Luca Pilosu

Advances in the analysis of urban VANETs: Scalable integration of RADII in a network simulator

During the last years, network simulators have reached a certain maturity and have permitted the validation of protocols in several scenarios, also involving a large number of nodes, and the prediction of possible misbehaviors. This holds particularly for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), which are being extensively validated in order to identify possible threats to the safety services which they are aimed at.

Viability and guidelines for the effective integration of consumer WiFi in industrial plants

Wireless solutions are becoming frequent in manufacturing plants: the introduction of wireless in industrial automated processes requires solutions which fulfill industrial environmental and electromagnetic requirements and meet reliability and communication performance typically required by control loops. In this paper these issues are discussed and set by a practical case involving WiFi transceivers, requiring an EMC (Electromagnetic Compatibility) industrial certification and almost deterministic near real-time guarantees. The solution here presented shows how the above two goals can be achieved using cheap off-the-shelf components: the EMC conditions are satisfied thanks to practical tricks (proposed as guidelines), while near real-time performance is enabled by proper configurations of IEEE 802.11e parameters.

Robust Navigation and Communication in the Maritime Domain: The TRITON Project

Intentional jamming and spoofing are growing concerns for communication and positioning systems based on Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS). In the maritime sector, intentional interfering signals might induce poor performance of the GNSS receivers, that, in severe cases, are unable to provide reliable measurements. On board of vessels, the failure of the GNSS receiver propagates to multiple systems, like the Automatic Information System (AIS) transponder, the ships gyro calibration system and the digital selective calling system. The AIS itself can suffer from failures due to interference in the VHF band, and the lack of bandwidth makes it difficult to introduce security any security mechanisms. The vulnerability to intentional interference as well as the availability of personal privacy devices easily sold over the Internet motivate attackers who intend to fraud services and get direct benefits.

Automated Cloud Computing Approach for the Simulation of Chemo-Hydrodynamic Problems

Studying the interplay between hydrodynamic instabilities and chemical reactions is attracting increasing interest because of its transversal impact ranging from fundamental to applied science. Depending on the case of study, the exploration of Reaction-Diffusion-Convection (RDC) dynamics over a significant spatio-temporal domain can be computationally expensive and convergence issues may arise in the presence of steep gradients of the chemical or the hydrodynamic fields. Cloud automation techniques allow to create in an easy and dynamical way an arbitrarily large number of virtual nodes, tailored on the specific problem at hands. In this work we show the first steps towards a fully automated and flexible platform for the simulation of chemo-hydrodynamic problems in a cloud environment.

Exploring TV white spaces for the mitigation of AIS weaknesses

Ship Reporting Systems (SRSs) are aimed at a safer sailing, by providing a timely description of the sea traffic. Automatic Identification System (AIS) is the most known SRS and works in the VHF band: given the limited available bandwidth, AIS mainly addresses pure line-of-sight scenarios and neglects security aspects. Specifically to overcome the current limitations of AIS and make it more robust and reliable, new solutions are being investigated. This paper explores for the first time the potential role of white-space frequencies as an auxiliary channel, bearing Out-Of-Band signals required to make AIS more versatile. The simulation analyses confirm the applicability of this band and outline possible future studies and activities.

Prototyping of an integrated, white-space solution for the enforcement of Ship Reporting Systems

Ship Reporting Systems (SRSs) have been standardized with the goal of enforcing safety in navigation. Automatic Identification System (AIS) is the most known SRS but, given the limited available bandwidth, it supports a simple, basic set of services without dealing with security aspects. Specifically to address such weaknesses, this paper explores a possible backward-compatible solution aimed at increasing the safety and flexibility provided by the current AIS systems: the proposed solution exploits a complementary channel set in the TV White Space frequencies; the paper also presents the integration work which led to the prototyping, together with a first set of practical tests.

Layered and Service-Dependent Security in CSMA/CA and Slotted Vanets

The implications and challenges of security in vehicular ad-hoc networks are huge for several reasons and, basically, for human safety effects and due to the complex and highly dynamic setting. Additionally security, being a cross-layer topic, can be managed at different layers of the network stack (e.g. at MAC-level - with encryption and authentication, at network-layer - as with IPsec, at transport-layer TLS, SSL). A rich scientific literature has addressed the issue of vanet security, however, all the proposed solutions (i) focus on a specific layer and (ii) offer either robust but not scalable solutions (such as the PKI infrastructure, hardly managed under mobility for all the nodes and services) or weak ones (at least weak if applied to human safety). For this reason, in the present paper, security for vanet is faced with a layered approach which lets envisage several solutions, properly and hierarchically differentiated for distinct services. Additionally, what introduces an even stronger novelty, the dissertation covers both CSMA/CA and slotted MAC protocols, having the latter recently encountered a certain scientific favour.

Performance of WRF Cloud Resolving Simulations with Data Assimilation on Public Cloud and HPC Environments

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model is a numerical weather prediction system commonly used for atmospheric research and operational forecasting. Given the great amount of computing resources needed by this model, a HPC or cloud computing infrastructure is needed. In this paper, high resolution simulations (1 km) with data assimilation have been ran on different configurations in Amazon Web Services Cloud computing environment, comparing the performance obtained with different computing sizes and storage technologies. A comparison between performance obtained with a Cloud computing setup and a HPC cluster has also been made.

Energy Efficient System for Environment Observation

Environment observations provide a unique source of consistent information about the natural environment and they provide resource managers the information to assess the current state of the environment, weight the requirements of different uses by multiple stakeholders, and manage the natural resources and ecosystems in a sustainable manner. Most of the observations are based on satellites, but remote-sensing technologies alone cannot guarantee observations at the spatio-temporal resolution and with the accuracy requested for monitoring and modeling applications targeting, like weather and climate extremes and the complex feedback processes between the natural environment and human activities. Dense networks of standard and in-situ weather related sensors are present in EU and US, but it may happen that their data are not always available in real-time or updated with the required scale for various weather and climate applications. Then, high-resolution, (near) real-time on field monitoring systems are needed to satisfy the demand to sample environmental data, both in dense populated regions and in less developed and getting more populated regions, where essential in-situ observational capabilities can be lacking or deteriorating. The paper would demonstrate the possibility to have energy efficient computing and communication systems that can be employed for environment observation and that can enrich traditional in-situ and remote sensing environmental data, to enable a significant step forward in the environment monitoring of a wide range of weather and climate data. The paper will present an approach going in this direction (computing/communication everywhere with low-power constrains), tested in a harsh environment, by exploiting low-power boards to perform data pre-processing and reconfigurable antennas to send data in a more energetically convenient way applied to a real case as it may be the monitoring of ionospheric scintillation in Antarctica.

Low Power Computing and Communication System for Critical Environments

The necessity of managing acquisition instruments installed in remote areas (e.g., polar regions), far away from the main buildings of the permanent observatories, provides the perfect test-case for exploiting the use of low power computing and communication systems. Such systems are powered by renewable energy sources and coupled with reconfigurable antennas that allow radio-communication capabilities with low energy requirements. The antenna reconfiguration is performed via Software Defined Radio (SDR) functionalities by implementing a phase controller for the array antenna in a flexible low power General Purpose Platform (GPP), with a single Front-End (FE). The high software flexibility approach of the system represents a promising technique for the newer communication standards and could be also applied to Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). This paper presents the prototype that is devoted to ionospheric analysis and that will be tested in Antarctica, in the Italian base called Mario Zucchelli Station, during summer campaigns. The system, developed to guarantee its functionality in critical environmental conditions, is composed of three main blocks: Communication, Computing and Power supply. Furthermore, the computing and communication system has been designed to take into account the harsh environmental conditions of the deployment site.