This paper illustrates a general framework in which a neural network application can be easily in... more This paper illustrates a general framework in which a neural network application can be easily integrated and proposes a traffic forecasting approach that uses neural networks based on graphs. Neural networks based on graphs have the advantage of capturing spatial–temporal characteristics that cannot be captured by other types of neural networks. This is due to entries that are graphs that, by their nature, include, besides a certain topology (the spatial characteristic), connections between nodes that model the costs (traffic load, speed, and road length) of the roads between nodes that can vary over time (the temporal characteristic). As a result, a prediction in a node influences the prediction from adjacent nodes, and, globally, the prediction has more precision. On the other hand, an adequate neural network leads to a good prediction, but its complexity can be higher. A recurrent neural network like LSTM is suitable for making predictions. A reduction in complexity can be achieved by choosing a relatively small number (usually determined by experiments) of hidden levels. The use of graphs as inputs to the neural network and the choice of a recurrent neural network combined lead to good accuracy in traffic prediction with a low enough implementation effort that it can be accomplished on microcontrollers with relatively limited resources. The proposed method minimizes the communication network (between vehicles and database servers) load and represents a reasonable trade-off between the communication network load and forecasting accuracy. Traffic prediction leads to less-congested routes and, therefore, to a reduction in energy consumption. The traffic is forecasted using an LSTM neural network with a regression layer. The inputs of the neural network are sequences—obtained from a graph that represents the road network—at specific moments in time that are read from traffic sensors or the outputs of the neural network (forecasting sequences). The input sequences can be filtered to improve the forecasting accuracy. This general framework is based on the Contiki IoT operating system, which ensures support for wireless communication and the efficient implementation of processes in a resource-constrained system, and it is particularized to implement a graph neural network. Two cases are studied: one case in which the traffic sensors are periodically read and another case in which the traffic sensors are read when their values’ changes are detected. A comparison between the cases is made, and the influence of filtering is evaluated. The obtained accuracy is very good and is very close to the accuracy obtained in an infinite precision simulation, the computation time is low enough, and the system can work in real time.
Electric vehicles represent an overwhelming worldwide trend towards environment-friendly transpor... more Electric vehicles represent an overwhelming worldwide trend towards environment-friendly transportation and the number of electric vehicles has been increasing rapidly for more than one decade. However, uncoordinated charging of electric vehicles leads to increased congestion at charging stations and significantly strains the power supply grid. Recently, this problem has become more serious and it has received remarkable attention in both societies and the research community. In this paper, we present an overview of electric vehicle charging scheduling mechanisms, focusing on two main categories of schemes, namely centralized and decentralized. Specifically, the paper covers the optimization techniques that are applicable for optimizing the charging of electric vehicles. After reviewing the state-of-the-art research, we identify limitations and gaps in current solutions, such as challenges in handling large numbers of electric vehicles, over-reliance on predictive models without accounting real-time grid status, and a commonly overlooked aspect on user preferences in charging schedules. Furthermore, we shed light on potential research directions relevant to this topic. INDEX TERMS Electric vehicle, optimization techniques, charging scheduling, optimal charging scheme, charging behaviors
Good Practices and New Perspectives in Information Systems and Technologies. WorldCIST 2024. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, 2024
In recent years, together with advances in the software defined radio (SDR) field, the concept of... more In recent years, together with advances in the software defined radio (SDR) field, the concept of mobile private networks (MPNs) gained momentum. Several solutions based on open-source software modules and using SDR platforms as hardware were developed. In the current paper, the radio coverage of a private 4G mobile network was evaluated using the HTZ Communication software and field-test measurements. The network was implemented using an USRP B210 SDR platform and the srsRAN-4G software suite. A comparison between the coverage estimated using different propagation models and measurements is performed, together with an analysis of the obtained results.
UPB Scientific Bulletin, Series C: Electrical Engineering, Aug 12, 2021
To outcome the higher demand on IT applications, the enterprises and
service providers must buil... more To outcome the higher demand on IT applications, the enterprises and
service providers must build and expand the use of edge computing. This can lead to
possible difficulties concerning how to place workloads of network services
automation and evaluate the costs in an optimal way. This paper’s intention is to
present a scenario with three different virtual network functions designed with
specific restrictions and different compute costs and the Control System Hub with
Open Source Mano solution to limit and face those restrictions. To achieve this, the
optimal placement algorithm uses the Control System Hub network analytic
platform along with virtual charmed factors for control and Quality-of-Service
measures.
2021 20th RoEduNet Conference: Networking in Education and Research (RoEduNet), 2021
Smart cities have frontline responsibility to ensure a secure and safe physical and digital ecosy... more Smart cities have frontline responsibility to ensure a secure and safe physical and digital ecosystem promoting cohesive and sustainable urban development for the wellbeing of human beings. In this paper, we propose to integrate advanced technological solutions in a market-oriented unified Cyber–Physical Security Management framework, aiming at raising the resilience of cities’ infrastructures, services, ICT, IoT, and fostering intelligence and information sharing among city’s security. The project we implement, “Smart Spaces Safety and Security for All Cities” (S4ALLCITIES), is dealing with Systems of Systems Architecture to deploy and validate its intelligent components and functionalities on actual environment, ensuring the delivery of solutions and services in line with smart cities emerging requirements, focused on: risk-based open smart spaces security management; cyber security shielding; and behavior tracking; real-time estimation of cyber-physical risks in multiple locations and measures activation for effective crisis management
2022 International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), Jul 1, 2022
Although the number of massive machine type
communications (mMTC) devices covered by a fifth gen... more Although the number of massive machine type
communications (mMTC) devices covered by a fifth generation
(5G) cell could be huge, not all devices are always active. For
radio resource allocation, it is vital that a base station has the
knowledge on the number of active mMTC devices in each
frame. In this paper, we develop a mathematical framework to
perform pseudo-Bayesian estimation on the number of active
devices within a 5G new radio (NR) subframe. The estimation
is performed by the base station on a subframe-by-subframe
basis based upon which a transmission permission probability
is imposed on active devices for their transmissions in the next
subframe. The active devices include both backlogged devices
and new arrivals in the current subframe that will attempt for
medium access in the next subframe relying on a combination of
NR radio resources in both time and frequency domains. Such
an estimation constitutes an important component for the design
of grant-free access schemes for mMTC uplink traffic.
Advanced Topics in Optoelectronics, Microelectronics, and Nanotechnologies XI
The Perception layer in Internet of Things (IoT) architectures is responsible for connecting sens... more The Perception layer in Internet of Things (IoT) architectures is responsible for connecting sensor nodes and data acquisition units such that sensing devices capture relevant data from the corresponding environment. Most IoT platforms are designed to transmit data at fixed time intervals, which is a disadvantage in the modern world dominated by rapid changes in the evolution of events. This paper addresses improvements performed on an IoT platform dedicated to critical applications (e.g., fire, air pollution). This novel approach assumes the use of two equations empirically determined to compute the time interval between successive transmissions depending on the detected event. A new method for communication technology selection (LoRaWAN, Wi-Fi or cellular) is implemented and the time interval between two successive transmissions is adjusted according to the occurring event. Comparisons were highlighted for each analyzed case. The proposed method proved to be suitable for critical scenarios or scenarios that can generate false-positive alarms, due to abnormal variations of parameters.
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC)
In the coming years, autonomous driving will be the primary focus of the automobile industry. The... more In the coming years, autonomous driving will be the primary focus of the automobile industry. The great majority of accidents are caused by human mistakes, and autonomous cars can help to lower this number significantly, thus improving road safety. Object identification plays a critical part in autonomous vehicle driving, and deep learning techniques are used to implement it. YOLO is one of the most common methods for recognizing and identifying things that emerge on the road. Its popularity has developed as a result of its superior performance in terms of speed, high accuracy, and learning capabilities when compared to other object recognition approaches such as Retina-Net, fast R-CNN, and Single-Shot MultiBox Detection (SSD).
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC)
Automating software orchestration and service development represents the newest trend in the deve... more Automating software orchestration and service development represents the newest trend in the development of fifth generation (5G) core network (CN) as it enables flexible and scalable service deployment. The building blocks for such a trend include Containers, Docker, Kubernetes, and other orchestration methods that facilitate easy scaling, management and control, load balancing, and personalized quality of service. In this paper, we develop a containerized 5G standalone (SA) network, building two types of network topologies for 5G SA deployment based on the concepts of 5G cloud network functions, Docker containers and Linux virtualization. Based on our implementation of both Minimalist Deployment and Basic Deployment, an assessment on the attach procedure is performed through next generation application protocol (NGAP) filtering along with subscriber information. Moreover, emulated transmission control protocol (TCP)/user datagram protocol (UDP) traffic is injected into the network and its performance is evaluated based on metrics such as traffic volume and data rate for both uplink and downlink.
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC)
To enable emerging applications of fifth generation (5G) systems for vertical scenarios like mobi... more To enable emerging applications of fifth generation (5G) systems for vertical scenarios like mobile broadband and Internet of things (IoT) for vehicles and maritime sectors, a new trend towards softwarization and establishment of private networks is gaining momentum. Different from earlier generations of mobile systems where network functions are traditionally operated based on dedicated hardware, 5G infrastructures can be virtualized and services can be provided based on software, common hardware and servers. In this paper, we present an open-source based prototype private network which has been implemented in the framework of an EEA research project SOLID-B5G. The prototype network is a 5G non-standalone (NSA) network with a fourth generation (4G) evolved packet core (EPC) connecting both evolved NodeB (eNB) and next generation NodeB (gNB) to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) user equipment (UE). The prototype is implemented based on two popular open-source software platforms, namely OAI RAN and srsRAN. Based on our implementations, extensive experiments have been conducted to assess the performance of the prototype network in terms of downlink/uplink throughput and latency between different parts of the system
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC)
Distributed multi-controller deployments are explored in large SDN-controlled networks to achieve... more Distributed multi-controller deployments are explored in large SDN-controlled networks to achieve the control plane scalability and reliability. There are many types of research on the Controller Selection or Placement Problem (CSP/CPP). The majority of studies consider a static approach to optimize the controller placement and a static mapping of switches to controllers. However, in a dynamic topology (susceptible to controller overload, nodes, or link failure), the initial mapping of the forwarders-to-controllers and even the controller placement could become nonoptimal, w.r.t. QoS service requirements. The flow of data through multiple controllers could vary following an unequal distribution of the load between multiple controllers. To overcome the aforementioned challenge, a solution could be a limited dynamic switch migration if controller overload is detected. The contribution of this work-in-progress is a proposal of a powerful condition-aware mechanism for switch migration and its functionality validation. The system considered in this work include the Redis database, Ryu controller, Mininet, and Iperf and introduce the concept of Supervisor controller. Our prototype resolves multiple overloads, simultaneously fixing the load balancing problems within the SDN controller plane
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC), 2022
Massive Internet of Things (mIoT) traffic in beyond fifth generation (B5G) networks is stimulatin... more Massive Internet of Things (mIoT) traffic in beyond fifth generation (B5G) networks is stimulating a surge of data volume and may cause potential performance degradation when multiple devices attempt to transmit at the same time. In this paper, we present three techniques that can mitigate the effects of concurrent transmissions of multiple devices and improve network performance. First, by considering cluster-formation through beamforming and device activity factor, the number of active devices in a cluster becomes much lower. Second, by enabling pseudo-orthogonal codes for initial access in addition to existing orthogonal codes, more devices are allowed to transmit simultaneously. Third, by deploying multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas at the base station, concurrent transmissions can be performed. Based on these techniques, network performance is assessed.
2022 International Conference on Software, Telecommunications and Computer Networks (SoftCOM)
The Software Defined Network (SDN) concept has changed the traditional network architecture to ac... more The Software Defined Network (SDN) concept has changed the traditional network architecture to achieve higher flexibility, the programmability of the network, the abstraction based on a logically centralized control plane, and the data (forwarding) plane decoupling. The SDN control centralization raises scalability issues. This work focuses on the scalability concerns of the Ryu SDN controller in various scenarios with distinct network topologies like tree and datacenter. Throughout this paper, we assess the consequences of distributing subscriber data requests over the controller performance into different network topologies also using a different number of subscribers. The performance of the Ryu is tested by observing the throughput of the controller. The assessment was accomplished by employing an Iperf traffic generator and Mininet. The paper studies two matters that impact the Ryu throughput: the exponential increase of the number of nodes in tree topology and the adoption of the same condition over a datacenter topology. The experiments involve the two types of topologies mentioned and a topologies size range from 200 to 2000 nodes and assessing the controller performance using the throughput as the performance criterion. The results of this research will be used in a research project oriented to 5G slicing, where the control plane is based on SDN.
IoT devices present an ever-growing domain with multiple applicability. This technology has favor... more IoT devices present an ever-growing domain with multiple applicability. This technology has favored and still favors many areas by creating critical infrastructures that are as profitable as possible. This paper presents a hierarchical architecture composed of different licensing entities that manage access to different resources within a network infrastructure. They are conducted on the basis of well-drawn policy rules. At the same time, the security side of these resources is also placed through a context awareness module. Together with this technology, IoT is used and Blockchain is enabled (for network consolidation, as well as the transparency with which to monitor the platform). The ultimate goal is to implement a secure and scalable security platform for the Smart Grid. The paper presents the work undertaken in the SealedGRID project and the steps taken for implementing security policies specifically tailored to the Smart Grid, based on advanced concepts such as Opinion Dynamics and Smart Grid-related Attribute-based Access Control.
Media content streaming and delivery is nowadays a high popularity service in Internet. Complex a... more Media content streaming and delivery is nowadays a high popularity service in Internet. Complex architectures like Content Delivery Networks, Content Aware/Oriented Networks have been proposed, where information/content objects are treated as first-class abstractions. As alternative, light architectures, are investigated and implemented, working on top of the current IP networking technologies. In both types of architectures, appropriate content server and path selection constitute the primary set of actions to be performed in the content delivery systems. Such a problem belongs to the general class of multicriteria optimization problem, having (in our case) as input, some information on servers, network and user context. This paper contains an extension of a preliminary work, focused on algorithms and policies for optimized paths and server selection. Simulation study results are presented here, to illustrate the better performance of multi-criteria optimization algorithms versus r...
This paper studies and evaluates the scalability properties of a resource management subsystem as... more This paper studies and evaluates the scalability properties of a resource management subsystem as a component of a networked media ecosystem. The overall system aims to offer multimedia delivery with configurable guarantees of Quality of Services, over multi-domain networks, to large communities of users. The transport infrastructure is based on creation of data plane logical slices named Virtual Content Aware Networks. These slices are realized under control of a management plane, comprising centralized per-network domain "controllers", cooperating to construct parallel data planes, which span multiple IP network domains independently managed. In this multi-domain context, the management system scalability properties are important, while the problem is similar to the multi-controller inter-communication in emerging multi-controller Software Defined Networking technologies. The management system architecture considered in this paper has been previously defined. This work a...
This paper illustrates a general framework in which a neural network application can be easily in... more This paper illustrates a general framework in which a neural network application can be easily integrated and proposes a traffic forecasting approach that uses neural networks based on graphs. Neural networks based on graphs have the advantage of capturing spatial–temporal characteristics that cannot be captured by other types of neural networks. This is due to entries that are graphs that, by their nature, include, besides a certain topology (the spatial characteristic), connections between nodes that model the costs (traffic load, speed, and road length) of the roads between nodes that can vary over time (the temporal characteristic). As a result, a prediction in a node influences the prediction from adjacent nodes, and, globally, the prediction has more precision. On the other hand, an adequate neural network leads to a good prediction, but its complexity can be higher. A recurrent neural network like LSTM is suitable for making predictions. A reduction in complexity can be achieved by choosing a relatively small number (usually determined by experiments) of hidden levels. The use of graphs as inputs to the neural network and the choice of a recurrent neural network combined lead to good accuracy in traffic prediction with a low enough implementation effort that it can be accomplished on microcontrollers with relatively limited resources. The proposed method minimizes the communication network (between vehicles and database servers) load and represents a reasonable trade-off between the communication network load and forecasting accuracy. Traffic prediction leads to less-congested routes and, therefore, to a reduction in energy consumption. The traffic is forecasted using an LSTM neural network with a regression layer. The inputs of the neural network are sequences—obtained from a graph that represents the road network—at specific moments in time that are read from traffic sensors or the outputs of the neural network (forecasting sequences). The input sequences can be filtered to improve the forecasting accuracy. This general framework is based on the Contiki IoT operating system, which ensures support for wireless communication and the efficient implementation of processes in a resource-constrained system, and it is particularized to implement a graph neural network. Two cases are studied: one case in which the traffic sensors are periodically read and another case in which the traffic sensors are read when their values’ changes are detected. A comparison between the cases is made, and the influence of filtering is evaluated. The obtained accuracy is very good and is very close to the accuracy obtained in an infinite precision simulation, the computation time is low enough, and the system can work in real time.
Electric vehicles represent an overwhelming worldwide trend towards environment-friendly transpor... more Electric vehicles represent an overwhelming worldwide trend towards environment-friendly transportation and the number of electric vehicles has been increasing rapidly for more than one decade. However, uncoordinated charging of electric vehicles leads to increased congestion at charging stations and significantly strains the power supply grid. Recently, this problem has become more serious and it has received remarkable attention in both societies and the research community. In this paper, we present an overview of electric vehicle charging scheduling mechanisms, focusing on two main categories of schemes, namely centralized and decentralized. Specifically, the paper covers the optimization techniques that are applicable for optimizing the charging of electric vehicles. After reviewing the state-of-the-art research, we identify limitations and gaps in current solutions, such as challenges in handling large numbers of electric vehicles, over-reliance on predictive models without accounting real-time grid status, and a commonly overlooked aspect on user preferences in charging schedules. Furthermore, we shed light on potential research directions relevant to this topic. INDEX TERMS Electric vehicle, optimization techniques, charging scheduling, optimal charging scheme, charging behaviors
Good Practices and New Perspectives in Information Systems and Technologies. WorldCIST 2024. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, 2024
In recent years, together with advances in the software defined radio (SDR) field, the concept of... more In recent years, together with advances in the software defined radio (SDR) field, the concept of mobile private networks (MPNs) gained momentum. Several solutions based on open-source software modules and using SDR platforms as hardware were developed. In the current paper, the radio coverage of a private 4G mobile network was evaluated using the HTZ Communication software and field-test measurements. The network was implemented using an USRP B210 SDR platform and the srsRAN-4G software suite. A comparison between the coverage estimated using different propagation models and measurements is performed, together with an analysis of the obtained results.
UPB Scientific Bulletin, Series C: Electrical Engineering, Aug 12, 2021
To outcome the higher demand on IT applications, the enterprises and
service providers must buil... more To outcome the higher demand on IT applications, the enterprises and
service providers must build and expand the use of edge computing. This can lead to
possible difficulties concerning how to place workloads of network services
automation and evaluate the costs in an optimal way. This paper’s intention is to
present a scenario with three different virtual network functions designed with
specific restrictions and different compute costs and the Control System Hub with
Open Source Mano solution to limit and face those restrictions. To achieve this, the
optimal placement algorithm uses the Control System Hub network analytic
platform along with virtual charmed factors for control and Quality-of-Service
measures.
2021 20th RoEduNet Conference: Networking in Education and Research (RoEduNet), 2021
Smart cities have frontline responsibility to ensure a secure and safe physical and digital ecosy... more Smart cities have frontline responsibility to ensure a secure and safe physical and digital ecosystem promoting cohesive and sustainable urban development for the wellbeing of human beings. In this paper, we propose to integrate advanced technological solutions in a market-oriented unified Cyber–Physical Security Management framework, aiming at raising the resilience of cities’ infrastructures, services, ICT, IoT, and fostering intelligence and information sharing among city’s security. The project we implement, “Smart Spaces Safety and Security for All Cities” (S4ALLCITIES), is dealing with Systems of Systems Architecture to deploy and validate its intelligent components and functionalities on actual environment, ensuring the delivery of solutions and services in line with smart cities emerging requirements, focused on: risk-based open smart spaces security management; cyber security shielding; and behavior tracking; real-time estimation of cyber-physical risks in multiple locations and measures activation for effective crisis management
2022 International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN), Jul 1, 2022
Although the number of massive machine type
communications (mMTC) devices covered by a fifth gen... more Although the number of massive machine type
communications (mMTC) devices covered by a fifth generation
(5G) cell could be huge, not all devices are always active. For
radio resource allocation, it is vital that a base station has the
knowledge on the number of active mMTC devices in each
frame. In this paper, we develop a mathematical framework to
perform pseudo-Bayesian estimation on the number of active
devices within a 5G new radio (NR) subframe. The estimation
is performed by the base station on a subframe-by-subframe
basis based upon which a transmission permission probability
is imposed on active devices for their transmissions in the next
subframe. The active devices include both backlogged devices
and new arrivals in the current subframe that will attempt for
medium access in the next subframe relying on a combination of
NR radio resources in both time and frequency domains. Such
an estimation constitutes an important component for the design
of grant-free access schemes for mMTC uplink traffic.
Advanced Topics in Optoelectronics, Microelectronics, and Nanotechnologies XI
The Perception layer in Internet of Things (IoT) architectures is responsible for connecting sens... more The Perception layer in Internet of Things (IoT) architectures is responsible for connecting sensor nodes and data acquisition units such that sensing devices capture relevant data from the corresponding environment. Most IoT platforms are designed to transmit data at fixed time intervals, which is a disadvantage in the modern world dominated by rapid changes in the evolution of events. This paper addresses improvements performed on an IoT platform dedicated to critical applications (e.g., fire, air pollution). This novel approach assumes the use of two equations empirically determined to compute the time interval between successive transmissions depending on the detected event. A new method for communication technology selection (LoRaWAN, Wi-Fi or cellular) is implemented and the time interval between two successive transmissions is adjusted according to the occurring event. Comparisons were highlighted for each analyzed case. The proposed method proved to be suitable for critical scenarios or scenarios that can generate false-positive alarms, due to abnormal variations of parameters.
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC)
In the coming years, autonomous driving will be the primary focus of the automobile industry. The... more In the coming years, autonomous driving will be the primary focus of the automobile industry. The great majority of accidents are caused by human mistakes, and autonomous cars can help to lower this number significantly, thus improving road safety. Object identification plays a critical part in autonomous vehicle driving, and deep learning techniques are used to implement it. YOLO is one of the most common methods for recognizing and identifying things that emerge on the road. Its popularity has developed as a result of its superior performance in terms of speed, high accuracy, and learning capabilities when compared to other object recognition approaches such as Retina-Net, fast R-CNN, and Single-Shot MultiBox Detection (SSD).
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC)
Automating software orchestration and service development represents the newest trend in the deve... more Automating software orchestration and service development represents the newest trend in the development of fifth generation (5G) core network (CN) as it enables flexible and scalable service deployment. The building blocks for such a trend include Containers, Docker, Kubernetes, and other orchestration methods that facilitate easy scaling, management and control, load balancing, and personalized quality of service. In this paper, we develop a containerized 5G standalone (SA) network, building two types of network topologies for 5G SA deployment based on the concepts of 5G cloud network functions, Docker containers and Linux virtualization. Based on our implementation of both Minimalist Deployment and Basic Deployment, an assessment on the attach procedure is performed through next generation application protocol (NGAP) filtering along with subscriber information. Moreover, emulated transmission control protocol (TCP)/user datagram protocol (UDP) traffic is injected into the network and its performance is evaluated based on metrics such as traffic volume and data rate for both uplink and downlink.
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC)
To enable emerging applications of fifth generation (5G) systems for vertical scenarios like mobi... more To enable emerging applications of fifth generation (5G) systems for vertical scenarios like mobile broadband and Internet of things (IoT) for vehicles and maritime sectors, a new trend towards softwarization and establishment of private networks is gaining momentum. Different from earlier generations of mobile systems where network functions are traditionally operated based on dedicated hardware, 5G infrastructures can be virtualized and services can be provided based on software, common hardware and servers. In this paper, we present an open-source based prototype private network which has been implemented in the framework of an EEA research project SOLID-B5G. The prototype network is a 5G non-standalone (NSA) network with a fourth generation (4G) evolved packet core (EPC) connecting both evolved NodeB (eNB) and next generation NodeB (gNB) to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) user equipment (UE). The prototype is implemented based on two popular open-source software platforms, namely OAI RAN and srsRAN. Based on our implementations, extensive experiments have been conducted to assess the performance of the prototype network in terms of downlink/uplink throughput and latency between different parts of the system
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC)
Distributed multi-controller deployments are explored in large SDN-controlled networks to achieve... more Distributed multi-controller deployments are explored in large SDN-controlled networks to achieve the control plane scalability and reliability. There are many types of research on the Controller Selection or Placement Problem (CSP/CPP). The majority of studies consider a static approach to optimize the controller placement and a static mapping of switches to controllers. However, in a dynamic topology (susceptible to controller overload, nodes, or link failure), the initial mapping of the forwarders-to-controllers and even the controller placement could become nonoptimal, w.r.t. QoS service requirements. The flow of data through multiple controllers could vary following an unequal distribution of the load between multiple controllers. To overcome the aforementioned challenge, a solution could be a limited dynamic switch migration if controller overload is detected. The contribution of this work-in-progress is a proposal of a powerful condition-aware mechanism for switch migration and its functionality validation. The system considered in this work include the Redis database, Ryu controller, Mininet, and Iperf and introduce the concept of Supervisor controller. Our prototype resolves multiple overloads, simultaneously fixing the load balancing problems within the SDN controller plane
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC), 2022
Massive Internet of Things (mIoT) traffic in beyond fifth generation (B5G) networks is stimulatin... more Massive Internet of Things (mIoT) traffic in beyond fifth generation (B5G) networks is stimulating a surge of data volume and may cause potential performance degradation when multiple devices attempt to transmit at the same time. In this paper, we present three techniques that can mitigate the effects of concurrent transmissions of multiple devices and improve network performance. First, by considering cluster-formation through beamforming and device activity factor, the number of active devices in a cluster becomes much lower. Second, by enabling pseudo-orthogonal codes for initial access in addition to existing orthogonal codes, more devices are allowed to transmit simultaneously. Third, by deploying multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas at the base station, concurrent transmissions can be performed. Based on these techniques, network performance is assessed.
2022 International Conference on Software, Telecommunications and Computer Networks (SoftCOM)
The Software Defined Network (SDN) concept has changed the traditional network architecture to ac... more The Software Defined Network (SDN) concept has changed the traditional network architecture to achieve higher flexibility, the programmability of the network, the abstraction based on a logically centralized control plane, and the data (forwarding) plane decoupling. The SDN control centralization raises scalability issues. This work focuses on the scalability concerns of the Ryu SDN controller in various scenarios with distinct network topologies like tree and datacenter. Throughout this paper, we assess the consequences of distributing subscriber data requests over the controller performance into different network topologies also using a different number of subscribers. The performance of the Ryu is tested by observing the throughput of the controller. The assessment was accomplished by employing an Iperf traffic generator and Mininet. The paper studies two matters that impact the Ryu throughput: the exponential increase of the number of nodes in tree topology and the adoption of the same condition over a datacenter topology. The experiments involve the two types of topologies mentioned and a topologies size range from 200 to 2000 nodes and assessing the controller performance using the throughput as the performance criterion. The results of this research will be used in a research project oriented to 5G slicing, where the control plane is based on SDN.
IoT devices present an ever-growing domain with multiple applicability. This technology has favor... more IoT devices present an ever-growing domain with multiple applicability. This technology has favored and still favors many areas by creating critical infrastructures that are as profitable as possible. This paper presents a hierarchical architecture composed of different licensing entities that manage access to different resources within a network infrastructure. They are conducted on the basis of well-drawn policy rules. At the same time, the security side of these resources is also placed through a context awareness module. Together with this technology, IoT is used and Blockchain is enabled (for network consolidation, as well as the transparency with which to monitor the platform). The ultimate goal is to implement a secure and scalable security platform for the Smart Grid. The paper presents the work undertaken in the SealedGRID project and the steps taken for implementing security policies specifically tailored to the Smart Grid, based on advanced concepts such as Opinion Dynamics and Smart Grid-related Attribute-based Access Control.
Media content streaming and delivery is nowadays a high popularity service in Internet. Complex a... more Media content streaming and delivery is nowadays a high popularity service in Internet. Complex architectures like Content Delivery Networks, Content Aware/Oriented Networks have been proposed, where information/content objects are treated as first-class abstractions. As alternative, light architectures, are investigated and implemented, working on top of the current IP networking technologies. In both types of architectures, appropriate content server and path selection constitute the primary set of actions to be performed in the content delivery systems. Such a problem belongs to the general class of multicriteria optimization problem, having (in our case) as input, some information on servers, network and user context. This paper contains an extension of a preliminary work, focused on algorithms and policies for optimized paths and server selection. Simulation study results are presented here, to illustrate the better performance of multi-criteria optimization algorithms versus r...
This paper studies and evaluates the scalability properties of a resource management subsystem as... more This paper studies and evaluates the scalability properties of a resource management subsystem as a component of a networked media ecosystem. The overall system aims to offer multimedia delivery with configurable guarantees of Quality of Services, over multi-domain networks, to large communities of users. The transport infrastructure is based on creation of data plane logical slices named Virtual Content Aware Networks. These slices are realized under control of a management plane, comprising centralized per-network domain "controllers", cooperating to construct parallel data planes, which span multiple IP network domains independently managed. In this multi-domain context, the management system scalability properties are important, while the problem is similar to the multi-controller inter-communication in emerging multi-controller Software Defined Networking technologies. The management system architecture considered in this paper has been previously defined. This work a...
The interest in network virtualization has grown steadily in recent years. This opens new possibi... more The interest in network virtualization has grown steadily in recent years. This opens new possibilities for the future development of the Internet which allows the development of various architectures and protocols over a shared physical infrastructure. Implementation of network virtualization imposes new requirements and raises new issues regarding how they are provisioned, managed and controlled in the present network resources. Virtualization enables coexistence of multiple approaches, thereby overcoming the problem of current Internet ossification and stimulate the development and implementation of new network technologies and advanced applications. Virtualization is expected to provide a clear separation of services and infrastructure and facilitate new ways of doing business by allowing sharing of network resources between multiple suppliers and customers. Considering the above, this paper aims to bring some contribution towards virtualization in Future Internet. The thesis aims to introduce the main technologies of network virtualization infrastructure in the context of Future Internet applications and study the efficiency, advantages or disadvantages and evaluate their performance and to make contributions in this area. In particular, the paper proposes the application of the concepts introduced by implementing software modules capable of routing based on content, across a virtualized network infrastructure, developed and tested in international research projects FP7-ICT- ALICANTE (2010-2013), respectively, DISEDAN (2014-2015). In this work we studied the possibility of partial migration and extension of Alicante architecture for Software Defined Networking technologies (SDN) to enhance the performance and extend the scalability and flexibility of networks and services, and also presented contributions on policies and algorithms for server and path selection in content aware networks.
Ce volume est le résultat d’une activité soutenue et relativement à long terme des trois auteurs ... more Ce volume est le résultat d’une activité soutenue et relativement à long terme des trois auteurs dans le domaine de la modélisation, visant à évaluer la qualité du service dans les réseaux de télécommunications, qualité définie selon l’UIT-T normative, Recommandation E. 800, comme « l’effet résultant de la performance d’un service qui détermine le degré de satisfaction de l’utilisateur à l’égard de l’utilisation de ce service ». Il est donc souligné qu’une combinaison d’aspects caractérise la QoS, à savoir : le support et l’opérabilité du service, ainsi que l’accessibilité et l’intégrité.
The telecommunications network is a global system of equipment and means that ensures the connect... more The telecommunications network is a global system of equipment and means that ensures the connections between the users of communication services, with the transmission and reception of the information involved. It is a set of communication nodes, in which processing procedures take place for the transmission and reception of information signals, switching connections and choosing routes between nodes to make connections between sources and destinations of communications, and a set of links between these nodes, made in a variety of technologies.
This volume contains 5 chapters in which the different processes and types of systems within the telecommunications network are presented.
Le réseau de télécommunications est un système global d'équipements et de moyens qui assure les c... more Le réseau de télécommunications est un système global d'équipements et de moyens qui assure les connexions entre les utilisateurs des services de communication, avec la transmission et la réception des informations concernées. Il s'agit d'un ensemble de nœuds de communication, dans lesquels des procédures de traitement ont lieu pour la transmission et la réception de signaux d'information, la commutation des connexions et le choix des routes entre les nœuds pour établir des connexions entre les sources et les destinations des communications, et un ensemble de liens entre ces nœuds, réalisés dans une variété de technologies.
Defining means and methods designed to ensure the quality of service (QoS mechanisms), which is t... more Defining means and methods designed to ensure the quality of service (QoS mechanisms), which is the objective of the first part of this paper, involves a series of analytical or experimental modeling activities (for example, by simulation) and analysis which, in turn, involve various mathematical disciplines, such as probability theory and statistics, in order to determine how to act, considering the factors that influence the quality of service. Having a generous theoretical support, each of these mentioned activities and instruments is a separate subject, the exposure of which can be found in the following two parts of this paper. This is the Part II, which aims at presenting the basic analytical tools used in the description of random phenomena, and the Part III, dealing with the specific aspects of telecommunication services, regarding the modeling and analysis processes for their quality.
This volume is intended especially for the students of the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunicat... more This volume is intended especially for the students of the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology of the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, from the specialization "Communications", its content being structured according to the analytical programs of several subjects, namely "Switching Techniques and Systems", "Traffic Engineering" and “Communication Systems”, so that it can be a useful material to deeply understand their course lectures. Obviously, the work can be consulted by anyone interested in acquiring knowledge about the transfer of information between the nodes of telecommunications network, an ample process that requires switching information into nodes.
This volume is intended especially for students of the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications... more This volume is intended especially for students of the Faculty of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technology of the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, from the specialization "Communications", its content being structured according to the analytical programs of two subjects, namely "Switching Techniques and Systems" and "Traffic Engineering", so that be a useful material to deeply understanding their course lectures. Obviously, the work can be consulted by anyone interested in acquiring knowledge about the transfer of information between the nodes of telecommunications network, an ample process that requires switching information into nodes.
Această lucrare propune un studiu aplicativ al funcțiilor și serviciilor care stau la baza operăr... more Această lucrare propune un studiu aplicativ al funcțiilor și serviciilor care stau la baza operării stivei TCP/IP și a rețelei Internet “clasice” (ex. dirijare, rutare, conversia de adresa, configurare parametrii de rețea), fiind destinată în principal studenților Facultății de Electronică, Telecomunicații și Tehnologia Informației (ETTI/UPB), de la specializarea “Rețele și Software pentru Telecomunicații (RST)”.
This paper describes a face detection system based on the Blackfin microcomputer architecture tha... more This paper describes a face detection system based on the Blackfin microcomputer architecture that may be used in an Internet of Things (IoT) context. The face detection algorithm is based on skin detection and scanning binary images to determine the face area. Further image processing may determine the eyes and mouth in order to extract main face characteristics. The face detection algorithm may be used in context of IoT to determine the searching area for eyes and mouth (e.g. for face recognition and emotion detection). The face detection algorithm is implemented using the Visual DSP++ integrated development environment and face detection is achieved in real time.
SDETTI Doctoral Symposium on Electronics, Telecommunications, & Information Technology, 2023
This paper addresses the need for enhanced Network Slice (NS) Management, within the Cloud Networ... more This paper addresses the need for enhanced Network Slice (NS) Management, within the Cloud Network Functions of 5G Core (5GC). Given that the Network Repository Function (NRF) acts like a central hub for registration and discovery services, some level of slicing information is processed, but the slicing management is rather traditional, not being entirely able to ensure dynamic resource adaptation. Therefore, the solution proposed leverages the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning Techniques to support better resource allocation, to improve the quality of service (QoS) and to reduce the CAPEX/OPEX for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). The solution involves adding an additional component which acts like an integrated slicing manager, taking decisions based on AI predictions, more specifically, based on an AI model which processes and filters the training data. Results demonstrated majorly improved network responsiveness, decreased latency end enhanced packet loss percentage. Emergent technologies, such as AI, Machine Learning, Neuronal Networks, Edge and Cloud Computing, DevOps instruments, Continuous Integration, Continuous Development (CI/CD) algorithms or other solutions, could be the start of unlocking new opportunities for mobile network communications, especially for 5G/6G development, which governs over a self-healing and self-optimising environment.
Rocha, Á., Adeli, H., Dzemyda, G., Moreira, F., Poniszewska-Marańda, A. (eds) Good Practices and New Perspectives in Information Systems and Technologies. WorldCIST 2024. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, 2024
In recent years, together with advances in the software defined radio (SDR) field, the concept of... more In recent years, together with advances in the software defined radio (SDR) field, the concept of mobile private networks (MPNs) gained momentum. Several solutions based on open-source software modules and using SDR platforms as hardware were developed. In the current paper, the radio coverage of a private 4G mobile network was evaluated using the HTZ Communication software and field-test measurements. The network was implemented using an USRP B210 SDR platform and the srsRAN-4G software suite. A comparison between the coverage estimated using different propagation models and measurements is performed, together with an analysis of the obtained results.
Rocha, Á., Adeli, H., Dzemyda, G., Moreira, F., Poniszewska-Marańda, A. (eds) Good Practices and New Perspectives in Information Systems and Technologies. WorldCIST 2024. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, 2024
The rapid advance of Internet of Things (IoT) and its immersion in every domain brought into atte... more The rapid advance of Internet of Things (IoT) and its immersion in every domain brought into attention, besides many of its technical, social, and economic advantages, a panoply of security vulnerabilities and attack vectors that threaten IoT interconnected devices. IoT devices face many security issues such as weak authentication, insufficient encryption, deficient device management, insecure interfaces, inadequate physical security, lack of standardization, privacy concerns, insecure networks, resource constraints, and non-compliance with security standards. This highlights the pressing need for comprehensive security measures that currently seem insufficient to address the evolving landscape of threats in the dynamic IoT ecosystem. This paper conducts a security evaluation of a physical IoT device through the penetration testing methodology. It then focuses on a known vulnerability from the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database. It presents the execution of a brute force attack to uncover credentials and the device's buffer overflow vulnerability to cause a denial of service (DoS) on the device's server. Employing a hands-on approach, the research emphasizes the practical execution of these exploitation scenarios providing a step-by-step guide on how they were performed. Lastly, it delves into the development of a proof of concept (PoC) application created to automate the process of firmware analysis and running the buffer overflow exploit for this particular use case.
Smart Cities International Conference (SCIC), 2023
Recently, the number of Internet users has increased enormously, this becoming the main way in wh... more Recently, the number of Internet users has increased enormously, this becoming the main way in which states and non-states actors increase their economic and diplomatic capacity through strategic and targeted manipulation with the help of web content that they transmit to citizens. Brilliant urban areas have a bleeding edge obligation to guarantee a protected and safe physical and advanced environment advancing durable and feasible metropolitan improvement for the prosperity of EU residents. S4AllCities incorporates progressed mechanical and authoritative arrangements in a market situated brought together Cyber-Physical Security Management structure, targeting raising the strength of urban communities' frameworks, administrations, ICT frameworks, IoT and cultivating insight and data sharing among city's security partners. A smart city is made up mainly of information and communication technologies (ICT) to develop, implement and promote the practice of sustainable development to address the growing challenges of urbanization. Mostly, ICT is a smart network of objects and machines that are connected and transmit data using both wireless technology and the cloud. IoT-based and cloud-based applications receive, analyze, and manage data in real time to make a good decision about quality of life. People use Smartphones, mobile devices, cars and smart homes for smart city ecosystems. Communities can improve energy distribution, streamline garbage collection, reduce traffic congestion, and even improve IoT air quality. This paper fills a gap in the literature dealing with attacks on critical infrastructure in smart cities and presents envisioned pilots for 3 cities in Europe, as well as experiments in follower cities, one of them being Buzau in Romania.
The 26th International Symposium On Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications, 2023
In light of the thrilling development of future mobile communication systems and worldwide 5G dep... more In light of the thrilling development of future mobile communication systems and worldwide 5G deployment, there is a trend toward open-source-based solutions, which could reduce costs, provide flexibility, enable innovation, and expand knowhow on 5G RAN and 5G CN operations. In this study, we design and implement two distinct 5G SA open-source-based testbeds. The first network architecture, a Portable Network, comprises a Lenovo laptop used in tandem with a USRP B210. The second network architecture, a Full-Scale Network, is a campus-based 5G network deployed at a lab facility, consisting of a bare-metal Dell server and a USRP X300. Based on the implementations of these two network architectures, extensive experiments have been performed with a COTS UE connected to the network. Our results provide insight on the performance of such networks with respect to network connectivity and computing performance.
The 26th International Symposium On Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications, 2023
Software-defined networking (SDN) has brought a high level of programmability in networking and p... more Software-defined networking (SDN) has brought a high level of programmability in networking and plays a crucial role in 5G and 6G technologies development. SDN separates the control and management of architectural planes from the network data plane and realizes independence of forwarding infrastructure. Network slicing is a major novel concept in 5G and beyond. It consists in creation of virtual networks with distinct control and management, meeting specific requirements, that can be dedicated to different classes of applications. The realization of network slicing can be based on complex frameworks like MANagement and Orchestration (MANO). This paper investigates a simpler alternative method for implementing network slicing that does not use hypervisor technology, which allocates logical parts of multiple physical resources with certain Quality of Service (QoS) properties. The approach here is to create slices at the SDN forwarding equipment level. A single SDN controller can configure a shared physical network infrastructure into a number of network slices. Each slice may have different properties depending on the tenant requirements. In particular, Resource Reservation framework and special Linux kernel tools can be used for resource reservation and allocation. This solution offers several benefits for tenants and service providers such as simpler implementation, good availability and the capability of making network changes faster because of the involvement of already available kernel mechanisms for resource allocations. In our system several tools are included such as Iperf traffic generation tool, Linux Cgroup and Linear Rate Control, Ryu controller and Mininet.
Doctoral Symposium on Electronics, Telecommunications, & Information Technology, 2023
This paper addresses the need for enhanced Network Slice (NS) Management, within the Cloud Networ... more This paper addresses the need for enhanced Network Slice (NS) Management, within the Cloud Network Functions of 5G Core (5GC). Given that the Network Repository Function (NRF) acts like a central hub for registration and discovery services, some level of slicing information is processed, but the slicing management is rather traditional, not being entirely able to ensure dynamic resource adaptation. Therefore, the solution proposed leverages the power of artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning Techniques to support better resource allocation, to improve the quality of service (QoS) and to reduce the CAPEX/OPEX for Mobile Network Operators (MNOs). The solution involves adding an additional component which acts like an integrated slicing manager, taking decisions based on AI predictions, more specifically, based on an AI model which processes and filters the training data. Results demonstrated majorly improved network responsiveness, decreased latency end enhanced packet loss percentage. Emergent technologies, such as AI, Machine Learning, Neuronal Networks, Edge and Cloud Computing, DevOps instruments, Continuous Integration, Continuous Development (CI/CD) algorithms or other solutions, could be the start of unlocking new opportunities for mobile network communications, especially for 5G/6G development, which governs over a self-healing and self-optimising environment.
Doctoral Symposium on Electronics, Telecommunications, & Information Technology, 2023
Network slicing is a novel fifth generation (5G) concept that enables operators to create logical... more Network slicing is a novel fifth generation (5G) concept that enables operators to create logical networks (slices), each dedicated to certain specific applications, on top of a common network infrastructure, computation and storage resources. These slices are logically isolated from each other with respect to network performance and security, providing services to vertical industries and various use cases. Accordingly, an orchestrator is needed in order to manage network resources for various slices. Among different orchestrators that have been developed, open source MANO (OSM) appears as a popular platform, providing a software stack for slice developers. For slice creation and management, machine learning methods and algorithms can offer intelligent solutions. this paper, an architectural-level enhancement for the OSM monitoring module, which improves the efficiency and flexibility of the monitoring alarms, is developed. A new alarm threshold sub-module is inserted, and it will generate and insert a new field value every time when a new alarm is generated. Also, an automated platform with a resource prediction block integrated to ease the process of slice creation with this orchestrator is proposed. To validate the implementation, several scenarios were tested in different experiments.
Internet of Things improved the decision making processes related to ship and maritime environmen... more Internet of Things improved the decision making processes related to ship and maritime environment and brought the software and hardware data acquisition, transmission and processing platforms and knowledge closer to the users through the so-called Maritime IoT (MIoT), enabling maritime services such as cargo, containers and ship monitoring. Recently, commercial solutions employing LoRa/LoRaWAN as a communication technology for containers monitoring were announced, but in the literature no experimental testbed and associate experiments were identified to assess the performance of such solutions, even though the maritime environment is very challenging and different communication technologies and topologies are proposed to meet its requirements. The contribution of the current paper is threefold: i) proposing a practical implementation of a LoRaWAN-based container monitoring system, ii) analysing the collected dataset, solving a machine learning problem, i.e classifying LoRaWAN packets origin location based on k-best selected features algorithm and algorithms such as k-Neighbours, Gradient Boosting a.s.o iii) assessing the performance of the communication in multiple containers scenarios. The results shown that LoRaWAN has a huge potential to ensure communication between containers and outdoor gateways.
To enhance dynamic resource adaptation in fifth generation (5G) networks, network slicing managem... more To enhance dynamic resource adaptation in fifth generation (5G) networks, network slicing management empowered by artificial intelligence (AI) through decision-making algorithms may improve resource utilization, quality of service (QoS), as well as network scalability and flexibility. In this paper, we propose an AI-driven network slice management (AI-NSM) framework that enables enhanced adaptive resource allocation for 5G networks by ensuring additional management and orchestration for network slices. The integration of AI-NSM into 5G networks exhibits superior adaptability supporting dynamic organization of network slices based on predicted traffic patterns through reinforcement learning (RL), leading to reduced latency, optimized resource allocation, and improved QoS. Based on a virtualization platform through Oracle virtual machines, we implement an AI model including a multi-agent deep deterministic policy gradient RL algorithm that provides complementary support for other network slice management functions. Through implementation and experiments, we demonstrate that AI-NSM can enhance resource allocation and improve network responsiveness for slicing in 5G networks.
The 15th International Conference on Critical Information Infrastructures Security 2020, 2020
The traditional models of the electric grid, based on centralized systems for the production and ... more The traditional models of the electric grid, based on centralized systems for the production and distribution of energy, have greatly changed over the recent years, with the Smart Grid having an increased vulnerability to external attacks. This report presents the architecture of a global authorization component that is proposed for a Smart Grid scalable, trusted, and interoperable platform, related to the SealedGRID project. This component is modeled by using a hierarchical architecture consisting of different authorization entities, that effectively manage the access to the various resources within the grid infrastructure based on defined policy rules, while also taking into account the security state of these resources (per domains or substations).
The Perception layer in Internet of Things (IoT) architectures is responsible for connecting sens... more The Perception layer in Internet of Things (IoT) architectures is responsible for connecting sensor nodes and data acquisition units such that sensing devices capture relevant data from the corresponding environment. Most IoT platforms are designed to transmit data at fixed time intervals, which is a disadvantage in the modern world dominated by rapid changes in the evolution of events. This paper addresses improvements performed on an IoT platform dedicated to critical applications (e.g., fire, air pollution). This novel approach assumes the use of two equations empirically determined to compute the time interval between successive transmissions depending on the detected event. A new method for communication technology selection (LoRaWAN, Wi-Fi or cellular) is implemented and the time interval between two successive transmissions is adjusted according to the occurring event. Comparisons were highlighted for each analyzed case. The proposed method proved to be suitable for critical scenarios or scenarios that can generate false-positive alarms, due to abnormal variations of parameters.
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC), 2022
Massive Internet of Things (mIoT) traffic in beyond fifth generation (B5G) networks is stimulatin... more Massive Internet of Things (mIoT) traffic in beyond fifth generation (B5G) networks is stimulating a surge of data volume and may cause potential performance degradation when multiple devices attempt to transmit at the same time. In this paper, we present three techniques that can mitigate the effects of concurrent transmissions of multiple devices and improve network performance. First, by considering cluster-formation through beamforming and device activity factor, the number of active devices in a cluster becomes much lower. Second, by enabling pseudo-orthogonal codes for initial access in addition to existing orthogonal codes, more devices are allowed to transmit simultaneously. Third, by deploying multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas at the base station, concurrent transmissions can be performed. Based on these techniques, network performance is assessed.
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC), 2022
In the coming years, autonomous driving will be the primary focus of the automobile industry. The... more In the coming years, autonomous driving will be the primary focus of the automobile industry. The great majority of accidents are caused by human mistakes, and autonomous cars can help to lower this number significantly, thus improving road safety. Object identification plays a critical part in autonomous vehicle driving, and deep learning techniques are used to implement it. YOLO is one of the most common methods for recognizing and identifying things that emerge on the road. Its popularity has developed as a result of its superior performance in terms of speed, high accuracy, and learning capabilities when compared to other object recognition approaches such as Retina-Net, fast R-CNN, and Single-Shot MultiBox Detection (SSD).
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC), 2022
Network slicing is a novel fifth generation (5G) concept that enables operators to create logical... more Network slicing is a novel fifth generation (5G) concept that enables operators to create logical networks (slices), each dedicated to certain specific applications, on top of a common network infrastructure, computation and storage resources. These slices are logically isolated from each other with respect to network performance and security, providing services to vertical industries and various use cases. Accordingly, an orchestrator is needed in order to manage network resources for various slices. Among different orchestrators that have been developed, open source MANO (OSM) appears as a popular platform, providing a software stack for slice developers. In this paper, we present an implementation of deploying network slices based on the OSM automation platform and report preliminary experiments that have been performed. To validate our implementation, a specific media streaming use case has been selected and a slice with three pre-configured network services that contain a media server has been created.
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC) Program, 2022
To enable emerging applications of fifth generation
(5G) systems for vertical scenarios like mobi... more To enable emerging applications of fifth generation (5G) systems for vertical scenarios like mobile broadband and Internet of things (IoT) for vehicles and maritime sectors, a new trend towards softwarization and establishment of private networks is gaining momentum. Different from earlier generations of mobile systems where network functions are traditionally operated based on dedicated hardware, 5G infrastructures can be virtualized and services can be provided based on software, common hardware and servers. In this paper, we present an open-source based prototype private network which has been implemented in the framework of an EEA research project SOLID-B5G. The prototype network is a 5G non-standalone (NSA) network with a fourth generation (4G) evolved packet core (EPC) connecting both evolved NodeB (eNB) and next generation NodeB (gNB) to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) user equipment (UE). The prototype is implemented based on two popular open-source software platforms, namely OAI RAN and srsRAN. Based on our implementations, extensive experiments have been conducted to assess the performance of the prototype network in terms of downlink/uplink throughput and latency between different parts of the system
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC) Program, 2022
Automating software orchestration and service development represents the newest trend in the deve... more Automating software orchestration and service development represents the newest trend in the development of fifth generation (5G) core network (CN) as it enables flexible and scalable service deployment. The building blocks for such a trend include Containers, Docker, Kubernetes, and other orchestration methods that facilitate easy scaling, management and control, load balancing, and personalized quality of service. In this paper, we develop a containerized 5G standalone (SA) network, building two types of network topologies for 5G SA deployment based on the concepts of 5G cloud network functions, Docker containers and Linux virtualization. Based on our implementation of both Minimalist Deployment and Basic Deployment, an assessment on the attach procedure is performed through next generation application protocol (NGAP) filtering along with subscriber information. Moreover, emulated transmission control protocol (TCP)/user datagram protocol (UDP) traffic is injected into the network and its performance is evaluated based on metrics such as traffic volume and data rate for both uplink and downlink.
2022 25th International Symposium on Wireless Personal Multimedia Communications (WPMC), 2022
Distributed multi-controller deployments are
explored in large SDN-controlled networks to achieve... more Distributed multi-controller deployments are explored in large SDN-controlled networks to achieve the control plane scalability and reliability. There are many types of research on the Controller Selection or Placement Problem (CSP/CPP). The majority of studies consider a static approach to optimize the controller placement and a static mapping of switches to controllers. However, in a dynamic topology (susceptible to controller overload, nodes, or link failure), the initial mapping of the forwarders-to-controllers and even the controller placement could become nonoptimal, w.r.t. QoS service requirements. The flow of data through multiple controllers could vary following an unequal distribution of the load between multiple controllers. To overcome the aforementioned challenge, a solution could be a limited dynamic switch migration if controller overload is detected. The contribution of this work-in-progress is a proposal of a powerful condition-aware mechanism for switch migration and its functionality validation. The system considered in this work include the Redis database, Ryu controller, Mininet, and Iperf and introduce the concept of Supervisor controller. Our prototype resolves multiple overloads, simultaneously fixing the load balancing problems within the SDN controller plane
The 30 th International Conference on Software, Telecommunications and Computer Networks (SoftCOM 2022)
The Software Defined Network (SDN) concept has
changed the traditional network architecture to ac... more The Software Defined Network (SDN) concept has changed the traditional network architecture to achieve higher flexibility, the programmability of the network, the abstraction based on a logically centralized control plane, and the data (forwarding) plane decoupling. The SDN control centralization raises scalability issues. This work focuses on the scalability concerns of the Ryu SDN controller in various scenarios with distinct network topologies like tree and datacenter. Throughout this paper, we assess the consequences of distributing subscriber data requests over the controller performance into different network topologies also using a different number of subscribers. The performance of the Ryu is tested by observing the throughput of the controller. The assessment was accomplished by employing an Iperf traffic generator and Mininet. The paper studies two matters that impact the Ryu throughput: the exponential increase of the number of nodes in tree topology and the adoption of the same condition over a datacenter topology. The experiments involve the two types of topologies mentioned and a topologies size range from 200 to 2000 nodes and assessing the controller performance using the throughput as the performance criterion. The results of this research will be used in a research project oriented to 5G slicing, where the control plane is based on SDN.
The growing demand for animal products led to an increase of the number and size of animal farms ... more The growing demand for animal products led to an increase of the number and size of animal farms across the world. In this context, the livestock farming industry faces the challenge of integrating high complexity processes, while ensuring to meet sustainability standards. Therefore, decision support systems in the livestock sector must be established to help farmers assess the impact of different strategies before putting them into practice. In this paper, we present a monitoring and management platform that allows farmers to optimize their activities, to manage resources, to reduce costs and to minimize the environmental footprint. The FarmSustainaBL platform follows a farm-level approach for modelling and simulation of specific activities to assist decision makers and farmers in the decisional process, by providing insights into their managerial practices.
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characteristics that cannot be captured by other types of neural networks. This is due to entries that are graphs that, by their nature, include, besides a certain topology (the spatial characteristic),
connections between nodes that model the costs (traffic load, speed, and road length) of the roads between nodes that can vary over time (the temporal characteristic). As a result, a prediction in a node
influences the prediction from adjacent nodes, and, globally, the prediction has more precision. On the other hand, an adequate neural network leads to a good prediction, but its complexity can be higher.
A recurrent neural network like LSTM is suitable for making predictions. A reduction in complexity can be achieved by choosing a relatively small number (usually determined by experiments) of hidden levels. The use of graphs as inputs to the neural network and the choice of a recurrent neural
network combined lead to good accuracy in traffic prediction with a low enough implementation effort that it can be accomplished on microcontrollers with relatively limited resources. The proposed
method minimizes the communication network (between vehicles and database servers) load and represents a reasonable trade-off between the communication network load and forecasting accuracy.
Traffic prediction leads to less-congested routes and, therefore, to a reduction in energy consumption.
The traffic is forecasted using an LSTM neural network with a regression layer. The inputs of the neural network are sequences—obtained from a graph that represents the road network—at specific moments in time that are read from traffic sensors or the outputs of the neural network
(forecasting sequences). The input sequences can be filtered to improve the forecasting accuracy. This general framework is based on the Contiki IoT operating system, which ensures support for wireless communication and the efficient implementation of processes in a resource-constrained system, and it is particularized to implement a graph neural network. Two cases are studied: one case in which the traffic sensors are periodically read and another case in which the traffic sensors are read when
their values’ changes are detected. A comparison between the cases is made, and the influence of filtering is evaluated. The obtained accuracy is very good and is very close to the accuracy obtained in an infinite precision simulation, the computation time is low enough, and the system can work in real time.
service providers must build and expand the use of edge computing. This can lead to
possible difficulties concerning how to place workloads of network services
automation and evaluate the costs in an optimal way. This paper’s intention is to
present a scenario with three different virtual network functions designed with
specific restrictions and different compute costs and the Control System Hub with
Open Source Mano solution to limit and face those restrictions. To achieve this, the
optimal placement algorithm uses the Control System Hub network analytic
platform along with virtual charmed factors for control and Quality-of-Service
measures.
communications (mMTC) devices covered by a fifth generation
(5G) cell could be huge, not all devices are always active. For
radio resource allocation, it is vital that a base station has the
knowledge on the number of active mMTC devices in each
frame. In this paper, we develop a mathematical framework to
perform pseudo-Bayesian estimation on the number of active
devices within a 5G new radio (NR) subframe. The estimation
is performed by the base station on a subframe-by-subframe
basis based upon which a transmission permission probability
is imposed on active devices for their transmissions in the next
subframe. The active devices include both backlogged devices
and new arrivals in the current subframe that will attempt for
medium access in the next subframe relying on a combination of
NR radio resources in both time and frequency domains. Such
an estimation constitutes an important component for the design
of grant-free access schemes for mMTC uplink traffic.
characteristics that cannot be captured by other types of neural networks. This is due to entries that are graphs that, by their nature, include, besides a certain topology (the spatial characteristic),
connections between nodes that model the costs (traffic load, speed, and road length) of the roads between nodes that can vary over time (the temporal characteristic). As a result, a prediction in a node
influences the prediction from adjacent nodes, and, globally, the prediction has more precision. On the other hand, an adequate neural network leads to a good prediction, but its complexity can be higher.
A recurrent neural network like LSTM is suitable for making predictions. A reduction in complexity can be achieved by choosing a relatively small number (usually determined by experiments) of hidden levels. The use of graphs as inputs to the neural network and the choice of a recurrent neural
network combined lead to good accuracy in traffic prediction with a low enough implementation effort that it can be accomplished on microcontrollers with relatively limited resources. The proposed
method minimizes the communication network (between vehicles and database servers) load and represents a reasonable trade-off between the communication network load and forecasting accuracy.
Traffic prediction leads to less-congested routes and, therefore, to a reduction in energy consumption.
The traffic is forecasted using an LSTM neural network with a regression layer. The inputs of the neural network are sequences—obtained from a graph that represents the road network—at specific moments in time that are read from traffic sensors or the outputs of the neural network
(forecasting sequences). The input sequences can be filtered to improve the forecasting accuracy. This general framework is based on the Contiki IoT operating system, which ensures support for wireless communication and the efficient implementation of processes in a resource-constrained system, and it is particularized to implement a graph neural network. Two cases are studied: one case in which the traffic sensors are periodically read and another case in which the traffic sensors are read when
their values’ changes are detected. A comparison between the cases is made, and the influence of filtering is evaluated. The obtained accuracy is very good and is very close to the accuracy obtained in an infinite precision simulation, the computation time is low enough, and the system can work in real time.
service providers must build and expand the use of edge computing. This can lead to
possible difficulties concerning how to place workloads of network services
automation and evaluate the costs in an optimal way. This paper’s intention is to
present a scenario with three different virtual network functions designed with
specific restrictions and different compute costs and the Control System Hub with
Open Source Mano solution to limit and face those restrictions. To achieve this, the
optimal placement algorithm uses the Control System Hub network analytic
platform along with virtual charmed factors for control and Quality-of-Service
measures.
communications (mMTC) devices covered by a fifth generation
(5G) cell could be huge, not all devices are always active. For
radio resource allocation, it is vital that a base station has the
knowledge on the number of active mMTC devices in each
frame. In this paper, we develop a mathematical framework to
perform pseudo-Bayesian estimation on the number of active
devices within a 5G new radio (NR) subframe. The estimation
is performed by the base station on a subframe-by-subframe
basis based upon which a transmission permission probability
is imposed on active devices for their transmissions in the next
subframe. The active devices include both backlogged devices
and new arrivals in the current subframe that will attempt for
medium access in the next subframe relying on a combination of
NR radio resources in both time and frequency domains. Such
an estimation constitutes an important component for the design
of grant-free access schemes for mMTC uplink traffic.
This volume contains 5 chapters in which the different processes and types of systems within the telecommunications network are presented.
(5G) systems for vertical scenarios like mobile broadband and
Internet of things (IoT) for vehicles and maritime sectors, a
new trend towards softwarization and establishment of private
networks is gaining momentum. Different from earlier generations of mobile systems where network functions are traditionally
operated based on dedicated hardware, 5G infrastructures can
be virtualized and services can be provided based on software,
common hardware and servers. In this paper, we present an
open-source based prototype private network which has been
implemented in the framework of an EEA research project
SOLID-B5G. The prototype network is a 5G non-standalone
(NSA) network with a fourth generation (4G) evolved packet
core (EPC) connecting both evolved NodeB (eNB) and next
generation NodeB (gNB) to commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) user
equipment (UE). The prototype is implemented based on two
popular open-source software platforms, namely OAI RAN and
srsRAN. Based on our implementations, extensive experiments
have been conducted to assess the performance of the prototype
network in terms of downlink/uplink throughput and latency
between different parts of the system
explored in large SDN-controlled networks to achieve the control
plane scalability and reliability. There are many types of research
on the Controller Selection or Placement Problem (CSP/CPP). The
majority of studies consider a static approach to optimize the
controller placement and a static mapping of switches to
controllers. However, in a dynamic topology (susceptible to
controller overload, nodes, or link failure), the initial mapping of
the forwarders-to-controllers and even the controller placement
could become nonoptimal, w.r.t. QoS service requirements. The
flow of data through multiple controllers could vary following an
unequal distribution of the load between multiple controllers. To
overcome the aforementioned challenge, a solution could be a
limited dynamic switch migration if controller overload is
detected. The contribution of this work-in-progress is a proposal
of a powerful condition-aware mechanism for switch migration
and its functionality validation. The system considered in this
work include the Redis database, Ryu controller, Mininet, and
Iperf and introduce the concept of Supervisor controller. Our
prototype resolves multiple overloads, simultaneously fixing the
load balancing problems within the SDN controller plane
changed the traditional network architecture to achieve higher
flexibility, the programmability of the network, the abstraction
based on a logically centralized control plane, and the data
(forwarding) plane decoupling. The SDN control centralization
raises scalability issues. This work focuses on the scalability
concerns of the Ryu SDN controller in various scenarios with
distinct network topologies like tree and datacenter. Throughout
this paper, we assess the consequences of distributing subscriber
data requests over the controller performance into different
network topologies also using a different number of subscribers.
The performance of the Ryu is tested by observing the throughput
of the controller. The assessment was accomplished by employing
an Iperf traffic generator and Mininet. The paper studies two
matters that impact the Ryu throughput: the exponential increase
of the number of nodes in tree topology and the adoption of the
same condition over a datacenter topology. The experiments
involve the two types of topologies mentioned and a topologies size
range from 200 to 2000 nodes and assessing the controller
performance using the throughput as the performance criterion.
The results of this research will be used in a research project
oriented to 5G slicing, where the control plane is based on SDN.