QoS–aware Mesh-based Multicast Routing Protocols in Edge Ad Hoc Networks: Concepts and Challenges

Multicast communication plays a pivotal role in Edge based Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs). MANETs can provide low-cost self-configuring devices for multimedia data communication that can be used in military battlefield, disaster management, connected living, and public safety networks. A Multicast communication should increase the network performance by decreasing the bandwidth consumption, battery power, and routing overhead. In recent years, a number of multicast routing protocols (MRPs) have been proposed to resolve above listed challenges. Some of them are used for dynamic establishment of reliable route for multimedia data communication. This article provides a detailed survey of the merits and demerits of the recently developed techniques. An ample study of various Quality of Service (QoS) techniques and enhancement is also presented. Later, mesh topology-based MRPs are classified according to enhancement in routing mechanism and QoS modification. This article covers the most recent, robust, and reliable QoS-aware mesh based MRPs, classified on the basis of their operational features, and pros and cons. Finally, a comparative study has been presented on the basis of their performance parameters on the proposed protocols.

An Efficient Certificate-Based Aggregate Signature Scheme for Internet of Drones

Internet of drones (IoD) is a network of small drones that leverages IoT infrastructure to deliver real-time data communication services to users. On the one hand, IoD is an excellent choice for a number of military and civilian applications owing to key characteristics like agility, low cost, and ease of deployment; on the other hand, small drones are rarely designed with security and privacy concerns in mind. Intruders can exploit this vulnerability to compromise the security and privacy of IoD networks and harm the information exchange operation. An aggregate signature scheme is the best solution for resolving security and privacy concerns since multiple drones are connected in IoD networks to gather data from a certain zone. However, most aggregate signature schemes proposed in the past for this purpose are either identity-based or relied on certificateless cryptographic methods. Using these methods, a central authority known as a trusted authority (TA) is responsible for generating and distributing secret keys of every user. However, the key escrow problem is formulated as knowing the secret key generated by the TA. These methods are hampered by key distribution issues, which restrict their applicability in a variety of situations. To address these concerns, this paper presents a certificate-based aggregate signature (CBS-AS) scheme based on hyperelliptic curve cryptography (HECC). The proposed scheme has been shown to be both efficient in terms of computation cost and unforgeable while testing its toughness through formal security analysis.

Top-emitting 940-nm thin-film VCSELs transferred onto aluminum heatsinks

Thin-film vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs) mounted onto heatsinks open up the way toward low-power consumption and high-power operation, enabling them to be widely used for energy saving high-speed optical data communication and three-dimensional sensor applications. There are two conventional VCSEL polarity structures: p-on-n and n-on-p polarity. The former is more preferably used owing to the reduced series resistance of n-type bottom distributed Bragg reflection (DBR) as well as the lower defect densities of n-type GaAs substrates. In this study, the p-on-n structures of thin-film VCSELs, including an etch stop layer and a highly n-doped GaAs ohmic layer, were epitaxially grown in upright order by using low-pressure metalorganic chemical vapor deposition (LP-MOCVD). The p-on-n structures of thin-film VCSELs were transferred onto an aluminum heatsink via a double-transfer technique, allowing the top-emitting thin-film VCSELs to keep the p-on-n polarity with the removal of the GaAs substrate. The threshold current (Ith) and voltage (Vth) of the fabricated top-emitting thin-film VCSELs were 1 mA and 2.8 V, respectively. The optical power was 7.7 mW at a rollover point of 16.1 mA.

Environmental and Safety Impacts of Vehicle-to-Everything Enabled Applications: A Review of State-of-the-Art Studies

With the rapid development of communication technology, connected vehicles (CV) have the potential, through the sharing of data, to enhance vehicle safety and reduce vehicle energy consumption and emissions. Numerous research efforts have been conducted to quantify the impacts of CV applications, assuming instant and accurate communication among vehicles, devices, pedestrians, infrastructure, the network, the cloud, and the grid, collectively known as V2X (vehicle-to-everything). The use of cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X), to share data is emerging as an efficient means to achieve this objective. C-V2X releases 14 and 15 utilize the 4G LTE technology and release 16 utilizes the new 5G new radio (NR) technology. C-V2X can function without network infrastructure coverage and has a better communication range, improved latency, and greater data rates compared to older technologies. Such highly efficient interchange of information among all participating parts in a CV environment will not only provide timely data to enhance the capacity of the transportation system but can also be used to develop applications that enhance vehicle safety and minimize negative environmental impacts. However, before the full benefits of CV can be achieved, there is a need to thoroughly investigate the effectiveness, strengths, and weaknesses of different CV applications, the communication protocols, the varied results with different CV market penetration rates (MPRs), the interaction of CVs and human driven vehicles, the integration of multiple applications, and the errors and latencies associated with data communication. This paper reviews existing literature on the environmental, mobility and safety impacts of CV applications, identifies the gaps in our current research of CVs and recommends future research directions. The results of this paper will help shape the future research direction for CV applications to realize their full potential benefits.

A two-step computer vision-based framework for bolt loosening detection and its implementation on a smartphone application

Bolt loosening detection is a labor-intensive and time-consuming process for field engineers. This paper develops a two-step computer vision-based framework to quickly identify bolt loosening angle from field images captured by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). In step one, a total of 1200 image samples of bolted structures were used to train faster region based convolutional neural network (Faster R-CNN) for bolt detection from UAV captured images. In step two, computer vision-based technologies, including Gaussian filter, perspective transform, and Hough transform (HT), were performed to quantify bolt loosening angle. The developed framework was then integrated into web server and an iOS application (app) was designed to enable fast data communication between field workplace (UAV captured images) and web server (bolt loosening angle quantification), so that field engineers can quickly view the inspection results on their phone screens. The proposed framework and designed smartphone app greatly help field engineers to improve the accuracy and efficiency for onsite inspection and maintenance of bolted structures.

A Blockchain-Based Efficient, Secure and Anonymous Conditional Privacy-Preserving and Authentication Scheme for the Internet of Vehicles

The rapid advancement in the area of the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) has provided numerous comforts to users due to its capability to support vehicles with wireless data communication. The exchange of information among vehicle nodes is critical due to the rapid and changing topologies, high mobility of nodes, and unpredictable network conditions. Finding a single trusted entity to store and distribute messages among vehicle nodes is also a challenging task. IoV is exposed to various security and privacy threats such as hijacking and unauthorized location tracking of smart vehicles. Traceability is an increasingly important aspect of vehicular communication to detect and penalize malicious nodes. Moreover, achieving both privacy and traceability can also be a challenging task. To address these challenges, this paper presents a blockchain-based efficient, secure, and anonymous conditional privacy-preserving and authentication mechanism for IoV networks. This solution is based on blockchain to allow vehicle nodes with mechanisms to become anonymous and take control of their data during the data communication and voting process. The proposed secure scheme provides conditional privacy to the users and the vehicles. To ensure anonymity, traceability, and unlinkability of data sharing among vehicles, we utilize Hyperledger Fabric to establish the blockchain. The proposed scheme fulfills the requirement to analyze different algorithms and schemes which are adopted for blockchain technology for a decentralized, secure, efficient, private, and traceable system. The proposed scheme examines and evaluates different consensus algorithms used in the blockchain and anonymization techniques to preserve privacy. This study also proposes a reputation-based voting system for Hyperledger Fabric to ensure a secure and reliable leader selection process in its consensus algorithm. The proposed scheme is evaluated with the existing state-of-the-art schemes and achieves better results.

Data and Communication Infrastructure in Smart Grids

The communication infrastructure constitutes the key element in smart grids. There have been great advances to enhance the way data is communicated among the different smart grid applications. The aim of this chapter is to present the data communication part of the smart grid with some pioneering developments in this topic. A succinct review of the state of art projects to improve the communication link is presented. An illustrative simulation using LABVIEW is included with a proposed idea of introducing some newly technologies involved in the current and future generations of wireless communication systems.

Provably Secure Authentication Approach for Data Security in Cloud Using Hashing, Encryption, and Chebyshev-Based Authentication

Secure and efficient authentication mechanism becomes a major concern in cloud computing due to the data sharing among cloud server and user through internet. This paper proposed an efficient Hashing, Encryption and Chebyshev HEC-based authentication in order to provide security among data communication. With the formal and the informal security analysis, it has been demonstrated that the proposed HEC-based authentication approach provides data security more efficiently in cloud. The proposed approach amplifies the security issues and ensures the privacy and data security to the cloud user. Moreover, the proposed HEC-based authentication approach makes the system more robust and secured and has been verified with multiple scenarios. However, the proposed authentication approach requires less computational time and memory than the existing authentication techniques. The performance revealed by the proposed HEC-based authentication approach is measured in terms of computation time and memory as 26ms, and 1878bytes for 100Kb data size, respectively.

Design and Implementation of Power-Efficient FSM based UART

The remarkable innovations in technology are driven mainly by the high-speed data communication requirements of the modern generation. The Universal Asynchronous Receiver Transmitter (UART) is one of the most sought-after communication protocols. This work mainly focuses on implementing and analysing the UART for data communication. The Finite State Machine (FSM) implements the baud rate generator, transmitter, and receiver modules. Cadence NCSIM was utilized for simulation, and Cadence RTL Compiler was used during synthesis using the 45 nm and 90 nm General Process Design Kit (GPDK) library files. The baud rate of 9600 bps and 50 MHz clock frequency was used to design UART. The increased speed and complexity of the VLSI chip designs has resulted in a significant increase in power consumption. The comparative analysis of power and delay for different clock periods shows an improvement in the total power and the Power Delay Product (PDP) with increasing clock periods. Better results were observed using 45 nm in comparison to the 90 nm library.