JaeSeung Song

Energy-Efficient D2D Discovery for Proximity Services in 3GPP LTE-Advanced Networks: ProSe Discovery Mechanisms

Device-to-device (D2D) communications facilitate promising solutions for service optimization and spectrum/capacity efficiency in the Third-Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) networks. A key enabler for D2D communications and proximity services (ProSe) is the device discovery process. Currently, many aggressive peer discovery methods discussed in 3GPP could induce high energy consumption. Therefore, a critical objective in efficient D2D proximity service deployments is how to prolong the battery life time of user equipments (UEs) by managing discovery cycles intelligently. In this article, D2D discovery mechanisms discussed in the 3GPP are studied in terms of energy consumption aspects. In particular, we consider an efficient D2D discovery mechanism that takes advantage of the concept of proximity area (P-Area), a dynamic geographical region wherein UEs activate their D2D capabilities. The mechanism enables UEs to perform D2D discovery procedures only when there is a high probability to find other UEs subscribed to the same service. The energy consumption profiles of various discovery mechanisms are evaluated using simulations, and the results indicate that significant energy savings can be obtained using the considered discovery mechanism.

Connecting and Managing M2M Devices in the Future Internet

As a cutting edge technology, Machine to Machine (M2M) communications are gaining ground for managing and controlling M2M devices. Since these objects have intelligence, communication capabilities and ability to work with their environment, they are considered as a key component for future smart buildings and cities. In this article we briefly introduce several architectures for M2M devices, which are being standardized in 3GPP, ETSI TC M2M and OneM2M, highlighting key functionalities used to manage and control M2M devices such as overload control, conflict management and semantic interworking. Further, the description of their realization in the field of smart building, as part of the CAMPUS 21 European project based on the M2M service modeling from the SENSEI European project, is presented.

Recent Trends in Standards Related to the Internet of Things and Machine-to-Machine Communications

One of major purposes of these standard technologies is to ensure interoperability between entities from different vendors and enable interworking between various technologies. As interoperability and interworking are essential for machine-to-machine communications (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) for them to achieve their ultimate goal, i.e., things to be connected each other, multiple standards organizations are now working on development M2M/IoT related specifications. This paper reviews the current activities of some of the most relevant standardization bodies in the area of M2M and IoT: third-generation partnership project (3GPP) core and radio network aspects, broadband forum, and oneM2M. The major features and issues being focused upon in these standards bodies are summarized. Finally, some key common trends among the different bodies are identified: a common service layer platform, new technologies mitigating an explosive growth of network traffic, and considerations and efforts related to the development of device management technologies.

Standard-based IoT platforms interworking: implementation, experiences, and less ons learned

The Internet-of-Things (IoT) provides a great opportunity to many vertical industries because IoT interconnects various devices such as sensors and actuators and collects/processes data from them in order to improve services and reduce costs. As there exists many IoT technologies in the market, global standards and interworking mechanisms are critical to the success of the IoT. This article introduces standardized interworking interfaces and procedures based on oneM2M global standards, and tests them through use cases involving multiple IoT service platforms. The interworking involves smart city applications/services running on multiple IoT service layer platforms interoperating with each other. The main purpose of the interworking experiment is to show how machine-to-machine (M2M)/IoT service providers are using oneM2M compliant service layer platforms to deliver services more efficiently across multiple technology domains such as smart city. Because the deployment configurations of this interworking experiment span multiple domains, and the IoT devices and platforms are from different companies, we believe that this interworking experiment clearly proves that global IoT standards specifications can foster implementations of a service layer that enables services and interoperability between devices/device networks and cloud-based applications.

Horizontal M2M platforms boost vertical industry: Effectiveness study for building energy management systems

Machine-To-Machine (M2M) is seen as driving enabler for smart solutions for future smart cities. Specialized vertical M2M solutions approaching the markets with the challenges to meet sustainable business solutions. However, it is essential to develop standard based horizontal service platforms in the domain of M2M industry to achieve the M2M vision, i.e., connecting all different types of devices to communicate with one another. This paper reviews M2M platforms from vertical domains as well as M2M related standardizations. While vertical proprietary M2M solutions provides some value to their vertical sectors, most challenges are identified in scalability and interoperability. Specifically, we perform an analysis centered on a building management M2M system (CAMPUS21) and two M2M standards (ETSI M2M & HGI) platforms. Identified gaps, e.g., incompatibilities on data model, dependencies on multiple vendors and restricted resource sharing are addressed with three major steps: (i) defining and sharing common terminologies, (ii) enabling to add semantic information, and (iii) exchanging semantic meaning instead of raw data. As solution, we suggest a required extension of horizontal M2M architecture in order to provide interconnection between proprietary M2M systems and standardized M2M systems, and draw lessons for conclusion in the future direction to realize the vision of horizontal M2M system.

SymbexNet : Testing Network Protocol Implementations with Symbolic Execution and Rule-Based Specifications

Implementations of network protocols, such as DNS, DHCP and Zeroconf, are prone to flaws, security vulnerabilities and interoperability issues caused by developer mistakes and ambiguous requirements in protocol specifications. Detecting such problems is not easy because (i) many bugs manifest themselves only after prolonged operation; (ii) reasoning about semantic errors requires a machine-readable specification; and (iii) the state space of complex protocol implementations is large. This article presents a novel approach that combines symbolic execution and rule-based specifications to detect various types of flaws in network protocol implementations. The core idea behind our approach is to (1) automatically generate high-coverage test input packets for a network protocol implementation using single- and multi-packet exchange symbolic execution (targeting stateless and stateful protocols, respectively) and then (2) use these packets to detect potential violations of manual rules derived from the protocol specification, and check the interoperability of different implementations of the same network protocol. We present a system based on these techniques, SymbexNet, and evaluate it on multiple implementations of two network protocols: Zeroconf, a service discovery protocol, and DHCP, a network configuration protocol. SymbexNet is able to discover non-trivial bugs as well as interoperability problems, most of which have been confirmed by the developers.

Rule-Based Verification of Network Protocol Implementations Using Symbolic Execution

The secure and correct implementation of network protocols for resource discovery, device configuration and network management is complex and error-prone. Protocol specifications contain ambiguities, leading to implementation flaws and security vulnerabilities in network daemons. Such problems are hard to detect because they are often triggered by complex sequences of packets that occur only after prolonged operation. The goal of this work is to find semantic bugs in network daemons. Our approach is to replay a set of input packets that result in high source code coverage of the daemon and observe potential violations of rules derived from the protocol specification. We describe SYMNV, a practical verification tool that first symbolically executes a network daemon to generate high coverage input packets and then checks a set of rules constraining permitted input and output packets. We have applied SYMNV to three different implementations of the Zeroconf protocol and show that it is able to discover non-trivial bugs.

IoT/M2M from research to standards: The next steps (part II) [Guest Editorial]

As the pace of IoT deployments accelerate, IoT standards are undergoing major evolutions, sometimes revolutions. For instance, cellular networks standards are now adding techniques to improve network performance to address traffic patterns generated by an increasing number of IoT devices. Ongoing discussions around 5G requirements may become game changing for M2M communications because the standard will be designed, from the ground-up, for massive scale IoT deployments. This is a radical shift compared to the “quick-fixes” 3GPP and 3GPP2 have been adding to 2G/3G and 4G standards so far. Another example of this radical shift is related to IoT service platforms (such as the platform standardized by oneM2M) and IoT applications. Semantic interoperability is now emerging as a major trend that allows data exchange between applications, an increased level of interoperability, analytics, and reasoning. With ontologies engineering, researchers will soon overcome the limitations of static data models and bridge the gap between the currently deployed vertical silos. Other areas that will see intense standardization activity are IoT security and low power wide area connectivity.

Smart M2M Data Filtering Using Domain-Specific Thresholds in Domain-Agnostic Platforms

Due to the demand for homogeneous, intelligent, and automated access to data measured anywhere and from any device, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) platforms are evolving as globally-intended multi-layer solutions that provide such access, abstracting from all technology-specific tasks. In order to preserve the stability of their potentially huge data-handling systems and the usefulness of their Big Data, M2M platforms must maintain some data selection and filtering logic. A challenge that appears in modern M2M platforms is related to the decoupling of the front end (devices, area networks) from the backend (applications, databases). Because of this decoupling, domain-specific tricks cannot be applied any more for filtering at the front end. This paper presents a solution using domain-specific filtering thresholds in a domain-agnostic platform, as well as filtering flows and algorithms tailored to modern M2M platforms. Their combination assembles the first filtering solution that supports the unified handling of heterogeneous filters. In an evaluation from the utility-monitoring domain, instances of our approach showed high efficiency of configuration and were the only ones to achieve, for example, forwarding less than 25% of the captured data maintaining a coverage ratio bigger than 50% for all considered applications.

Enhanced 3GPP system for Machine Type Communications and Internet of Things

The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) has been working on developing specifications on Machine Type Communications (MTC), also known as Machine to Machine Communications (M2M), which is all part of Internet of Things (IoT), a technology that enables machines and devices to be inter-connected via the internet. This paper presents recent M2M/IoT feature enhancements in 3GPP. These features include architectural enhancements for inclusion of a service exposure framework, group based IoT management, efficient monitoring mechanisms for IoT devices, optimization of IoT device power consumption, and high latency communications. These M2M/IoT related functionalities and enhancements are a continuing effort within 3GPP to make the mobile network fulfil the ever changing M2M/IoT requirements, and in so doing allow operators/service providers to offer unique services.