Biblio

Intelligent Environments (IEs) enrich the physical world by connecting it to software applications in order to increase user comfort, safety and efficiency. IEs are often supported by wireless networks of smart sensors and actuators, which offer multi-year battery life within small packages. However, existing radio mesh networks suffer from high latency, which precludes their use in many user interface systems such as real-time speech, touch or positioning. While recent advances in optical networks promise low end-to-end latency through symbol-synchronous transmission, current approaches are power hungry and therefore cannot be battery powered. We tackle this problem by introducing BoboLink, a mesh network that delivers low-power and low-latency optical networking through a combination of symbol-synchronous transmission and a novel wake-up technology. BoboLink delivers mesh-wide wake-up in 1.13ms, with a quiescent power consumption of 237µW. This enables building-wide human computer interfaces to be seamlessly delivered using wireless mesh networks for the first time.

The aim of this paper is to describe the battery lifetime estimation and energy consumption model of the sensor nodes in TDMA wireless mesh sensor using merged data collecting (MDC) methods based on lithium thionyl chloride batteries. Defining the energy consumption of the nodes in wireless mesh networks is crucial for battery lifetime estimation. In this paper, we describe the timing, energy consumption, and battery lifetime estimation of the MDC method in the TDMA mesh sensor networks using flooding routing. For the battery life estimation, we made a semiempirical model that describes the energy consumption of the nodes with a real battery model. In this model, the low-level constraints are based on the measured energy consumption of the sensor nodes in different operation phases.

This paper proposes a RSSI-based routing protocol for smart pole mesh networks equipped with multiple IEEE 802.11p/WAVE radios. In the IEEE 802.11p based multi-radio multi-channel environments, the performance of traditional mesh routing protocols is severely degraded because of metric measurement overhead. The periodic probe messages for measuring the quality of each channel incurs a large overhead due to the channel switching delay. To solve such an overhead problem, we introduce a routing metric that estimates expected transmission time and proposes a light-weight channel allocation algorithm based on RSSI value only. We evaluate the performance of the proposed solution through simulation experiments with NS-3. Simulation results show that it can improve the network performance in terms of latency and throughput, compared to the legacy WCETT routing scheme.

This paper presents an energy consumption model of the sensor nodes in TDMA wireless mesh sensor network using merged data collecting (MDC) methods. Defining the energy consumption of the nodes in wireless mesh networks is crucial for battery lifetime estimation. In this paper, we describe the semiempirical model of the energy consumption of MDC method in the TDMA mesh sensor networks using flooding routing. In the model the low-level constraints are based on the measured energy consumption of the sensor nodes in the different operation phases.

Mesh networks based on the wireless local area network (WLAN) technology, as specified by the standards amendment IEEE 802.11s, provide for a flexible and low-cost interconnection of devices and embedded systems for various use cases. To assess the real-world performance of WLAN mesh networks and potential optimization strategies, suitable testbeds and measurement tools are required. Designed for highly automated transport-layer throughput and latency measurements, the software FLExible Network Tester (Flent) is a promising candidate. However, so far Flent does not integrate information specific to IEEE 802.11s networks, such as peer link status data or mesh routing metrics. Consequently, we propose Flent extensions that allow to additionally capture IEEE 802.11s information as part of the automated performance tests. For the functional validation of our extensions, we conduct Flent measurements in a mesh mobility scenario using the network emulation framework Mininet-WiFi.

This paper investigates the robustness of the received signal strength (RSS)-based physical layer authentication (PLA) for wireless mesh networks, through experimental results. Specifically, we develop a secure wireless mesh networking framework and apply the RSS-based PLA scheme, with the aim to perform continuous authentication. The mesh setup comprises three Raspberry-PI4 computing nodes (acting as Alice, Bob, and Eve) and a server. The server role is to perform the initial authentication when a new node joins the mesh network. After that, the legitimate nodes in the mesh network perform continuous authentication, by leveraging the RSS feature of wireless signals. In particular, Bob tries to authenticate Alice in the presence of Eve. The performance of the presented framework is quantified through extensive experimental results in an outdoor environment, where various nodes' positions, relative distances, and pedestrian speeds scenarios are considered. The obtained results demonstrate the robustness of the underlying model, where an authentication rate of 99% for the static case can be achieved. Meanwhile, at the pedestrian speed, the authentication rate can drop to 85%. On the other hand, the detection rate improves when the distance between the legitimate and wiretap links is large (exceeds 20 meters) or when Alice and Eve are moving in different mobility patterns.

This paper proposes an improved version of the newly developed Honey Badger Algorithm (HBA), called Generalized opposition Based-Learning HBA (GOBL-HBA), for solving the mesh routers placement problem. The proposed GOBLHBA is based on the integration of the generalized opposition-based learning strategy into the original HBA. GOBL-HBA is validated in terms of three performance metrics such as user coverage, network connectivity, and fitness value. The evaluation is done using various scenarios with different number of mesh clients, number of mesh routers, and coverage radius values. The simulation results revealed the efficiency of GOBL-HBA when compared with the classical HBA, Genetic Algorithm (GA), and Particle Swarm optimization (PSO).

ETSI DECT-2020 New Radio (NR) is a new flexible radio interface targeted to support a broad range of wireless Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Recent reports have shown that DECT-2020 NR achieves good delay performance and it has been shown to fulfill both massive machine-type communications (mMTC) and ultra-reliable low latency communications (URLLC) requirements for 5th generation (5G) networks. A unique aspect of DECT-2020 as a 5G technology is that it is an autonomous wireless mesh network (WMN) protocol where the devices construct and uphold the network independently without the need for base stations or core network architecture. Instead, DECT-2020 NR relies on part of the network devices taking the role of a router to relay data through the network. This makes deployment of a DECT-2020 NR network affordable and extremely easy, but due to the nature of the medium access protocol, the routing responsibility adds an additional energy consumption burden to the nodes, who in the IoT domain are likely to be equipped with a limited battery capacity. In this paper, we analyze by system level simulations the energy consumption of DECT-2020 NR networks with different network sizes and topologies and how the reported low latencies can be upheld given the energy constraints of IoT devices.

Internet of Things (IoT) evolution calls for stringent communication demands, including low delay and reliability. At the same time, wireless mesh technology is used to extend the communication range of IoT deployments, in a multi-hop manner. However, Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) are facing link failures due to unstable topologies, resulting in unsatisfied IoT requirements. Named-Data Networking (NDN) can enhance WMNs to meet such IoT requirements, thanks to the content naming scheme and in-network caching, but necessitates adaptability to the challenging conditions of WMNs.In this work, we argue that Software-Defined Networking (SDN) is an ideal solution to fill this gap and introduce an integrated SDN-NDN deployment over WMNs involving: (i) global view of the network in real-time; (ii) centralized decision making; and (iii) dynamic NDN adaptation to network changes. The proposed system is deployed and evaluated over the wiLab.1 Fed4FIRE+ test-bed. The proof-of-concept results validate that the centralized control of SDN effectively supports the NDN operation in unstable topologies with frequent dynamic changes, such as the WMNs.

Wireless mesh networks are increasingly deployed as a flexible and low-cost alternative for providing wireless services for a variety of applications including community mesh networking, medical applications, and disaster ad hoc communications, sensor and IoT applications. However, challenges remain such as interference, contention, load imbalance, and congestion. To address these issues, previous work employ load adaptive routing based on load sensitive routing metrics. On the other hand, such approach does not immediately improve network performance because the load estimates used to choose routes are themselves affected by the resulting routing changes in a cyclical manner resulting to oscillation. Although this is not a new phenomenon and has been studied in wired networks, it has not been investigated extensively in wireless mesh and/or sensor networks. We present these instabilities and how they pose performance, security, and energy issues to these networks. Accordingly, we present a feedback-aware mapping system called FARM that handles these instabilities in a manner analogous to a control system with feedback control. Results show that FARM stabilizes routes that improves network performance in throughput, delay, energy efficiency, and security.

Currently, the technology of wireless mesh networks is actively developing. In 2021, Gartner included mesh network technologies and the tasks to ensure their security in the TOP global trends. A large number of scientific works focus on the research and modeling the traffic transmission in such networks. At the same time, they often bring up the “bottle neck” problem, characteristic of individual mesh network nodes. To address the issue, the authors of the article propose using the data caching mechanism and placing the cache data straight on the routers. The mathematical model presented in the article allows building a route with the highest access speed to the requested content by the modified Dijkstra algorithm. Besides, if the mesh network cache lacks the required content, the routers with the Internet access are applied. Practically, the considered method of creating routes to the content, which has already been requested by the users in the mesh network, allows for the optimal efficient use of the router bandwidth capacity distribution and reduces the latency period.

Convergence of operation technology (OT) and information technology (IT) in industrial automation is currently being adopted as an accelerating trend. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) consists of heterogeneous sensing, computing and actuation nodes that are meshed through a layer of communication protocols, and represents a key enabler for this convergence. Experimental test beds are required to validate complex system designs in terms of scalability, latency, real-time operation and security. We use the open source Coaty - distributed industrial systems framework to present a smart industry application integrating field devices and controllers over the OPCUA and MQTT protocols. The experimental evaluation, using both proprietary automation components and open software modules, serves as a reference tool for building robust systems and provides practical insights for interoperability.

Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an innovative technology, which can be applied in a plethora of applications and areas. Recently, SDN has been identified as one of the most promising solutions for industrial applications as well. The key features of SDN include the decoupling of the control plane from the data plane and the programmability of the network through application development. Researchers are looking at these features in order to enhance the Quality of Service (QoS) provisioning of modern network applications. To this end, the following work presents the development of an SDN application, capable of mitigating attacks and maximizing the network’s QoS, by implementing mixed integer linear programming but also using genetic algorithms. Furthermore, a low-cost, physical SDN testbed was developed in order to evaluate the aforementioned application in a more realistic environment other than only using simulation tools.

When the electrical grid in a region suffers a major outage, e.g., after a catastrophic cyber attack, a “black start” may be required, where the grid is slowly restarted, carefully and incrementally adding generating capacity and demand. To ensure safe and effective black start, the grid control center has to be able to communicate with field personnel and with supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. Voice and text communication are particularly critical. As part of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Rapid Attack Detection, Isolation, and Characterization Systems (RADICS) program, we designed, tested and evaluated a self-configuring mesh network prototype called the Phoenix Secure Emergency Network (PhoenixSEN). PhoenixSEN provides a secure drop-in replacement for grid's primary communication networks during black start recovery. The network combines existing and new technologies, can work with a variety of link-layer protocols, emphasizes manageability and auto-configuration, and provides services and applications for coordination of people and devices including voice, text, and SCADA communication. We discuss the architecture of PhoenixSEN and evaluate a prototype on realistic grid infrastructure through a series of DARPA-led exercises.

The Internet of Things technology is one of the important directions of Smart Grid research, involving many wireless sensors and communication facilities, and has high requirements for security. The physical layer security technology can effectively solve the security problems under wireless communication. As the most common application scenario of wireless communication is multi-node wireless network communication, group secret key (GSK) based on physical layer security and information theory security is gradually attracting investigator’s interest. In this paper, a novel physical layer GSK generation scheme based on code-domain exchange of channel information in mesh network is proposed. Instead of traditional side-information exchange in symbol-domain, error-correcting code is applied to finish information exchange and reconciliation simultaneously in code-domain. Each node processes the known channel bit sequence and then encodes it to generate a check sequence. After broadcasting the check bit sequence to other nodes, each node decodes the received check bit sequences to obtained the unknown channel information. The simulation results show that the scheme can effectively reduce the times of information exchanges while keeping a good performance including low bit error rate and low block error rate.

Mesh topology networks provide Network security in the form of redundancy of communication links. But redundancy also contributes to complexity in configuration and subsequent troubleshooting. Mesh topology deployed in Critical networks like Backbone Networks (used in Cloud Computing) deploy the Mesh topology provides additional security in terms of redundancy to ensure availability of services. One amongst most prominent attacks is Distributed Denial of Service attacks which cause an immense amount of loss of data as well as monetary losses to service providers. This paper proposes a method by which using SDN capabilities and sFlow-RT application, Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks is detected and consequently mitigated by using REST API to implement Policy Based Flow Management (PBFM) through the SDN Controller which will help in ensuring uninterrupted services in scenarios of such attacks and also further simply and enhance the management of Mesh architecture-based networks.

Due to its minimal price and expandable wireless open system interconnection options for the coming years, wireless mesh networking is appealing, developing, and novel medium of speech, which is why it is becoming a somewhat widely used communication field. In all network types, one of the essential factors for prevalent and trustworthy communication is cybersecurity. The IEEE 802.11 working gathering has created various correspondence guidelines. Yet, they are by and by focusing on the 802.11s standard because of its dynamic setup and geography learning abilities. Information, voice, and directions are steered between hubs employing remote lattice organising. WMNs incidentally give nearby 802.11g admittance to customers and connection neighbours utilising 802.11a "backhaul," but this isn’t generally the situation because of changing requirements, for example, top information rate and inclusion range. The small cross-sectional organisation emerged as a fundamental innovation to enable broadband system management in large regions. It benefits specialised organisations by reducing the cost of sending networks and end customers by providing ubiquitous Internet access anywhere, anytime. Given the idea of wireless mesh networking and the lack of integrated organisational technology, small grid networks are powerless against malicious attacks. In the meantime, the limit of multi-radio multi-channel correspondence, the need for heterogeneous organisation coordination, and the interest for multi-bounce remote equality often render conventional security strategies ineffectual or challenging to carry out. Thus, wireless mesh networking presents new issues that require more viable and relevant arrangements. WMNs have piqued the curiosity of both scholastics and industry because of their promising future. Numerous testbeds are built for research purposes, and business items for veritable WMNs are accessible. Anyway, a few concerns should be cleared up before they can very well become widespread. For example, the accessible MAC and routing conventions are not customisable; the throughput drops impressively with an increasing number of hubs or bounces in WMNs. Because of the weakness of WMNs against various malicious attacks, the security and protection of correspondence is a serious concern. For example, enemies can sniff long-distance correspondence to obtain sensitive data. Attackers can carry out DoS attacks and control the substance of the information sent through compromised hubs, thereby endangering the company’s secret, accessibility authenticity, and integrity. WMNs, like compact Impromptu Organisations (MANETs), share a typical medium, no traffic aggregate point, and incredible topography. Due to these restrictions, normal safety frameworks in wired associations can’t be quickly applied to WMNs. Also, the techniques utilised in MANETs are not viable with WMNs. This is because of the manner in which WMNs expand MANETs in different ways. Framework centres are generally outfitted with an assortment of radios. Then, at that point, many channels are doled out to every centre to work with concurrent data move and diversity.

Verifying the identity of nodes within a wireless ad hoc mesh network and the authenticity of their messages in sufficiently secure, yet power-efficient ways is a long-standing challenge. This paper shows how the more recent concepts of self-sovereign identity management can be applied to Internet-of-Things mesh networks, using LoRaWAN as an example and applying Sovrin's decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials in combination with Schnorr signatures for securing the communication with a focus on simplex and broadcast connections. Besides the concept and system architecture, the paper discusses an ESP32-based implementation using SX1276/SX1278 LoRa chips, adaptations made to the lmic- and MbedTLS-based software stack, and practically evaluates performance aspects in terms of data overhead, time-on-air impact, and power consumption.

The popularity of P2P (Peer-To-Peer) systems is increased tremendously due to massive increase in the Internet based applications. Initially, P2P systems were mainly designed for wired networks but today people are using more wireless networks and therefore these systems are gaining popularity. There are many wireless networks available today and WMNs (Wireless Mess Networks) are gaining popularity due to hybrid structure. People are using structured P2P systems-based applications within perimeter of a WMN. Structured P2P WMNs will assist the community to fetch the relevant information to accomplish their activities. There are inherent challenges in the structured P2P network and increased in wireless environment like WMNs. Structured P2P systems suffer from many challenges like lack of content availability, malicious content distribution, poor search scalability, free riding behaviour, white washing, lack of a robust trust model etc. Whereas, WMNs have limitations like mobility management, bandwidth constraint, limited battery power of user's devices, security, maintenance etc. in remote/ forward areas. We exploit the better possibility of content availability and search scalability in this paper. We propose replication schemes based on the popularity of content for structured P2P system applications in community based WMNs. The analysis of the performance shows that proposed scheme performs better than the existing replication scheme in different conditions.

Bluetooth Low Energy mesh networks are emerging as new standard of short burst communications. While security of the messages is guaranteed thought standard encryption techniques, little has been done in terms of actively protecting the overall network in case of attacks aiming to undermine its integrity. Although many network analysis and risk mitigation techniques are currently available, they require considerable amounts of data coming from both legitimate and attack scenarios to sufficiently discriminate among them, which often turns into the requirement of a complete description of the traffic flowing through the network. Furthermore, there are no publicly available datasets to this extent for BLE mesh networks, due most to the novelty of the standard and to the absence of specific implementation tools. To create a reliable mechanism of network analysis suited for BLE in this paper we propose a machine learning Intrusion Detection System (IDS) based on pattern classification and recognition of the most classical denial of service attacks affecting this kind of networks, working on a single internal node, thus requiring a small amount of information to operate. Moreover, in order to overcome the gap created by the absence of data, we present our data collection system based on ESP32 that allowed the collection of the packets from the Network and the Model layers of the BLE Mesh stack, together with a set of experiments conducted to get the necessary data to train the IDS. In the last part, we describe some preliminary results obtained by the experimental setups, focusing on its strengths, as well as on the aspects where further analysis is required, hence proposing some improvements of the classification model as future work. Index Terms-Bluetooth, BLE Mesh, Intrusion Detection System, IoT, network security.

Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is considered as the backbone of Internet of Things (IoT) networks. Authentication is the most important phase that guarantees secure access to such networks but it is more critical than that in traditional Internet because the communications are established between constrained devices that could not compute heavy cryptographic primitives. In this paper, we are studying with real experimentation the efficiency of HIP Diet EXchange header (HIP DEX) protocol over IPv6 over Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks (6LoWPAN) in IoT. The adopted application layer protocol is Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP) and as a routing protocol, the Routing Protocol for Low power and lossy networks (RPL). The evaluation concerns the total End-to-End transmission delays during the authentication process between the communicating peers regarding the processing, propagation, and queuing times' overheads results. Most importantly, we propose an efficient handshake packets' compression header, and we detailed a comparison of the above evaluation's criteria before and after the proposed compression. Obtained results are very encouraging and reinforce the efficiency of HIP DEX in IoT networks during the handshake process of constrained nodes.

Mobile edge computing (MEC), an emerging technology, has the characteristics of low latency, mobile energy savings, and context-awareness. As a type of access network, wireless mesh network (WMN) has gained wide attention due to its flexible network architecture, low deployment cost, and self-organization. The combination of MEC and WMN can solve the shortcomings of traditional wireless communication such as storage capacity, privacy, and security. In this paper, we propose a location-aware (LA) algorithm to cognize the location and a location-aware offloading policy (LAOP) algorithm considering the energy consumption and time delay. Simulation results show that the proposed LAOP algorithm can obtain a higher completion rate and lower average processing delay compared with the other two methods.

The present work describes a remote environment monitoring system based on the paradigms of mesh networks and opportunistic networks, whereby a sensor node can explore “con-nectivity windows” to transmit information that will eventually reach another network participants. We discuss the threats to the system's security and propose security mechanisms for the system ensuring the integrity and availability of monitoring information, something identified as critical to its proper operation.

This paper investigates the use of BeagleBone Black Wireless single-board Linux computers with Long Range (LoRa) transceivers to send and receive information in a mesh network while one of the transmitting/receiving nodes is acting as a relay in the system. An experiment is conducted to examine how long each LoRa node needed to learn the transmission intervals of any other transmitting nodes on the network and to synchronize with the other nodes prior to transmission. The spread factor, bandwidth, and coding rate are all varied for a total of 18 different combinations. A link to the Python code used on the BeagleBone Black is provided at the end of this paper. The best parameter combinations for each individual node and for the system as a whole is investigated. Additional experiments and applications of this technology are explored in the conclusions.

In multi-hop wireless mesh networks, the end-to-end delay for a packet is getting longer as the relaying hops to the destination are increasing. The real-time packet such as the urgent safety message should be delivered within the stipulated deadline. Most previous studies have been focused to find out the optimal route to the destination. We propose an intellectual priority-based packet transmission scheme for multi-interface devices in multi-hop wireless mesh networks.