MoDeNA: Enhancing User Security for Devices in Wireless Personal and Local Area Networks

More and more devices, such as Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4 devices forming Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) and IEEE 802.11 devices constituting Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), share the 2.4 GHz Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) band in the realm of the Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Cities. However, the coexistence of these devices could pose a real challenge—co-channel interference that would severely compromise network performances. Although the coexistence issues has been partially discussed elsewhere in some articles, there is no single review that fully summarises and compares recent research outcomes and challenges of IEEE 802.15.4 networks, Bluetooth and WLANs together. In this work, we revisit and provide a comprehensive review on the coexistence and interference mitigation for those three types of networks. We summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the current methodologies, analysis and simulation models in terms of numerous important metrics such as the packet reception ratio, latency, scalability and energy efficiency. We discover that although Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4 networks are both WPANs, they show quite different performances in the presence of WLANs. IEEE 802.15.4 networks are adversely impacted by WLANs, whereas WLANs are interfered by Bluetooth. When IEEE 802.15.4 networks and Bluetooth co-locate, they are unlikely to harm each other. Finally, we also discuss the future research trends and challenges especially Deep-Learning and Reinforcement-Learning-based approaches to detecting and mitigating the co-channel interference caused by WPANs and WLANs.

Over the last decade, increasing availability of Internet of Things (IoT) devices and broadband communications technologies has enabled a number of smart applications in many cities. Among various smart city applications, a smart street lighting application is considered as one of the most cost-effective choices for a smart city today, if relying on existing street lights that are already deployed and networked across a city. Piggy-bagging on a readily available networked street lighting infrastructure, several city-wide services can be offered rapidly and cost effectively. Examples of additional devices that can be deployed along with networked street lights are such as environmental sensors, traffic sensors, IP cameras, digital signage, and more. To enable connections among different sensing and control devices, communication technologies and networks are of crucial components. There are a wide variety of communication technologies that can be used, namely, Sigfox, long range (LoRa), Weightless, Symphony Link, random phase multiple access (RPMA), narrowband IoT (NB-IoT), long-term evolution category 0/1/M (LTE category 0/1/M), power line communications (PLC), ZigBee, IPv6 low-power wireless personal area network (6LoWPAN), wireless local area network (WLAN), wireless mesh, worldwide interoperability for microwave access (WiMAX), and Cellular (2G/3G/ 4G/5G). The chapter aims at providing a comprehensive discussion of various communication technologies that can serve smart street lighting and other add-on applications in a smart city. These technologies are evaluated on the basis of communication network requirements of different applications pertaining to their data rate, latency, reliability, and security.

The present paper studies the performance of a high-speed third-generation (3.5G) networking technology (Enhanced Uplink), in collaboration with well known personal area networks (i.e. Zigbee and Bluetooth) and wireless local area network (WLAN) technology, for delivering pervasive healthcare applications. The association of personal and local area networks along with the 3.5G network is a critical factor for successful development of pervasive e-health services perceived by end-users. In this paper, we propose a methodology for performance assessment based on the joint uplink transmission of voice, real-time video and biomedical data, such us electrocardiogram, vital signals and heart sounds. Various scenarios were concerned for point of care applications in real-time and near-real-time modes and in random locations, where no other system but 3.5G is available. The accomplishment of quality of service (QoS) was explored through the delay and the jitter of the networks' parameters, attributing the joint network system for best performance in the context of the desired e-health services.

Wireless local area networks (WLANs) are widely deployed for Internet-centric data applications. Due to their extensive norm in our day-to-day wireless-enabled life, WLANs are expected to play a vital role for Internet of Things (IoT). It is predicted that by 2020, about 50 billion devices (things) will be connected via IoT. Consequently, WLANs need major improvements in both throughput and efficiency for such a massive device deployment in applications like smart offices, smart train stations, and smart stadiums for smart cities in IoT. New technologies continue to be introduced for WLAN applications for this purpose. The IEEE 802.11ac standard is the currently implemented amendment by the IEEE 802.11 standard working group that promises data rates at gigabits per second. The main features of the IEEE 802.11ac standard are adopting increased bandwidth and higher order modulation than the previous standards, and multiple-input, multiple-output (MIMO) and multiuser MIMO transmission modes. These features are designed to improve the user experience. In addition to technologies that enhance the efficiency of the WLAN, the IEEE 802.11ax High Efficiency WLAN (HEW) standard is also investigating and evaluating advanced wireless technologies to utilize the existing spectrum more efficiently.

This paper introduces a new IEEE standard, IEEE 802.15.5,which provides mesh capability for wireless personal area network (WPAN) devices. The standard provides an architectural framework enabling WPAN devices to promote interoperable, stable, and scalable wireless mesh topologies. It is composed of two parts: low-rate WPAN mesh and high-rate WPAN mesh. In this paper, we present only low-rate WPAN mesh because it is designed to support wireless sensor networks. IEEE 802.15.5 low-rate part is a light-weight scalable mesh routing protocol that caters well to the requirements of resource-constrained wireless sensor networks. By binding logical addresses to the network topology, IEEE 802.15.5 obviates the need for route discovery. This eliminates the initial route discovery latency, saves storage space and reduces the communication overhead and energy consumption. A distributed link state scheme is further built atop the block addressing scheme to improve the quality of routes, robustness, and load balancing. The routing scheme scales well with regard to various performance metrics. The standard also provides enhanced functions such as multicast, reliable broadcast, power saving, time synchronization, route tracing and portability. We also present the performance evaluation of major functions performed with a 50-nodes tested deployed over a whole floor (100 × 140 ft2) at CUNY Engineering building. The results testify that the IEEE 802.15.5 will serve well for wireless personal area networks and wireless sensor networks.

The explosive growth of the Internet over the last decade has led to an increasing demand for high-speed, ubiquitous Internet access. Broadband wireless technologies are increasingly gaining popularity by the successful global deployment of the wireless personal area networks (Bluetooth-IEEE 802.15.1), wireless local area networks (WiFi- IEEE 802.lln), and wireless metropolitan area networks (WiMAX- IEEE 802.16). New ICT and e-Learning strategies and advances in wireless standards and technologies- particularly in the areas of Bluetooth, WiFi (wireless fidelity), WiMAX (worldwide interoperability for microwave access) and mobile computing can help to bridge the digital divide in education and research. Using open broadband Wireless technologies and implementing mobile computing architectures, one can overcome the challenges of ground, infrastructure, and finance to increase access; deploy broadband quickly and cost-effectively to areas currently not served; and extend the benefits of digital revolution to previously unreachable populations. These technologies aim to provide low-cost, high-performance Wireless access to residential and business applications. As technology evolves to address portable and mobile applications, the required features and performance of the system will increase. Evolution toward the phase called "full mobility" provides incremental support for low latency, low packet loss and real-time handoff of subscriber terminals operating at high speeds. This paper presents the analogy of promising wireless technologies on different frequencies: Bluetooth, WiFi, and WiMAX. This paper is organised into four parts: part I describes the functionality and usage of Bluetooth in the wireless personal area networks, part II presents the WiFi- IEEE 802.1 In strategies for users considering higher-bandwidth alternatives to existing wireless personal area networks, part III discusses how the WiMAX is used as a current standard for Wireless data transmission technology, which is optimized to deliver high, bursty data rates to mobile subscribers, and to support real-time multimedia and Voice over IP (VoIP) applications, and part-TV explores how these emerging Wireless technologies differ from one another.

With recent advancements of Information and Communication technologies (ICT), Internet of things (IoT) development has just started creating a significant value across people, processes and organizations. There are numbers of applications across energy, transportation and public safety sectors that have linked with economic growth in GDP and therefore, governments are taking serious actions to enhance ICT and IoT penetration across their countries and achieve economies of scale. In future, it can be easily anticipated to meet growing demand, IoT applications scale will reach to millions of sensor devices in a few sq. kilometers area in order to transform traditional cities towards smart cities and accommodate the urbanization pressures. With the growing demand of data hungry devices and deployment of millions of sensors in a certain place will eventually increase size of information and data transmission flow through the sensor devices itself and infrastructure network nodes and then millions of IP addresses will be needed to provide connectivity. Wireless Sensor Networks implementation under internet of things context likely to approach limitations of network bandwidth availability and the cost of IoT infrastructure will be extremely high if dedicated network resources deployed therefore this paper proposed the innovative architecture using Software Defined Networks (SDN) to provide on demand and efficient network resources for low power wireless personal area network (6LowPAN) devices. This proposed architecture model will also strengthen the applications of IoT in either side i.e. control and monitoring.

Problem statement: In universal networking environments; two or more heterogeneous communication systems coexisting in a single place. Especially, Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) based on IEEE 802.11b specifications and Wireless Personal Area Networks (WPANs) based on IEEE 802.15.4 specifications need to coexist in the same Industrial, Science and Medial (ISM) band. If the WPAN communication coverage is expanded using a cluster-tree network topology, then the 802.15.4 network is more susceptible to interference from neighboring WLANs. Approach: In this study, we propose an adaptive transmission power aware cluster scheduling algorithm using multiple channels in a WPAN in the presence of WLAN interference. Results: The algorithm includes node identification, channel allocation, clustering and time scheduling. To evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm, the performance metrics such as Bit error, Packet Error Rate (PER), Throughput, Average End-End Delay and Average Jitter is measured through Qualnet simulation. PER is calculated from bit error rate. The simulation results are compared with the conventional TDMA scheme. Conclusion/Recommendations: The measurement result shows that the proposed algorithm is effective in an IEEE 802.15.4 cluster-tree network in the presence of multiple IEEE 802.11 interferers.

Wireless Local and Personal Area Networks

Interference among different wireless devices operating in the same frequency band in a given region is always a problem. The prominent type of it is the interference between Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) and Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) devices operating in the 2.4-GHz unlicensed band. Various techniques such as Adaptive Frequency Hopping (AFH) were proposed recently to deal with this interference. When wireless devices are deployed on plant-floors, the approach required to mitigate the interference can be slightly different so that the proposed techniques should be able to support data prioritisation in addition to managing the interference. This will allow the important data through even if the interference levels are higher than expected. For this to take place, channel assessment should be done first, to find out which channels are suffering interference, to what levels and how often. This aspect of channel assessment is considered here, for different combinations of interferers and power levels.

In order to replace millimetre wave communication for extremely fast terabit wireless local and personal area network connectivity, researchers have been looking into the possibilities of the terahertz band for establishing wireless data communication at terabit rates. The IEEE 802.15 WPAN Terahertz Interest Group (IGTHz) has been created to encourage research in the terahertz bands and set standards for their use, in order to facilitate progress and advancement in this area. The specific objective of this study is to design and analyze a microstrip antenna working at 3.5 THz resonant frequency. The proposed novel antenna includes three layers: a top layer that represents the patch, a second layer that represents the substrate, and a bottom layer that represents the ground plane. It is designed using a 32 nm thin FR-4 substrate with a permittivity of 4.4. Using HFSS simulations, it was found that the proposed antenna has an overall efficiency greater than 85% within the working frequency range of 3.5 THz. Additionally, it exhibited an extremely low reflection coefficient (S11) of -43.61 dB at 3.5 THz, with an efficiency exceeding 80%. This simple and broadband antenna design could have relevance in high-speed data transmission networks.

Personal area networks such as home or small office LANs are usually more vulnerable to cyber-attacks than those with dedicated support staff and the ability to invest consistently in security defenses. In this paper I propose leveraging physical characteristics of these personal area networks in order to enable non-technical individuals to secure their networks or at least be aware that their devices have been compromised. This proposal leverages records of location for mobile devices, proximity authentication, and individual homophily. In this work, I summarize previous studies on securing personal networks, proximity authentication, and software attestation. I then present a preliminary design for the detection of and recovery from infection for personal area networks. Limitations and future work are also discussed.

ABSTRACTA microstrip patch antenna array has been designed with 24 ultra‐wide patch elements to improve the antenna gain up to around 20 dBi for 60 GHz band point to point wireless local area network (WLAN) and wireless personal area network (WPAN) applications. Both series and parallel feeding techniques have been collaborated to excite the patch elements. Reverse impedance matching method has been adopted to enhance the antenna's fabrication tolerance. The measured and simulation results showed a close agreement. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Microwave Opt Technol Lett 59:511–514, 2017

The concept of "smart cities" The Internet of Things (IoT) is a multi-layered framework that allows cities to employ urban networks to enhance economic performance, generate innovative technological solutions, and more. Smart Cities are the result of a new age in information technology and smart economy growth, based on Internet mesh networks, communication networks, transmission networks, wireless networks, and other end-to-end sensor networks. The Internet of Things (IoT) is at the heart of it. The Internet of Things incorporates sensors into common things and links them through particular protocols for sharing data and communications over the Internet. Smart detection leads, location, monitoring, and administration are all provided by this modular architecture. A smart city of excellence must overcome three main factors: instrumented, linked, and intelligent, with the help of IoT technology. At this point of IoT development, smart cities can only arise through the interconnectedness of all of these smart elements. The goal of this essay is to learn how the Internet and sensors may assist in the development of smart cities.
 The study's main goal is to figure out how the Internet of Things, or IoT, is being used in smart cities. We also want to establish the necessity for IoT systems in these smart cities, as well as the issues that they may pose to individuals and society, via the research.
 Review secondary research papers, reviews, dissertations, and online documents from the EBSCO, Scopus, and Emerald databases to analyse and comprehend the usage of IoT in smart cities and the possible problems that its implementation may provide in order to accomplish the following goals.
 Municipal requirements are getting more complicated, necessitating the adoption of new technology like the Internet of Things to ensure that all of these cities' duties are completed. Although more cities are becoming smart via the usage of IoT in a number of businesses, the study shows that this IoT system is also creating worries about the security of citizens' data.

This paper presents novel on-chip antenna structures and provides new on-chip circuit concepts that may be implemented as part of standard integrated circuit fabrication processes for wireless integrated circuits of the future. As wavelengths of wireless local area networks (WLANs) and personal area networks (PANs) shrink to millimeter lengths at 60 GHz and above, interconnectivity issues and cost/scale requirements will require these new approaches for built-in on- chip antennas. This paper highlights advancements in both the integrated circuits and microwave technology research communities, and presents a number of promising areas of research. Finally, we describe an experimental probe station that has been developed at The University of Texas for the testing and characterization of novel on-chip antennas and distributed components.