Network, Volume 4, Issue 3 (September 2024) – 8 articles

Internet of Vehicles applications are known to be critical and time-sensitive. The value proposition of edge computing comprises its lower latency, advantageous bandwidth consumption, privacy, management, efficiency of treatments, and mobility, which aim to improve vehicular and traffic services. Successful stories have been observed between IoV and edge computing to support smooth mobility and the use of local resources. However, vehicle travel, especially due to high-speed movement and intersections, can result in IoV devices losing connection and/or processing with high latency. This paper proposes a Cluster Collaboration Vehicular Edge Computing (CCVEC) framework that aims to guarantee and enhance the connectivity between vehicle sensors and the cloud by utilizing the edge computing paradigm in the middle. The objectives are achieved by utilizing the cluster management strategies deployed between cloud and edge computing servers. The framework is implemented in OpenStack cloud servers and evaluated by measuring the throughput, latency, and memory parameters in two different scenarios. The results obtained show promising indications in terms of latency (approximately 390 ms of the ideal status) and throughput (30 kB/s) values, and thus appears acceptable in terms of performance as well as memory. Full article

Ensuring high reliability and low latency poses challenges for numerous applications that require rigid performance guarantees, such as industrial automation and autonomous vehicles. Our research primarily concentrates on addressing the real-time requirements of ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC). Specifically, we tackle the challenge of hard delay constraints in real-time transmission systems, overcoming this obstacle through a finite blocklength coding scheme. In the physical layer, we encode randomly arriving packets using a variable-length coding scheme and transmit the encoded symbols by truncated channel inversion over parallel channels. In the network layer, we model the encoding and transmission processes as tandem queues. These queues backlog the data bits waiting to be encoded and the encoded symbols to be transmitted, respectively. This way, we represent the system as a two-dimensional Markov chain. By focusing on instances when the symbol queue is empty, we simplify the Markov chain into a one-dimensional Markov chain, with the packet queue being the system state. This approach allows us to analytically express power consumption and formulate a power minimization problem under hard delay constraints. Finally, we propose a heuristic algorithm to solve the problem and provide an extensive evaluation of the trade-offs between the hard delay constraint and power consumption. Full article

The majority of local IPv6 networks continue to remain insecure and vulnerable to neighbor spoofing attacks. The Secure Neighbor Discovery (SEND) standard and its concomitant Cryptographically Generated Addressing (CGA) scheme were accepted by large standard bodies to codify practical mitigations. SEND and CGA have never seen widespread adoption due to their complexities, obscurity, costs, compatibility issues, and continued lack of mature implementations. In light of their poor adoption, research since their standardization has continued to find new perspectives and proffer new ideas. The orthodox solutions for securing Neighbor Discovery have historically struggled to successfully harmonize three core ideals: simplicity, flexibility, and privacy preservation. This research introduces Voucher-Based Addressing, a low-configuration, low-cost, and high-impact alternative to IPv6 address generation methods. It secures the Neighbor Discovery address resolution process while remaining simple, highly adaptable, indistinguishable, and privacy-focused. Applying a unique concoction of cryptographic key derivation functions, link-layer address binding, and neighbor consensus on the parameters of address generation, the resolved address bindings are verifiable without the need for complex techniques that have hindered the adoption of canonical specifications. Full article

Relaying with network coding forms a basis for a variety of collaborative communication systems. A linear block coding framework for multi-way relaying using network codes introduced in the literature shows great promise for understanding, analyzing, and designing such systems. So far, this technique has been used with low-density parity check (LDPC) codes and belief propagation (BP) decoding. Polar codes have drawn significant interest in recent years because of their low decoding complexity and good performance. Our paper considers the use of polar codes also as network codes with differential binary phase shift keying (DBPSK), bypassing the need for channel state estimation in multi-way selective detect-and-forward (DetF) cooperative relaying. We demonstrate that polar codes are suitable for such applications. The encoding and decoding complexity of such systems for linear block codes is analyzed using maximum likelihood (ML) decoding for LDPC codes with log-BP decoding and polar codes with successive cancellation (SC) as well as successive cancellation list (SCL) decoding. We present Monte-Carlo simulation results for the performance of such a multi-way relaying system, employing polar codes with different lengths and code rates. The results demonstrate a significant performance gain compared to an uncoded scheme. The simulation results show that the error performance of such a system employing polar codes is comparable to LDPC codes with log-BP decoding, while the decoding complexity is much lower. Furthermore, we consider a hard threshold technique at user terminals for determining whether a relay transmits or not. This technique makes the system practical without increasing the complexity and can significantly reduce the degradation from intermittent relay transmissions that is associated with such a multi-way relaying protocol. Full article

To enhance user experiences of reaching destinations in large, complex buildings, we have developed a indoor navigation system using Unity and a smartphone called INSUS. It can reset the user location using a quick response (QR) code to reduce the loss of direction of the user during navigation. However, this approach needs a number of QR code sheets to be prepared in the field, causing extra loads at implementation. In this paper, we propose another reset method to reduce loads by recognizing information of naturally installed signs in the field using object detection and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technologies. A lot of signs exist in a building, containing texts such as room numbers, room names, and floor numbers. In the proposal, the Sign Image is taken with a smartphone, the sign is detected by YOLOv8, the text inside the sign is recognized by PaddleOCR, and it is compared with each record in the Room Database using Levenshtein distance. For evaluations, we applied the proposal in two buildings in Okayama University, Japan. The results show that YOLOv8 achieved [email protected] $0.995$ and [email protected]:0.95 $0.978$, and PaddleOCR could extract text in the sign image accurately with an averaged CER% lower than 10%. The combination of both YOLOv8 and PaddleOCR decreases the execution time by $6.71s$ compared to the previous method. The results confirmed the effectiveness of the proposal. Full article

Persistent security challenges in Industry 4.0 due to the limited resources of IoT devices necessitate innovative solutions. Addressing this, this study introduces the ASCON algorithm for lightweight authenticated encryption with associated data, enhancing confidentiality, integrity, and authenticity within IoT limitations. By integrating Digital Twins, the framework emphasizes the need for robust security in Industry 4.0, with ASCON ensuring secure data transmission and bolstering system resilience against cyber threats. Practical validation using the MQTT protocol confirms ASCON’s efficacy over AES-GCM, highlighting its potential for enhanced security in Industry 4.0. Future research should focus on optimizing ASCON for microprocessors and developing secure remote access tailored to resource-constrained devices, ensuring adaptability in the digital era. Full article

Delay and Disruption Tolerant Networking (DTN) is a network architecture created basically to overcome non-continuing connectivity. There has been a great deal of research on this topic, from space communication to terrestrial applications. Since there are still many places on earth where there is no means of communication, the focus of this work is on the latest. A systematic literature review (SLR) was performed to know the main issues and advances related to the implementation of DTN for terrestrial and TCP/IP applications, especially in places where telecommunication infrastructure is lacking. The result is a classification of papers based on key aspects, such as architecture, performance, routing, and applications. A matrix of all the papers about these aspects is included to help researchers find the missing piece and concrete terrestrial solutions. The matrix uses three colors, green, yellow, and red according to the focus, either high, medium, or low, so that it is easy to identify specific papers. Full article