Research

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19 pages, 1388 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Energy-Efficient IoT Service Brokering with Quality of Service Support

by Giacomo Tanganelli and Enzo Mingozzi

Sensors 2019, 19(3), 693; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19030693 - 08 Feb 2019

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2500

The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming real, and recent studies highlight that the number of IoT devices will significantly grow in the next decade. Such massive IoT deployments are typically made available to applications as a service by means of IoT platforms, [...] Read more.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is becoming real, and recent studies highlight that the number of IoT devices will significantly grow in the next decade. Such massive IoT deployments are typically made available to applications as a service by means of IoT platforms, which are aware of the characteristics of the connected IoT devices–usually constrained in terms of computation, storage and energy capabilities–and dispatch application’s service requests to appropriate devices based on their capabilities. In this work, we develop an energy-aware allocation policy that aims at maximizing the lifetime of all the connected IoT devices, whilst guaranteeing that applications’ Quality of Service (QoS) requirements are met. To this aim, we formally define an IoT service allocation problem as a non-linear Generalized Assignment Problem (GAP). We then develop a time-efficient heuristic algorithm to solve the problem, which is shown to find near-optimal solutions by exploiting the availability of equivalent IoT services provided by multiple IoT devices, as expected especially in the case of massive IoT deployments. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Methodologies and Practical Solutions for M2M and D2D Communications in the Internet of Things Era)

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22 pages, 2163 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Multi-Hop LoRa Linear Sensor Network for the Monitoring of Underground Environments: The Case of the Medieval Aqueducts in Siena, Italy

by Andrea Abrardo and Alessandro Pozzebon

Sensors 2019, 19(2), 402; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19020402 - 19 Jan 2019

Cited by 75 | Viewed by 5498

Abstract

In this paper, a pervasive monitoring system to be deployed in underground environments is presented. The system has been specifically designed for the so-called “Bottini”, i.e., the medieval aqueducts dug beneath the Centre of Siena, Italy. The results of a measurement campaign carried [...] Read more.

In this paper, a pervasive monitoring system to be deployed in underground environments is presented. The system has been specifically designed for the so-called “Bottini”, i.e., the medieval aqueducts dug beneath the Centre of Siena, Italy. The results of a measurement campaign carried out in the deployment scenario show that the transmission range of LoRa (Long Range) technology is limited to a maximum of 200 m, thus, making the adoption of a classical star topology impossible. Hence, a Linear Sensor Network topology is proposed based on multi-hop LoRa chain-type communications. In this scenario, an ad-hoc transmission scheme is presented that optimally evaluates the wake-up time of all nodes with the aim of minimizing the average energy dissipation deriving from clock offsets. Numerical results show that the proposed wake-up time optimization leads in the best case to a 50% reduction in power dissipation with respect to a scheme that evaluates the wake-up time in a non-optimal way. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Methodologies and Practical Solutions for M2M and D2D Communications in the Internet of Things Era)

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29 pages, 9128 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Modeling Network-Controlled Device-to-Device Communications in SimuLTE

by Giovanni Nardini, Antonio Virdis and Giovanni Stea

Sensors 2018, 18(10), 3551; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18103551 - 19 Oct 2018

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 5672

Abstract

In Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A), network-controlled device-to-device (D2D) communications allow User Equipments (UEs) to communicate directly, without involving the Evolved Node-B in data relaying, while the latter still retains control of resource allocation. The above paradigm allows reduced latencies for the UEs and [...] Read more.

In Long Term Evolution-Advanced (LTE-A), network-controlled device-to-device (D2D) communications allow User Equipments (UEs) to communicate directly, without involving the Evolved Node-B in data relaying, while the latter still retains control of resource allocation. The above paradigm allows reduced latencies for the UEs and increased resource efficiency for the network operator, and is therefore foreseen to support several services, from Machine-to-machine to vehicular communications. D2D communications introduce research challenges that might affect the performance of applications and upper-layer protocols, hence simulations represent a valuable tool for evaluating these aspects. However, simulating D2D features might pose additional computational burden to the simulation environment. To this aim, a careful modeling is required to reduce computational overhead. In this paper, we describe our modeling of network-controlled D2D communications in SimuLTE, a system-level LTE-A simulation library based on OMNeT++. We describe the core modeling choices of SimuLTE, and show how these allow an easy extension to D2D communications. Moreover, we describe in detail the modeling of specific problems arising with D2D communications, such as scheduling with frequency reuse, connection mode switching and broadcast transmission. We document the computational efficiency of our modeling choices, showing that simulation of D2D communications is not more complex than simulation of classical cellular communications of comparable scale. Results show that the heaviest computational burden of D2D communication lies in estimating the Sidelink channel quality. We show that SimuLTE allows one to evaluate the interplay between D2D communication and end-to-end performance of UDP- and TCP-based services. Moreover, we assess the accuracy of using a binary interference model for frequency reuse, and we evaluate the trade-off between speed of execution and accuracy in modeling the reception probability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Methodologies and Practical Solutions for M2M and D2D Communications in the Internet of Things Era)

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18 pages, 7124 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Strength of Crowd (SOC)—Defeating a Reactive Jammer in IoT with Decoy Messages

by Savio Sciancalepore, Gabriele Oligeri and Roberto Di Pietro

Sensors 2018, 18(10), 3492; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18103492 - 16 Oct 2018

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 3390

Abstract

We propose Strength of Crowd (SoC), a distributed Internet of Things (IoT) protocol that guarantees message broadcast from an initiator to all network nodes in the presence of either a reactive or a proactive jammer, that targets a variable portion of the radio [...] Read more.

We propose Strength of Crowd (SoC), a distributed Internet of Things (IoT) protocol that guarantees message broadcast from an initiator to all network nodes in the presence of either a reactive or a proactive jammer, that targets a variable portion of the radio spectrum. SoC exploits a simple, yet innovative and effective idea: nodes not (currently) involved in the broadcast process transmit decoy messages that cannot be distinguished (by the jammer) from the real ones. Therefore, the jammer has to implement a best-effort strategy to jam all the concurrent communications up to its frequency/energy budget. SoC exploits the inherent parallelism that stems from the massive deployments of IoT nodes to guarantee a high number of concurrent communications, exhausting the jammer capabilities and hence leaving a subset of the communications not jammed. It is worth noting that SoC could be adopted in several wireless scenarios; however, we focus on its application to the Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) domain, including IoT, Machine-to-Machine (M2M), Device-to-Device (D2D), to name a few. In this framework, we provide several contributions: firstly, we show the details of the SoC protocol, as well as its integration with the IEEE 802.15.4-2015 MAC protocol; secondly, we study the broadcast delay to deliver the message to all the nodes in the network; and finally, we run an extensive simulation and experimental campaign to test our solution. We consider the state-of-the-art OpenMote-B experimental platform, adopting the OpenWSN open-source protocol stack. Experimental results confirm the quality and viability of our solution. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Methodologies and Practical Solutions for M2M and D2D Communications in the Internet of Things Era)

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20 pages, 2904 KiB

Open AccessArticle

User-Information-Aware D2D Multicast File Distribution Mechanism

by Hongcheng Huang, Biao Liu, Min Hu, Yang Tao and Wei Xiang

Sensors 2018, 18(10), 3389; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18103389 - 10 Oct 2018

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2553

Abstract

There are a large number of redundant transmissions in current D2D multicast content delivery systems, which seriously reduces the utilization efficiency of resources. This paper designs a novel user-information-aware D2D video distribution mechanism. More specifically, by predicting users’ video requests, the video can [...] Read more.

There are a large number of redundant transmissions in current D2D multicast content delivery systems, which seriously reduces the utilization efficiency of resources. This paper designs a novel user-information-aware D2D video distribution mechanism. More specifically, by predicting users’ video requests, the video can be pushed to potential service requesters while distributing video for service requesters. Firstly, the willingness of potential requesters to accept the pushed video is estimated based on the users’ interests, the popularity of the videos and the residual-energy of the users’ devices, and the user-demand-aware clustering algorithm is proposed. Secondly, considering social and interference information, the utility metric of D2D multicast is proposed to measure the value of content distribution service. Finally, this paper proposes a D2D video distribution mechanism to optimize the utility value. Simulation results show that the proposed mechanism significantly improves throughput, energy and spectrum efficiency compared to the traditional distribution mechanism. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Methodologies and Practical Solutions for M2M and D2D Communications in the Internet of Things Era)

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24 pages, 7030 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Energy-Efficient Power Allocation and Relay Selection Schemes for Relay-Assisted D2D Communications in 5G Wireless Networks

by Md Arifur Rahman, YoungDoo Lee and Insoo Koo

Sensors 2018, 18(9), 2865; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18092865 - 30 Aug 2018

Cited by 28 | Viewed by 3863

Abstract

Device-to-device (D2D) communications allows user equipment (UE) that are in close proximity to communicate with each other directly without using a base station. Relay-assisted D2D (RA-D2D) communications in 5G networks can be applied to support long-distance users and to improve energy efficiency (EE) [...] Read more.

Device-to-device (D2D) communications allows user equipment (UE) that are in close proximity to communicate with each other directly without using a base station. Relay-assisted D2D (RA-D2D) communications in 5G networks can be applied to support long-distance users and to improve energy efficiency (EE) of the networks. In this paper, we first establish a multi-relay system model where the D2D UEs can communicate with each other by reusing only one cellular uplink resource. Then, we apply an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) architecture to select the best D2D relay to forward D2D source information to the expected D2D destination. Efficient power allocation (PA) in the D2D source and the D2D relay are critical problems for operating such networks, since the data rate of the cellular uplink and the maximum transmission power of the system need to be satisfied. As is known, 5G wireless networks also aim for low energy consumption to better implement the Internet of Things (IoT). Consequently, in this paper, we also formulate a problem to find the optimal solutions for PA of the D2D source and the D2D relay in terms of maximizing the EE of RA-D2D communications to support applications in the emerging IoT. To solve the PA problems of RA-D2D communications, a particle swarm optimization algorithm is employed to maximize the EE of the RA-D2D communications while satisfying the transmission power constraints of the D2D users, minimum data rate of cellular uplink, and minimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise-ratio requirements of the D2D users. Simulation results reveal that the proposed relay selection and PA methods significantly improve EE more than existing schemes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Methodologies and Practical Solutions for M2M and D2D Communications in the Internet of Things Era)

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17 pages, 7212 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Device Management and Data Transport in IoT Networks Based on Visible Light Communication

by Cheol-Min Kim and Seok-Joo Koh

Sensors 2018, 18(8), 2741; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18082741 - 20 Aug 2018

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 5749

Abstract

LED-based Visible Light Communication (VLC) has been proposed as the IEEE 802.15.7 standard and is regarded as a new wireless access medium in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) environment. With this trend, many works have already been made to improve the performance of VLC. However, [...] Read more.

LED-based Visible Light Communication (VLC) has been proposed as the IEEE 802.15.7 standard and is regarded as a new wireless access medium in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) environment. With this trend, many works have already been made to improve the performance of VLC. However, the effectively integration of VLC services into IoT networks has not yet been sufficiently studied. In this paper, we propose a scheme for device management and data transport in IoT networks using VLC. Specifically, we discuss how to manage VLC transmitters and receivers, and to support VLC data transmission in IoT networks. The proposed scheme considers uni-directional VLC transmissions from transmitter to receivers for delivery of location-based VLC data. The backward transmission from VLC receivers will be made by using platform server and aggregation agents in the network. For validation and performance analysis, we implemented the proposed scheme with VLC-capable LED lights and open sources of oneM2M. From the experimental results for virtual museum services, we see that the VLC data packets can be exchanged within 590 ms, and the handover between VLC transmitters can be completed within 210 ms in the testbed network. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Methodologies and Practical Solutions for M2M and D2D Communications in the Internet of Things Era)

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15 pages, 1438 KiB

Open AccessArticle

OFDM with Index Modulation for Asynchronous mMTC Networks

by Seda Doğan, Armed Tusha and Hüseyin Arslan

Sensors 2018, 18(4), 1280; https://doi.org/10.3390/s18041280 - 21 Apr 2018

Cited by 19 | Viewed by 9174

Abstract

One of the critical missions for next-generation wireless communication systems is to fulfill the high demand for massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC). In mMTC systems, a sporadic transmission is performed between machine users and base station (BS). Lack of coordination between the users and [...] Read more.

One of the critical missions for next-generation wireless communication systems is to fulfill the high demand for massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC). In mMTC systems, a sporadic transmission is performed between machine users and base station (BS). Lack of coordination between the users and BS in time destroys orthogonality between the subcarriers, and causes inter-carrier interference (ICI). Therefore, providing services to asynchronous massive machine users is a major challenge for Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). In this study, OFDM with index modulation (OFDM-IM) is proposed as an eligible solution to alleviate ICI caused by asynchronous transmission in uncoordinated mMTC networks. In OFDM-IM, data transmission is performed not only by modulated subcarriers but also by the indices of active subcarriers. Unlike classical OFDM, fractional subcarrier activation leads to less ICI in OFDM-IM technology. A novel subcarrier mapping scheme (SMS) named as Inner Subcarrier Activation is proposed to further alleviate adjacent user interference in asynchronous OFDM-IM-based systems. ISA reduces inter-user interference since it gives more activation priority to inner subcarriers compared with the existing SMS-s. The superiority of the proposed SMS is shown through both theoretical analysis and computer-based simulations in comparison to existing mapping schemes for asynchronous systems. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Methodologies and Practical Solutions for M2M and D2D Communications in the Internet of Things Era)

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Review

Jump to: Research

16 pages, 1049 KiB

Open AccessReview

When Social Networks Meet D2D Communications: A Survey

by Michele Nitti, George Alex Stelea, Vlad Popescu and Mauro Fadda

Sensors 2019, 19(2), 396; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19020396 - 18 Jan 2019

Cited by 55 | Viewed by 6337

Abstract

In the last few years, one of the main characteristics of the current technological development is the constantly increasing need for data exchange among various types of devices, both mobile and fixed. Within this context, the direct communications between devices has the potential [...] Read more.

In the last few years, one of the main characteristics of the current technological development is the constantly increasing need for data exchange among various types of devices, both mobile and fixed. Within this context, the direct communications between devices has the potential to create new, location-based peer-to-peer applications and services, as well as to help offload traffic from the congested traditional cellular networks. The main hurdles for this kind of Device to Device (D2D) communications are throughput, spectral efficiency, latency and fairness. Most of these hurdles can be overcome by the use of the new Social IoT (SIoT) paradigm, of things and people involved together in the network, guided autonomously by social relationships following the rules set by their owners. This paper aims to investigate the state of the art of socially-driven D2D communications. Upon an initial analysis, we perform an in-deep literature investigation of the main directions in which social ties can improve D2D communication, draw conclusions and identify the research topics left open. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Emerging Methodologies and Practical Solutions for M2M and D2D Communications in the Internet of Things Era)

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