Maura Turolla

Towards fully IP-enabled IEEE 802.15.4 LR-WPANs

This extended abstract describes a poster and a proposal for demonstration. Its focus is on low rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPANs) which use IEEE 802.15.4 physical and MAC layers at the lower layers of the protocol stack. More precisely, goal of this extended abstract is to present a real test-bed, whose main goal is to demonstrate how IEEE 802.15.4 LR-WPANs can fully inter-operate with IP networks. To this end, the protocol stack implemented at each IEEE 802.15.4 node includes the so said LoWPAN adaptation layer, which has been defined by the IETF 6LoWPAN working group. Moreover, we will present a possible practical solution for the problem of how to realize a gateway between the IEEE 802.15.4 LR-WPANs and the IP networks.

On the IP support in IEEE 802.15.4 LR-WPANs: Self-configuring solutions for real application scenarios

Due to the lack of IP support, the ZigBee protocol stack for IEEE 802.15.4 low rate wireless personal area networks (LR-WPANs) is the perfect solution for closed, ad-hoc environments. However, we can envisage also open and interconnected application scenarios, such as the Internet of Things or the integration of ZigBee/IEEE 802.15.4 nodes in mobile/smart phones, that would greatly benefit from the IP support. The LoWPAN adaptation layer proposed by the 6LoWPAN IETF working group to enable the transmission/reception of IPv6 data in IEEE 802.15.4 networks may be regarded as the first step towards the direction of IP direct support into IEEE 802.15.4 nodes. However, a fully fledged solution to be used in the scenarios outlined above still lacks the following functionality: i) self-configuring address assignment mechanism; ii) multi-hop routing protocol; iii) support of Internet-compliant transport protocols; iv) self-configuring network and service discovery. It may seem trivial to provide such functionality in an IP world, as off the shelf solutions could be adopted; however, this is not an easy task, given the very limited hardware capabilities of IEEE 802.15.4 devices. In this paper we define a complete protocol architecture and specific self-configuring mechanisms to support the aforementioned functionality over IEEE 802.15.4 devices, taking into account their hardware constraints. We also present an implemented test-bed which demonstrates the functionality of the proposed solution in a real application scenario. 1.

Embedded SW design issues for distributed applications on mobile terminals

Mobile terminals are embedded systems with growing elaboration capacity, even still limited, which are continuously connected to a worldwide communication network. Thus, the idea of embedding in mobile terminals remote computing services seems attractive and it is more and more exploited. This paper evaluates a middleware platform based on the simple object access protocol (SOAP) to develop distributed applications on mobile terminals.

Campus++: A publish-subscribe architecture for intermittently connected 802.15.4 networks

The aim of this extended abstract is to present Campus++, a location-based publish-subscribe system for intermittently connected delay tolerant networks, exploiting IEEE 802.15.4 devices, and taking into due account the severe constraints deriving from their physical characteristics. We describe our proposed architectural model and how we implemented our solution in a real test-bed. We point out that our system can be easily adapted to operate in a fully distributed, infrastructure-less way, allowing free communications e.g. in disaster areas or in areas in which ”usual” communications means are either non existent or intentionally made unavailable.

Finding the Mobile Trusted Element

Nowadays a number of services and applications delivered on mobile terminals need to be secured in order to guarantee the user privacy, the business stakeholders and the commercial and legal issues related to security threads.