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Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges

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A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Networks".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2020) | Viewed by 41458

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Prof. Dr. Dongkyun Kim

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Guest Editor

School of Computer Science and Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Republic of Korea
Interests: connected cars; vehicular ad hoc networks; the Internet of Things (machine-to-machine/device-to-device); Wi-Fi networks (including Wi-Fi Direct); wireless mesh networks; wireless sensor networks; future Internet
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Muhammad Azfar Yaqub

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Faculty of Engineering, Free University of Bolzano, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
Interests: AI; machine learning; IoT; vehicular networks; future internet architecture
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the last decade, the Internet and related web technologies have driven the development of various networking solutions, and are becoming primary parts of our daily lives. We are witnessing the fast-growing adaptation of future networks due to the proliferation of future wireless technologies with the existing algorithms and architectures. The future network research field will include interdisciplinary research from both academic and IT industry researchers. Autonomous systems can now be found everywhere; in our homes, cities, roads, air space, and oceans. A plethora of applications will be created with embedded sensors in our cities, vehicles, industries, and other new systems. These systems will be controlled through artificial intelligence that may reside in the cloud, fog, or edge environments.

The purpose of this Special Issue is to gather papers that define the advancement of future networks, and their services and challenges. We are seeking the latest original contributions that have not been published and are not currently under process in any other journal. The potential topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

Smart cities
Network functions virtualization (NFV)
Software defined networking (SDN)
Internet of things
Future network software and services
QoS/QoE mechanisms for future networks
Future communication architectures
Energy harvesting and power management in future networks
Security and privacy in future networks
Environmental and social sustainable applications
Edge computing, fog computing and cloud computing in future networks
Artificial Intelligence, machine learning in future networks
Data analytics and scalable/parallel/distributed computing algorithms in future networks

Prof. Dr. Dongkyun Kim
Dr. Muhammad Azfar Yaqub
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (12 papers)

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Research

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23 pages, 2878 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Experimental Study on D2D Route Selection Mechanism in 5G Scenarios

by Mohammad Kazem Chamran, Kok-Lim Alvin Yau, Rafidah Md. Noor and Celimuge Wu

Electronics 2021, 10(4), 387; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10040387 - 05 Feb 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2085

Abstract

This paper demonstrates a route selection mechanism on a testbed with heterogeneous device-to-device (D2D) wireless communication for a 5G network scenario. The source node receives information about the primary users’ (PUs’) (or licensed users’) activities and available routes from the macrocell base station (or a central controller) and makes a decision to select a multihop route to the destination node. The source node from small cells can either choose: (a) a route with direct communication with the macrocell base station to improve the route performance; or (b) a route with D2D communication among nodes in the small cells to offload traffic from the macrocell to improve spectrum efficiency. The selected D2D route has the least PUs’ activities. The route selection mechanism is investigated on our testbed that helps to improve the accuracy of network performance measurement. In traditional testbeds, each node (e.g., Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) that serves as the front-end communication block) is connected to a single processing unit (e.g., a personal computer) via a switch using cables. In our testbed, each USRP node is connected to a separate processing unit, i.e., raspberry Pi3 B+ (or RP3), which offers three main advantages: (a) control messages and data packets are exchanged via the wireless medium; (b) separate processing units make decisions in a distributed and heterogeneous manner; and (c) the nodes are placed further apart from one another. Therefore, in the investigation of our route selection scheme, the response delay of control message exchange and the packet loss caused by the operating environment (e.g., ambient noise) are implied in our end-to-end delay and packet delivery ratio measurement. Our results show an increase of end-to-end delay and a decrease of packet delivery ratio due to the transmission of control messages and data packets in the wireless medium in the presence of the dynamic PUs’ activities. Furthermore, D2D communication can offload 25% to 75% traffic from macrocell base station to small cells. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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17 pages, 7913 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mitigation of Phase Noise and Nonlinearities for High Capacity Radio-over-Fiber Links

by Muhammad Kamal Asif Khan, Farman Ali, Muhammad Irfan, Fazal Muhammad, Faisal Althobiani, Asar Ali, Suliman Khan, Saifur Rahman, Grzegorz Perun and Adam Glowacz

Electronics 2021, 10(3), 345; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10030345 - 01 Feb 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3167

Abstract

Radio-over-fiber (RoF) links successfully provide high data rates and bandwidth capacity with a low complexity system architecture, as compared to its counterpart digital-RoF. In addition, the compound of quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) and orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) modulation schemes further enhance the process of these achievements. However, high data rates and bandwidth-capacity-supported RoF links face nonlinearities (NLs), linear distortions (LDs), and phase noise challenges that degrade the reliability of communication networks (CNs). Therefore, in this paper, to suppress NLs, LDs, and phase noise, next generation cloud radio access networks (CRANs) are investigated using RoF links and wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) methodology based on 16, 32, and 64 QAM-OFDM modulation schemes. The receiver of the proposed framework is designed, applying an improved digital signal processing (DSP) system that includes overlap frequency domain equalization (OFDE), a synchronization process, and time domain equalization (TDE). Theoretical and simulation models are organized for estimating the proposed RoF link with the aid of different values of transmission ranges, input power, output power, bit rate, bits per symbol, channel spacing, and the number of users. The fitness of the model matches that of existing approaches. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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15 pages, 991 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Combined Access Barring Scheme for IoT Devices Using Bayesian Estimation

by Waqas Tariq Toor, Maira Alvi and Mamta Agiwal

Electronics 2020, 9(12), 2191; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9122191 - 18 Dec 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3314

Abstract

This paper focuses on proposing a new access barring scheme for internet of things (IoT) devices in long term evolution advanced (LTE/LTE-A) and 5G networks. Massive number of IoT devices communicating simultaneously is one of the hallmarks of the future communication networks such as 5G and beyond. The problem of congestion also comes with this massive communication for which access barring is one of the solutions. So, it is required that sophisticated access barring techniques are designed such that the congestion is avoided and these devices get served in less time. Legacy access barring schemes like access class barring (ACB) and extended access barring (EAB) suffer from high energy consumption and high access delay respectively. However, our proposed scheme provides less energy consumption than ACB while giving less access delay than EAB. The proposed scheme maximizes the success probability while reducing the number of collisions at the same time. The scheme is based on an approximation of the number of IoT devices based on details available to the eNodeB of the number of idle, successful and collided preambles. Extensive Matlab simulations are performed to validate our claims and analysis. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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19 pages, 3828 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Prediction-Based Model for Consistent Adaptive Routing in Back-Bone Networks at Extreme Situations

by Qianru Zhou and Dimitrios Pezaros

Electronics 2020, 9(12), 2146; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9122146 - 15 Dec 2020

Viewed by 1891

Abstract

To reduce congestion, numerous routing solutions have been proposed for backbone networks, but how to select paths that stay consistently optimal for a long time in extremely congested situations, avoiding the unnecessary path reroutings, has not yet been investigated much. To solve that issue, a model that can measure the consistency of path latency difference is needed. In this paper, we make a humble step towards a consistent differential path latency model and by predicting base on that model, a metric Path Swap Indicator (PSI) is proposed. By learning the history latency of all optional paths, PSI is able to predict the onset of an obvious and steady channel deterioration and make the decision to switch paths. The effect of PSI is evaluated from the following aspects: (1) the consistency of the path selected, by measuring the time interval between PSI changes; (2) the accuracy of the channel congestion situation prediction; and (3) the improvement of the congestion situation. Experiments were carried out on a testbed using real-life Abilene traffic datasets collected at different times and locations. Results show that the proposed PSI can stay consistent for over 1000 s on average, and more than 3000 s at the longest in our experiment, while at the same time achieving a congestion situation improvement of more than 300% on average, and more than 200% at the least. It is evident that the proposed PSI metric is able to provide a consistent channel congestion prediction with satisfiable channel improvement at the same time. The results also demonstrate how different parameter values impact the result, both in terms of prediction consistency and the congestion improvement. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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17 pages, 3162 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Adjusted Free-Market-Inspired Approach to Mitigate Free-Riding Behavior in Peer-to-Peer Fog Computing

by Heba Kurdi, Alhanoof Althnian, Mohannad Abdulghani and Sarah Alkharji

Electronics 2020, 9(12), 2027; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9122027 - 30 Nov 2020

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1703

Abstract

Peer-to-peer (P2P) architecture is increasingly gaining attention as a potential solution for the scalability problem facing the Internet of Things (IoT). It can be adopted for the fog computing layer to sustain the massive flow of data from constrained IoT nodes to the cloud. The success of a P2P-based system is entirely dependent on the continuity of resource sharing among individual nodes. Free riding is a severe problem that contradicts this main principle of P2P systems. It is understood that peers tend to consume resources from other peers without offering any in return. This free riding behavior can decrease system scalability and content availability, resulting in a decline in performance. Significant efforts have been made to hinder this behavior and to encourage cooperation amongst peers. To this end, we propose AFMIA, an Adjusted Free-Market-Inspired Approach that considers resources as goods that have dynamic prices based on the amount of supply and demand. Peers have wealth that can be increased by providing resources and spent by consuming them. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm can successfully improve fairness without compromising on success rates. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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18 pages, 1486 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Adaptive and Hybrid Idle–Hard Timeout Allocation and Flow Eviction Mechanism Considering Traffic Characteristics

by Babangida Isyaku, Kamalrulnizam Abu Bakar, Mohd Soperi Mohd Zahid and Muhammed Nura Yusuf

Electronics 2020, 9(11), 1983; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9111983 - 23 Nov 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2396

Abstract

Software-defined networking (SDN) enables flexible fine-grained networking policies by allowing the SDN controller to install packet handling rules on distributed switches. The behaviour of SDN depends on the set of forwarding entries installed at the switch flow table. The increasing number of traffics from the proliferation of the Internet of Thing (IoT) devices increase the processing load on the controller and generates an additional number of entries stored in the flow table. However, the switch flow table memory (TCAM) cannot accommodate many entries. Packets from multimedia flows are usually large in size and thus suffer processing delay and require more flow set up requests. The SDN controller may be overloaded and face some scalability problems because it supports a limited number of requests from switches. OpenFlow uses timeout configuration to manage flow setup request. The conventional fixed timeout cannot cope up with the dynamic nature of traffic flows. This paper controls the frequent flow setup requests by proposing an adaptive and hybrid idle–hard timeout allocation (AH-IHTA). The algorithm considers traffic patterns, flow table usage ratio, and returns appropriate the timeout to different flows. The performance evaluations conducted have shown a 28% and 39% reduction in the flow setup request and flow eviction, respectively. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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19 pages, 2695 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An On-Path Caching Scheme Based on the Expected Number of Copies in Information-Centric Networks

by Yuanhang Li, Jinlin Wang and Rui Han

Electronics 2020, 9(10), 1705; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9101705 - 17 Oct 2020

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1880

Abstract

The Information-Centric Network (ICN) is one of the most influential future network architectures and in-network caching in ICN brings some helpful features, such as low latency and mobility support. How to allocate cache capacity and place content properly will greatly influence the performance of ICN. This paper focuses on the cache allocation problem and content placement problem under the given cache space budget. Firstly, a lightweight allocation method utilizing information of both topology and content popularity is proposed, to allocate cache space and get the expected number of copies of popular content. The expected number of copies represents the number of content copies placed in the topology. Then, an on-path caching scheme based on the expected number of copies is proposed to handle the content placement problem. In the cache allocation scenario, the lightweight allocation method performs better than other baseline methods. In the content placement scenario, Leave Copy Down (LCD) based on the expected number of copies performs the second-best and is very close to Optimal Content Placement (OCP). Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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15 pages, 802 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Grant-Free Resource Allocation for NOMA V2X Uplink Systems Using a Genetic Algorithm Approach

by Sol Lee, Jeehyeong Kim, Joohan Park and Sunghyun Cho

Electronics 2020, 9(7), 1111; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9071111 - 08 Jul 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2857

Abstract

While NOMA-V2V (non-orthogonal multiple accesscan-vehicle-to-vehicle) effectively achieve massive connectivity requirements in 5G network systems, minimizing communication latency is a very crucial challenge. To address the latency problem, we propose a channel allocation method called hyper-fraction, which divides the road into many zones and allocates a channel to each zone. Then, a vehicle located within the corresponding zone uses the channel allocated to the zone. Hyper-fraction will allow the system to minimize communication latency between a user equipment (UE) and a base station (BS) caused by scheduling processes and consequentially reduce the overall latency of the system. In the simulation, a novel concept of genetic algorithm (GA) is utilized, called GA with continuous pool. It is an approach to enable conventional GA to solve optimization problems for continuous situations within much less computation, especially in situations where the elements in the system keep moving such as vehicular networks. As a result, GA with continuous pool is proven to be an effective heuristic method to improve throughput rate, as well as hyper-fraction improving the latency of NOMA V2V and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) systems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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12 pages, 374 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Neighbor Aware Protocols for IoT Devices in Smart Cities—Overview, Challenges and Solutions

by Sungwon Lee, Muhammad Azfar Yaqub and Dongkyun Kim

Electronics 2020, 9(6), 902; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9060902 - 28 May 2020

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2351

Abstract

The principle of Smart Cities is the interconnection of services, based on a network of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. As the number of IoT devices continue to grow, the demand to organize and maintain the IoT applications is increased. Therefore, the solutions for smart city should have the ability to efficiently utilize the resources and their associated challenges. Neighbor aware solutions can enhance the capabilities of the smart city. In this article, we briefly overview the neighbor aware solutions and challenges in smart cities. We then categorize the neighbor aware solutions and discuss the possibilities using the collaboration among neighbors to extend the lifetime of IoT devices. We also propose a new duty cycle MAC protocol with assistance from the neighbors to extend the lifetime of the nodes. Simulation results further coagulate the impact of neighbor assistance on the performance of IoT devices in smart cities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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19 pages, 1804 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A DDoS Attack Mitigation Scheme in ISP Networks Using Machine Learning Based on SDN

by Nguyen Ngoc Tuan, Pham Huy Hung, Nguyen Danh Nghia, Nguyen Van Tho, Trung Van Phan and Nguyen Huu Thanh

Electronics 2020, 9(3), 413; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9030413 - 29 Feb 2020

Cited by 57 | Viewed by 11041

Abstract

Keeping Internet users protected from cyberattacks and other threats is one of the most prominent security challenges for network operators nowadays. Among other critical threats, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) becomes one of the most widespread attacks in the Internet, which is very challenging to mitigate appropriately as DDoS attacks cause the system to stop working by resource exhaustion. Software-defined networking (SDN) has recently emerged as a new networking technology offering unprecedented programmability that allows network operators to configure and manage their infrastructures dynamically. The flexible processing and centralized management of the SDN controller allow flexibly deploying complex security algorithms and mitigation methods. In this paper, we propose a novel DDoS attack mitigation in SDN-based Internet Service Provider (ISP) networks for TCP-SYN and ICMP flood attacks utilizing machine learning approach, i.e., K-Nearest-Neighbor (KNN) and XGBoost. By deploying a testbed, we implement the proposed algorithms, evaluate their accuracy, and address the trade-off between the accuracy and mitigation efficiency. Through extensive experiments, the results show that the algorithms can efficiently mitigate the attack by over 98.0% while benign traffic is not affected. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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12 pages, 692 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Computationally Efficient Soft Detection Schemes for Coded Massive MIMO Systems

by Meixiang Zhang, Zhi Zhang, Satya Chan and Sooyoung Kim

Electronics 2020, 9(2), 344; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9020344 - 17 Feb 2020

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2173

Abstract

This paper presents a computationally efficient soft detection scheme for massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems. The proposed scheme adopts joint iterative detection and decoding (JIDD) methods for their capacity limiting performances. In addition, the minimum mean square error parallel interference cancellation (MMSE-PIC)-based detection scheme is used for soft information exchange. We propose a number of techniques to reduce the computational complexity, while keeping almost the same performance as the conventional ones. First, a technique is proposed to approximate the Gram matrix to a constant valued diagonal matrix. This proposal can lead to elimination of complex matrix inversion process and multiple layer dependent estimations, resulting in huge complexity reduction. Second, compact equations to estimate soft-symbol values for M-ary (quadrature amplitude modulation) QAM are derived. From the investigation example of

2^{8}

-QAM in this paper, this proposal showed more than two orders of less computations compared to the conventional scheme. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method can achieve approximating performance to the conventional method with a largely reduced computational complexity. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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Review

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29 pages, 2020 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

DTN and Non-DTN Routing Protocols for Inter-CubeSat Communications: A comprehensive survey

by Mohamed Atef Ali Madni, Saeid Iranmanesh and Raad Raad

Electronics 2020, 9(3), 482; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9030482 - 14 Mar 2020

Cited by 27 | Viewed by 5501

Abstract

CubeSats, which are limited by size and mass, have limited functionality. These miniaturised satellites suffer from a low power budget, short radio range, low transmission speeds, and limited data storage capacity. Regardless of these limitations, CubeSats have been deployed to carry out many research missions, such as gravity mapping and the tracking of forest fires. One method of increasing their functionality and reducing their limitations is to form CubeSat networks, or swarms, where many CubeSats work together to carry out a mission. Nevertheless, the network might have intermittent connectivity and, accordingly, data communication becomes challenging in such a disjointed network where there is no contemporaneous path between source and destination due to satellites’ mobility pattern and given the limitations of range. In this survey, various inter-satellite routing protocols that are Delay Tolerant (DTN) and Non Delay Tolerant (Non-DTN) are considered. DTN routing protocols are considered for the scenarios where the network is disjointed with no contemporaneous path between a source and a destination. We qualitatively compare all of the above routing protocols to highlight the positive and negative points under different network constraints. We conclude that the performance of routing protocols used in aerospace communications is highly dependent on the evolving topology of the network over time. Additionally, the Non-DTN routing protocols will work efficiently if the network is dense enough to establish reliable links between CubeSats. Emphasis is also given to network capacity in terms of how buffer, energy, bandwidth, and contact duration influence the performance of DTN routing protocols, where, for example, flooding-based DTN protocols can provide superior performance in terms of maximizing delivery ratio and minimizing a delivery delay. However, such protocols are not suitable for CubeSat networks, as they harvest the limited resources of these tiny satellites and they are contrasted with forwarding-based DTN routing protocols, which are resource-friendly and produce minimum overheads on the cost of degraded delivery probability. From the literature, we found that quota-based DTN routing protocols can provide the necessary balance between delivery delay and overhead costs in many CubeSat missions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Networks: New Advances and Challenges)

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