protocol conversion and configuration method and device, and a device description file. A configurable protocol method is mainly employed to solve the problem of conversion among multiple heterogeneous protocols. A gateway is provided with configurable protocol software, the software generates description files of various device protocols, and a protocol conversion driving file is generated through a configuration method according to protocol attributes by use of a software tool. The gateway, after loading the driving file, converts the driving file to a communication protocol which can be identified by a device and automatically maps to generate a unified TCP/IP protocol frame routing table. The description files, based on a ClassAD task description language, are used for providing a flexible and extensible heterogeneous network model to describe any services or data. The gateway, through identification and description of device information, determines the type and meaning of the information, omits information parsing, reduces the time for processing the information by the gateway, and improves the real-time performance of a system.

Communication protocols over internet protocol (IP) networks

Abstract: A system and methods comprise a touchscreen at a premises. The touchscreen includes a processor coupled to a security system at the premises. User interfaces are presented via the touchscreen. The user interfaces include a security interface that provides control of functions of the security system and access to data collected by the security system, and a network interface that provides access to network devices. A camera at the premises is coupled to the touchscreen via a plurality of interfaces. A security server at a remote location is coupled to the touchscreen. The security server comprises a client interface through which remote client devices exchange data with the touchscreen and the security system.

UnetStack: An agent-based software stack and simulator for underwater networks

Abstract: To deploy successful underwater networks in the face of challenges such as low bandwidth, long propagation delay, half-duplex nature of links, high packet loss and time variability, we require highly optimized network protocols with low overhead and significant cross-layer information sharing. UnetStack is a network stack designed to provide a good balance between separation of concern, and information sharing. By replacing a traditional layered stack architecture by an agent-based architecture, we provide additional flexibility that allows novel protocols to be easily implemented, deployed and tested. In discrete-event simulation mode, UnetStack can be used on desktop/laptop computers or computing clusters to simulate underwater networks and test protocol performance. In realtime simulation mode, it can be used to interactively debug protocol implementations, and test deployment scenarios prior to an experiment. Once tested, the protocols can simply be copied to an underwater modem with UnetStack support, and deployed in the field. The stack implementation has been extensively tested, not only through carefully calibrated simulations, but also in several field experiments. We provide an overview of UnetStack and briefly discuss a few deployments to illustrate some of its key features.

Communication techniques and challenges for wireless food quality monitoring.

Abstract: Remote measurement of product core temperature is an important prerequisite to improve the cool chain of food products and reduce losses. This paper examines and shows possible solutions to technical challenges that still hinder practical applications of wireless sensor networks in the field of food transport supervision. The high signal attenuation by water-containing products limits the communication range to less than 0.5 m for the commonly used 2.4 GHz radio chips. By theoretical analysis of the dependency of signal attenuation on the operating frequency, we show that the signal attenuation can be largely reduced by the use of 433 MHz or 866 MHz devices, but forwarding of messages over multiple hops inside a sensor network is mostly unavoidable to guarantee full coverage of a packed container. Communication protocols have to provide compatibility with widely accepted standards for integration into the global Internet, which has been achieved by programming an implementation of the constrained application protocol for wireless sensor nodes and integrating into IPv6-based networks. The sensor's battery lifetime can be extended by optimizing communication protocols and by in-network pre-processing of the sensor data. The feasibility of remote freight supervision was demonstrated by our full-scale ‘Intelligent Container’ prototype.

Sensor discovery and configuration framework for the Internet of Things paradigm

Abstract: Internet of Things (IoT) will comprise billions of devices that can sense, communicate, compute and potentially actuate. The data generated by the Internet of Things are valuable and have the potential to drive innovative and novel applications. The data streams coming from these devices will challenge the traditional approaches to data management and contribute to the emerging paradigm of big data. One of the most challenging tasks before collecting and processing data from these devices (e.g. sensors) is discovering and configuring the sensors and the associated data streams. In this paper, we propose a tool called SmartLink that can be used to discover and configure sensors. Specifically, SmartLink, is capable of discovering sensors deployed in a particular location despite their heterogeneity (e.g. different communication protocols, communication sequences, capabilities). SmartLink establishes the direct communication between the sensor hardware and cloud-based IoT middleware. We address the challenge of heterogeneity using a plugin architecture. Our prototype tool is developed on the Android platform. We evaluate the significance of our approach by discovering and configuring 52 different types of Libelium sensors.