Enrico Natalizio

Controlled mobility in mobile sensor networks: advantages, issues and challenges

Recently, wireless self-organizing networks are attracting a lot of interest in the research community. Moreover, in the last decade many mobile devices have appeared in the market. Exploiting mobility in a wireless environment, instead of considering it as a kind of disturbance, is a fundamental concept that the research community is beginning to appreciate now. Of course, the advantages obtainable through the use of the mobility imply the knowledge of the different types of mobility and the way to include it in the management architecture of the wireless networks. In this work we claim that mobility and wireless sensor networks can be considered as two synergetic elements of the same reality. For this purpose, we sketch a macro-classification of the different objectives which can be pursued by controlled mobility. Moreover, we identify and highlight the interactions between this specific type of mobility and the layers of the control stack. Lastly, this paper reports a case study in which we show how controlled mobility can be exploited practically.

Help from the Sky: Leveraging UAVs for Disaster Management

This article presents a vision for future unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV)-assisted disaster management, considering the holistic functions of disaster prediction, assessment, and response. Here, UAVs not only survey the affected area but also assist in establishing vital wireless communication links between the survivors and nearest available cellular infrastructure. A perspective of different classes of geophysical, climate-induced, and meteorological disasters based on the extent of interaction between the UAV and terrestrially deployed wireless sensors is presented in this work, with suitable network architectures designed for each of these cases. The authors outline unique research challenges and possible solutions for maintaining connected aerial meshes for handoff between UAVs and for systems-specific, security- and energy-related issues. This article is part of a special issue on drones.

Nodes self-deployment for coverage maximization in mobile robot networks using an evolving neural network

There are many critical issues arising in wireless sensor and robot networks (WSRN). Based on the specific application, different objectives can be taken into account such as energy consumption, throughput, delay, coverage, etc. Also many schemes have been proposed in order to optimize a specific quality of service (QoS) parameter. With the focus on the self-organizing capabilities of nodes in WSRN, we propose a movement-assisted technique for nodes self-deployment. Specifically, we propose to use a neural network as a controller for nodes mobility and a genetic algorithm for the training of the neural network through reinforcement learning [27]. This kind of scheme is extremely adaptive, since it can be easily modified in order to consider different objectives and QoS parameters. In fact, it is sufficient to consider a different kind of input for the neural network to aim for a different objective. All things considered, we propose a new method for programming a WSRN and we show practically how the technique works, when the coverage of the network is the QoS parameter to optimize. Simulation results show the flexibility and effectiveness of this approach even when the application scenario changes (e.g., by introducing physical obstacles).

Mobility anchor point selection based on user mobility in HMIPv6 integrated with fast handover mechanism

In the context of hierarchical mobile IPv6 integrated with a fast handover mechanism, this paper proposes two mobility anchor point (MAP) selection algorithms, both based on the classification of users depending on their mobility. Furthermore, an enhancement of one of the two algorithms is presented; it introduces the concept of bufferization at MAP level. Extensive simulations have been performed to analyse and investigate the algorithm results.

An integrated satellite-HAP-terrestrial system architecture: resources allocation and traffic management issues

This paper explains the potential role of an integrated satellite-HAP (high altitude platform)-terrestrial system. A simple and suitable architecture is presented. The proposed architecture consists of three layers: the terrestrial layer, HAP layer and GEO layer. The terrestrial layers terminals, within the same HAP coverage area, have to use a HAP transponder and HAP master control station (HMCS) to send and receive data amongst themselves. Moreover the HAP gateway stations (HGTW) guarantees communications among users belonging to different HAP coverage areas using the GEO satellite links. Since high quality multimedia application support is a key objective for upcoming communication systems, this paper investigates the issues related to this topic. In order to guarantee an adequate quality of service to these kinds of service requires an efficient resources allocation and traffic management algorithm to be implemented inside the HMCS and HGTW stations.

UAV-assisted disaster management: Applications and open issues

The fast-paced development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and their use in different domains, opens a new paradigm on their use in natural disaster management. In UAV-assisted disaster management applications, UAVs not only survey the affected area but also assist in establishing the communication network between the disaster survivors, rescue teams and nearest available cellular infrastructure. This paper identifies main disaster management applications of UAV networks and discusses open research issues related to UAV-assisted disaster management.

Wireless Sensor Networks and Multi-UAV Systems for Natural Disaster Management

Abstract This work identifies the role of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in the context of natural disaster management. Main applications of systems involving WSN and UAV are classified according to the disaster management phase, and a review of relevant research activities is provided along with the research and development challenges that still remain unsolved. The main objectives of this work are to present technical results useful to improve the wellbeing of people, and push the state of the art one step forward in the definition of a complete disaster management system.

A systemic and cognitive approach for IoT security

The Internet of Things (IoT) will enable objects to become active participants of everyday activities. Introducing objects into the control processes of complex systems makes IoT security very difficult to address. Indeed, the Internet of Things is a complex paradigm in which people interact with the technological ecosystem based on smart objects through complex processes. The interactions of these four IoT components, person, intelligent object, technological ecosystem, and process, highlight a systemic and cognitive dimension within security of the IoT. The interaction of people with the technological ecosystem requires the protection of their privacy. Similarly, their interaction with control processes requires the guarantee of their safety. Processes must ensure their reliability and realize the objectives for which they are designed. We believe that the move towards a greater autonomy for objects will bring the security of technologies and processes and the privacy of individuals into sharper focus. Furthermore, in parallel with the increasing autonomy of objects to perceive and act on the environment, IoT security should move towards a greater autonomy in perceiving threats and reacting to attacks, based on a cognitive and systemic approach. In this work, we will analyze the role of each of the mentioned actors in IoT security and their relationships, in order to highlight the research challenges and present our approach to these issues based on a holistic vision of IoT security.

Multiple point of interest discovery and coverage with mobile wireless sensors

Environmental monitoring has become a typical application of wireless sensor networks. The concept of monitoring certain Points of Interest (PoIs) instead of the whole sensor field helps in reducing the costs of the deployment and improving the performance in terms of coverage. However, the problems of multiple PoI coverage, environment exploration and data report are still solved separately and there are no works that combine the aforementioned problems into a single deployment scheme. In this work, we present a novel approach for mobile sensor deployment, where we combine multiple PoI coverage with network connectivity preservation and environment exploration in order to capture the dynamics of the monitored area. We examine the performance of our scheme through extensive simulation campaigns.

Software defined radar: synchronization issues and practical implementation

The present work is focused on Software Defined Radar - (SDR) paradigm, which gives a more versatile solution when compared to classical radar systems. Thanks to this new system model, most of the fundamental operations, such as signal generation, filtering, up and down conversion, are easily implemented via software. The objective of this paper is to show the main issues related to the design of an effective Software Defined Radar device. Specifically, we will discuss and face the synchronization issues existing between a received and a transmitted signal when an open source hardware, namely the Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP), is considered.