NSERC DIVA Distinguished Lecture Series

Ethanol: Software Defined Networking for 802.11 Wireless Networks

May 15, 2015 - 3:30pm

Speaker: Daniel Fernandes Macedo, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil
Abstract: : Wireless Networks have become ubiquitous and dense to support the growing demand from mobile users. To improve the performance of these networks, new approaches are required, such as context and service aware control algorithms, which are not possible on today’s closed proprietary WLAN controllers. In this work, we propose Ethanol, a software- defined networking architecture for 802.11 dense WLANs. This paper describes the benefits of programmable APs, and proposes Ethanol, an architecture for network-wide control of QoS, user mobility, AP virtualization, and security on 802.11 APs. The proposal is evaluated on a prototype using off-the-shelf APs over three use cases.
Bio: Prof. Dr. Daniel Fernandes Macedo is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department (DCC) in Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil. He has productivity in research scholarship (Bolsa PQ – CNPq) level 2. He was a post-doc researcher in UFMG, Brazil. He holds a PhD in computer science from Université Pierre et Marie Curie-ParisVI (2009). He also holds a M.Sc and a B.Sc. in Computer Science from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (2006). His research interests are autonomic computing, wireless networks and network management. He has worked on national projects (CNPq Universal, Fapemig projects, RNP projects), as well as international collaboration projects (one Capes/Cofecub — Brazil-France; two INRIA/CNRS/Fapemig — Brazil-France, two European Union FP7 projects). Daniel frequently serves as TPC member on major Brazilian conferences on networking such as SBRC WGRS, WTF and SBCUP, as well as international conferences such as IEEE WCNC, IEEE ISCC and IFIP Wireless Days. He served as track co-chair in IFIP Wireless Days 2013.

A Security Management Architecture for Advanced Networking

May 15, 2015 - 2:30pm

Speaker: Michele Nogueira, Federal University of Parana (UFPR), Brazil
Abstract: : This talk will present SAMNAR, a survivable architecture inspired on the human body immune system. The architecture aims to maintain essential services of self-organizing wireless networks, as link-layer connectivity, routing and end-to-end communication, even under attacks or intrusions. It employs a new approach for security management, consisting in the adaptive coordination of preventive, reactive and tolerant defense lines. Preventive security mechanisms, such as cryptography, are the first protection of the network, blocking some attacks. Reactive security mechanisms, such as intrusion detection systems, are the second protection, detecting and reacting against intrusions. Tolerant security mechanisms are the third protection, mitigating intrusion or attack effects until preventive or reactive defense lines can adapt. SAMNAR is applied in a case study that proposes a survival path selection scheme for routing service. The scheme correlates criteria provided by three defense lines using Fuzzy Logic in order to choose the most survivable path. Finally, research directions are provided.
Bio: Michele Nogueira is Ph.D. in Computer Science by the University of Paris 6 - UPMC Sorbonne, LIP6 (2009). She is full professor at Federal University of Parana, Brazil. Her research interests include security, dependability, network management, performance modeling and wireless networks. She was visiting researcher at IRIT, Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France (2013) and at the Broadband Wireless Networking Lab, GeorgiaTech, Atlanta (2009). She received her M.Sc. from Federal University of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil (2004), where she was also a research assistant and consultant on performance analysis of Storage Area Networks (2005). Michele has been a recipient of Academic Scholarships from Brazilian Government throughout her undergraduate and graduate years. She is member of the IEEE Communication and Information Security Technical Committee and Associate Technical Editor for IEEE Communications Magazine. In addition, she has been involved with over 50 conferences as a program committee member and as a reviewer for numerous journal and conference manuscripts. Further information: www.nr2.ufpr.br/~michele.

The ParticipAct Mobile Crowd Sensing Living Lab

May 13, 2015 - 3:30pm

Speaker: Luca Foschini, University of Bologna, Italy
Abstract: : In recent years, the widespread availability of sensor-provided smartphones has enabled the possibility of harvesting large quantities of data in urban areas exploiting user devices, thus enabling the so-called Mobile Crowd Sensing (MCS). While many efforts have been made to improve specific techniques for MCS – spanning from signal processing to the assignment of data collection campaigns to users, and to the entire data processing – to the best of our knowledge, so far there are no active experiments of MCS that involve all these techniques in a large-scale real-world experiment. Based on these considerations, we started the ParticipAct Living Lab testbed, an ongoing experiment at University of Bologna that involves 300 students for one year in crowd-sensing campaigns that can access passively smartphone sensors and also require active user collaboration. In this talk, I will describe the guidelines behind the design of ParticipAct, its features and architecture, and I will show some interesting of results gathered during the 18 months of its deployment.
Bio: Luca Foschini, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Distributed and Mobile Systems at the Computer Science and Engineering Dept. (DISI) of the University of Bologna. He has recently passed the national examination called Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale 2012 as Associate Professor. His research interests span from middleware for mobile computing in general to adaptive multimedia, from context-aware and VANET services to federated cloud computing resource management, from mobile crowd sensing to scalable online stream processing for smart cities. He has co-authored over 30 international journal/magazine articles, guest-edited 3 special issues in international journals/magazines, co-authored 4 chapters in int. books, and around 50 additional works published in other int. venues (edited books, conferences, etc.). In addition, he has served as TPC Co-Chair of several international venues and he is also a member of the Editorial Boards of various international magazines/journals.

On Traffic Characterization for VANets

Octobeer 10, 2014 - 10:30am

Speaker: Antonio Loureiro, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil
Abstract: : Recently, participatory sensing systems, such as Foursquare and Instagram, are becoming very popular. Data shared in these systems have the active participation of users using their portable devices ubiquitously. In this case, these systems can be seen as a kind of sensor network, where users can be considered a social sensor because the data shared by them are associated with their habits and routines. Thus, can we use data from social sensors, specifically from Foursquare and Instagram, to better understand traffic conditions? This paper shows that data from social sensors and traffic conditions, provided by Bing Maps, are surprisingly very correlated. The social data distribution is equal to the traffic condition distribution, shifted by an offset that can be easily calculated. This information can be extremely valuable, for example, to build more efficient traffic condition predictors..
Bio: Antonio A.F. Loureiro received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in computer science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of British Columbia, Canada, 1995. Currently, he is a full professor of computer science at UFMG, where he leads the research group in wireless sensor networks and mobile computing. In the last 15 years he has published regularly in international conferences and journals related to those areas, and also presented tutorials and invited talks at international conferences. In the last 10 years, Dr. Loureiro has had a close and fruitful collaboration with Dr. Azzedine Boukerche.

Federated Cloud Computing: Power-Aware Solutions and Application

Octobeer 1, 2014 - 10:30am

Speaker: Alba Melo, University of Brasilia (UNB), Brazil
Abstract: : Cloud computing is a recent paradigm for provision of computing infrastructure, platform and/or software in the Internet, which aims to reduce costs. One important factor in the operational cost of cloud data centers comes from the power consumed by the computational resources. Many studies have been conducted to provide power reduction but most of the proposed techniques incur in a great slowdown of the applications. In this talk, I will first address aspects of Cloud Computing and Green Computing. Then, I will present our server consolidation strategy for Federated Cloud systems. I will also show you some simulation results that show that our collaborative strategy is able to reduce more than 50% of energy consumption, while still meeting the Quality-of-Service requirements. After that, I will present one strategy to run a huge Bioinformatics application on Federated Public Clouds. Finally, I will present the conclusions and future directions.
Bio: Alba Cristina Magalhaes Alves de Melo received the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, France, in 1996, the Ms.C. degree in Computer Science from UFRGS, Brazil, in 1991 and the BS degree in Computer Science from UnB, Brazil, in 1986. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Brasilia, Brazil, and CNPq Fellow Researcher level 1D. Her current research interests include cloud, grid, cluster and P2P computing, bioinformatics and application-specific accelerators. She has advised 18 graduate students in these research areas and published several papers in prestigious international journals and conferences. She is a Senior Member of the IEEE Society and the IEEE Computer Society.

Recent VANET Research at UFMG: From Data Communication to Social Communication in Vehicular Networks

September 29, 2014 - 14:00pm

Speaker: Antonio Loureiro, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil
Abstract: : Traffic jam is a contemporary society problem in urban areas. Disseminating relevant information about traffic, transportation, and services is crucial for enabling solutions and applications based on vehicular Networks. There are also specific sources of information about traffic conditions in the Web, such as Bing Maps. Such systems present real-time information about the traffic conditions (e.g., free or congested). The participatory and collaboratory aspects of social communication applications, such as Four Square and Instagram, can contain very rich and up-to-date data that can reflect the current conditions of the traffic. Data mining, statistical interpretation tools, and prediction can provide critical output for determining behaviour, characterizing trends, defining forecasts, allowing offload, and improving better data and service delivery.
Bio: Antonio A.F. Loureiro received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in computer science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of British Columbia, Canada, 1995. Currently, he is a full professor of computer science at UFMG, where he leads the research group in wireless sensor networks and mobile computing. In the last 15 years he has published regularly in international conferences and journals related to those areas, and also presented tutorials and invited talks at international conferences. In the last 10 years, Dr. Loureiro has had a close and fruitful collaboration with Dr. Azzedine Boukerche.

Large scale study of city dynamics and urban social behavior using participatory sensing

June 11, 2014 - 10:30am

Speaker: Thiago Silva, DCC, Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil
Abstract: : The ubiquitous availability of computing technology such as smartphones, and the worldwide adoption of social networking sites make it increasingly possible for one to be connected and continuously contribute to this massively distributed information publishing process called participatory sensor network (PSN). In this scenario, people act as social sensors, voluntarily providing data that capture their daily life experiences, and offering diverse observations on both the physical world and the online world. In our work, we argue that PSNs can act as valuable sources of large scale sensing, providing access to important characteristics of urban social behavior. We study properties of PSNs derived from different systems, and show how to model and extract knowledge from them, individually and concurrently. Our results show that PSNs have the potential to become fundamental tools to support the better understanding of city dynamics and urban social behavior.
Bio: Dr. Thiago H. Silva graduated with a BSc in Computer Science in 2004. He obtained his MSc and PhD in Computer Science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in 2009 and 2014, respectively. Thiago was a research intern at Telecom Italia, Italy, and a visiting PhD student at the University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, and at INRIA, Paris, France. Thiago has also experience in the industry as a mobile programmer, developing games and other types of applications. Some research areas of interest: Ubiquitous computing; urban computing; social computing; and user behavior modelling.

Software Architecture Styles & Cloud Computing

March 6, 2014 - 10:30am

Speaker: Hamid Mcheick, University of Queubec at Chicoutimi, Canada
Abstract: : Today, software architecture has received a lot of attention in software development process. In terms of architecture, component and connector are two key concepts to understand logical organization of software. Within the organization, components are required to be connected and configured into a system with exchanging data. Component is described as a unit of software that is self-contained, self-deployable, and well-defined functionality and can be assembled with other components through its interface. The most existing distributed frameworks are tightly coupled, and frequently considered as a major drawbacks. In order to satisfy the requirements of connection, connectors provide components with mechanisms for communication, coordination, or cooperation among them. Particularly, in distributed systems, connectors play an important role in software architecture. The main question is to map quality attributes (performance, availability, etc.) to architectural styles and patterns. In particular, i) how to fulfil the functional and quality requirements of middleware in distributed system; ii) how do multiple technologies combine together to resolve design issues of connectors. In this talk, I present a new way to define software architecture (connectors) of enterprise software based on quality attributes (QA) using Attribute-Driven Design method (ADD). In order to design connectors, ADD has capability to drive architecture design for meeting the functional requirements and achieving the quality attributes. This generic model can be applied to design generic connectors in distributed systems, for example connectors in component-based distributed systems, connectors in service-oriented architecture (SOA), etc. Many software technologies and architectures (Clustering, Cloud computing, Grid computing, SOA, Websphere, Spring & OSGi Frameworks, etc.) are developed to satisfy the requirements of distributed software architecture based on Quality attributes but they still have many issues. In this talk, I will describe briefly problems of distributed software architecture, describe our model based on ADD, and illustrate it with examples of connector for a sack of explanation: Push Mail Solution for Mobile Device. Finally, I will summarize the problems and trends of the current research area.
Bio: Dr. Hamid Mcheick is working as an associate professor in Computer Science department at the University of Québec at Chicoutimi, Canada. He has more than 18 years of experience in both academic and industrial area. He has done his PhD in Software Engineering and Distributed System in the University of Montreal, Canada. He has a master degree in computer science from University of Quebec At Montreal (UQAM), Canada and a master degree in mathematics and computer science from Lebanese University, Lebanon. He is currently working on software evolution and maintenance, software architecture, software development methodologies, aspect-oriented software engineering, Serviceoriented computing, Web Applications, Cloud Computing and Natural Disaster. He has supervised many post-doctorate, PhD and master students. He has four book chapters and more than 26 research papers in international journals and 65 research papers in international/national conference proceedings in his credit. Dr. Mcheick has given many keynote speeches in his research area, particularly in Distributed Middleware, Software Connectors, Service Oriented Computing and Cloud Computing. For example, he has given many talks in China, Italy, and Tunisia. He has also received many awards and congratulations of his quality of research (UQAC, ICCITIEEE2012, ICCIT-IEEE2011, University of Jordan, FASE2006), and quality of teaching (UQAM, UQO). He is a chief in editor, chair, co-chair, reviewer, member in many organizations (IEEE, ACM, Springer, Inderscience), journals (IJCNDS, CSENG, IJCSI, JTAER, IJWS, etc.) and conferences (CCECE-IEEE, ICISA-Springer, ATNAC-IEEE, ACC-ACM, ICCIT-IEEE, etc.) around the world.

A Time Petri Net model for Wormhole Attack Detection in Wireless Sensor Networks

December 3, 2013 - 14:30pm

Speaker: Larbi Sekhri, Industrial Computing and Networking Laboratory (ICNL), University of Oran, Algeria
Abstract: : The talk starts on the premise that the main role of wireless sensor networks (WSN) is to collect sensor environmental data from monitored area. Due to faults or malicious nodes, sensor data collected or reported might be wrong. Hence it is important to detect the presence of wrong sensor readings and misleading reports. The speaker described a formal model using Time Petri Net to formally evaluate a proposed solution for detecting wormhole attack in CL-MAC, a cross-layer MAC protocol developed at MAC layer for energy efficient and low latency in WSN. Also, wormhole attacks in CL-MAC can cause the protocol to become invalid in some scenarios; thus, the challenges on dealing with wormhole attacks in CL-MAC were discussed, and a formal approach based on Time Petri Net (TPN) to detect wormhole attack was presented. TiNA (Time Net Analyzer) TPN tool was used to highlight the formal properties of the proposed solution. The obtained analytical results showed that the secured version of CL-MAC can effectively detect and avoid wormhole attack, and make more sensor nodes perform a valid behaviour.
Bio: Larbi Sekhri is an Associate Professor at the Computer Science Department of Oran University. His current research areas of interest include formal modeling in distributed ad mobile systems, wireless ad-hoc and sensor networks, systems modeling using Petri nets, diagnosability and monitoring of automated production systems. He is member of the Industrial Computing and Networking Laboratory at Oran University. He has been a visiting professor at Cedric-CNAM research laboratory, in Paris, France, and Ecole Centrale de Lille (LAGIS) where he worked in Diagnosis of Industrial systems; and LIUPA Laboratory at the University of Pau, France.

Linear Hybrid Automaton Generation Using Mapping Algorithm for Hybrid Dynamic Systems

November 25, 2013 - 10:00am

Speaker: Larbi Sekhri, Industrial Computing and Networking Laboratory (ICNL), University of Oran, Algeria
Abstract: : In this talk, hybrid dynamic systems are analyzed through linear hybrid automaton. He discussed about a novel mapping algorithm that deals with a new class of hybrid Petri net (HPN) known as Discrete Continuous elementary HPN. He showed how his proposed method enables his team to analyse some system properties using a linear hybrid automaton generated by a mapping process. He also presented its proof of correctness as well as its effectiveness using analytical studies and simulation results which his team has conducted using an application that involves monitoring water system using PHAVer (Polyhedral Hybrid Automaton Verifier) software tool.
Bio: Larbi Sekhri is an Associate Professor at the Computer Science Department of Oran University. His current research areas of interest include formal modeling in distributed ad mobile systems, wireless ad-hoc and sensor networks, systems modeling using Petri nets, diagnosability and monitoring of automated production systems. He is member of the Industrial Computing and Networking Laboratory at Oran University. He has been a visiting professor at Cedric-CNAM research laboratory, in Paris, France, and Ecole Centrale de Lille (LAGIS) where he worked in Diagnosis of Industrial systems; and LIUPA Laboratory at the University of Pau, France.

Data-centric storage enhancement for wireless sensor and actor networks

July 22, 2013 - 3:30pm

Speaker: Ángel Cuevas, University Carlos III of Madrid - Spain
Abstract: : This talk presents three different works related to Data-Centric Storage in WSANs. First, a novel framework for Data Centric Storage (DCS) in a Wireless Sensor and Actor Network (WSAN) that employs a randomly-selected set of data replication nodes, which also change over the time. This enables reductions in the average network traffic and energy consumption by adapting the number of replicas to applications’ traffic, while balancing energy burdens by varying their locations. To that end we propose and validate a simple model to determine the optimal number of replicas, in terms of minimizing average traffic/energy consumption, based on measurements of applications’ production and consumption traffic. Simple mechanisms are proposed to decide when the current set of replication nodes should be changed, to enable new applications and nodes to efficiently bootstrap into a working WSAN, to recover from failing nodes, and to adapt to changing conditions. Extensive simulations demonstrate that our approach can extend a WSAN’s lifetime by at least 60\%, and up to a factor of 10x depending on the lifetime criterion being considered. The feasibility of the proposed framework has been validated in a prototype with 20 resource-constrained motes, and the results obtained via simulation for large WSANs have been also corroborated in that prototype. Second, we present DCS as a valid system to provide long-term storage and compare it in front of Local Storage and an optimal system such as Round Robin Storage. Finally, we present a recent work where we propose a very simple solution to add ensure the security of the data stored in a DCS system. These works corresponds to 4 different papers published at ACM MSWiM, ACM TOSN, ACM/Springer WINET and ACM PE-WASUN.
Bio: Dr. Ángel Cuevas received his MSc in Telecomunication Engineering, MSc in Telematics Engineering, and Ph.D. in Telematics Engineering from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid in 2006, 2007, and 2011 respectively. He is currently a tenure-track Assistant Professor in the Department of Telematic Engineering at Unviersidad Carlos III de Madrid. Prior to that he was Postdoc researcher at Institut Mines-Telecom, Telecom SudParis from March 2011 until Jan 2013. His research interests focus on On-line Social Networks, P2P Networks, Wireless Sensor Networks and Internet measurements. He is co-author of more than 30 papers in prestigious international journals and conferences such as IEEE/ACM Transactions on Networking, ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks, Elsevier Computer Networks, IEEE Network, IEEE Communications Magazine, WWW, ACM CONEXT, ACM MSWiM, IEEE ISCC and IEEE ICC. He is co-recipient of the Best Paper Award in ACM MSWiM 2010.

Multi-Beam Antennas in Ad Hoc and Cooperative Networks*

May 3, 2013 - 12:15pm

Speaker: Yimin Zhang, Villanova University - Pennsylvania, USA
Abstract: : In this talk, we introduce the concept and applications of multi-beam antennas in wireless ad hoc and cooperative networks. Multi-beam antennas enable a mobile network to concurrently communicate with multiple nodes within the same channel use, thus improving the spectral efficiency. Multi-beam antennas can be implemented in the forms of multiple fixed-beam directional antennas and multi-channel smart antennas. The former either uses multiple predefined beams or selects multiple directional antennas and thus is relatively simple; the latter uses smart antenna techniques to dynamically form multiple adaptive beams and thereby provides more robust communication links to the neighboring nodes. Further, in cooperative communications, multiple beams can also be achieved through distributed beamforming by using multiple relay nodes to form a virtual array. We will introduce a number of cooperative beamforming structures, including distributed beamforming and multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) relays, and their offerings as well as optimal resource allocations will be considered.
Bio: Dr. Yimin D. Zhang graduated from Xidian University, China, and received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tsukuba, Japan. He is currently a Research Professor and the Director of the Wireless Communications and Positioning Lab at the Center for Advanced Communications, Villanova University, Pennsylvania, USA. His general research interest lies in the areas of statistical signal and array processing for communications and radar applications, including wireless communications and networking, cooperative communications, MIMO systems, time-frequency analysis, convex optimization, jammer excision, and target localization and tracking in through-the-wall radar, over-the-horizon radar, as well as passive radar systems. He is currently an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, and serves on the editorial board of the Signal Processing (Elsevier) journal. More information about Dr. Zhang can be found at his website yiminzhang.com.

*This talk is sponsored by NSERC DIVA, Carleton University and IEEE Signal Processing
 

Cognitive approaches in Wireless Sensor Networks

May 1 - 11:00am

Speaker: Mohamed Ibnkahla, Queen's University, Kingston - Canada
Abstract: : With wireless sensor network (WSN) environments becoming increasingly heterogeneous and their applications extending to critical ones such as Intelligent Transportation and Smart Grid, understanding and adapting network behavior to end-user requirements is becoming increasingly important. Introducing cognition in Wireless Sensor Networks will not only help in achieving this objective, but will also boost the system performance and better meet the network's end-to-end goals without compromising its objectives. However, this is a multi-disciplinary area where careful attention to all aspects of the protocol design is needed. It involves expertise in several areas such as cognitive radio, signal processing, learning and optimization, medium access control (MAC), networking (NWK), application layer (APP), as well as interpreting user requirements and predicting network behavior. The talk will provide a survey of cognitive approaches in wireless sensor networks. Several examples will be given targeting specific applications such as highway safety, smart grid and environment monitoring. A special focus will be given to the case of heterogeneous applications with conflicting end-to-end goals. Finally, the issue of hardware implementation of cognitive WSNs will be discussed with some implementable solutions.
Bio: Dr. Mohamed Ibnkahla is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Queen's University, Kingston, Canada. His main current research area includes Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) and their applications in several fields such as environment monitoring, wildlife tracking, precision agriculture, food traceability, highway safety, intelligent transportation systems, water management, and smart power grid. He has published the following books: 'Signal Processing for Mobile Communications Handbook', 'Adaptive Signal Processing in Wireless Communications', 'Adaptive Networking and Cross-layer Design in Wireless Networks', 'Wireless Sensor Networks: A Cognitive Perspective', all with Taylor and Francis Publishers - CRC Press. Dr. Ibnkahla received the INP Leopold Escande Medal for the year 1997, France, for his research contributions to signal processing; the prestigious Prime Minister's Research Excellence Award (PREA), Ontario, Canada in 2001, for his contributions in wireless mobile communications; and the Favorite Professor Award, Queen's University, in 2004 for his excellence in teaching.

Defying Nyquist in Analog to Digital Conversion*

April 30, 2013 - 06:00pm

Speaker: Yonina Eldar - Technion - Israel Institute of Technology - Haifa, Israel
Abstract: : The famous Shannon-Nyquist theorem has become a landmark in the development of digital signal processing. However, in many modern applications, the signal bandwidths have increased tremendously, while the acquisition capabilities have not scaled sufficiently fast. Consequently, conversion to digital has become a serious bottleneck. In this talk a new framework for sampling wideband analog signals at rates far below that dictated by the Nyquist rate will be presented. The focus will be both on the theoretical developments, as well as on actual hardware implementations and considerations that allow realization of sub-Nyquist samplers in practice. Applications to a variety of different problems in communications, bioimaging, and signal processing will also be described.
Bio: Yonina Eldar received the B.Sc. degree in physics and the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering both from Tel-Aviv University (TAU), Tel-Aviv, Israel, in 1995 and 1996, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, in 2002. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. She is also a Research Affiliate with the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT and a Visiting Professor at Stanford University, Stanford. Dr. Eldar was a Horev Fellow of the Leaders in Science and Technology program at the Technion and an Alon Fellow. In 2004, she was awarded the Wolf Foundation Krill Prize for Excellence in Scientific Research, in 2005 the Andre and Bella Meyer Lectureship, in 2007 the Henry Taub Prize for Excellence in Research, in 2008 the Hershel Rich Innovation Award, the Award for Women with Distinguished Contributions, the Muriel & David Jacknow Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the Technion Outstanding Lecture Award, in 2009 the Technion's Award for Excellence in Teaching, in 2010 the Michael Bruno Memorial Award from the Rothschild Foundation, and in 2011 the Weizmann Prize for Exact Sciences. In 2012 she was elected to the Young Israel Academy of Science and to the Israel Committee for Higher Education, and elected an IEEE Fellow. She received several best paper awards together with her research students and colleagues. She is a Signal Processing Society Distinguished Lecturer, and an Editor-in-Chief of Foundations and Trends in Signal Processing.

*This talk is sponsored by NSERC DIVA, Carleton University and IEEE Signal Processing
 

Network Coding in Wired and Wireless Networks: Concepts, Principles and Advances*

April 5, 2013 - 1:45pm

Speaker: Bo Rong, Communications Research Centre Canada (CRC)
Abstract: : Network coding (NC) is a promising paradigm that has been shown to improve throughput and provide elegant solutions to both wired and wireless networks. For wired infrastructure, many researchers have proposed to employ NC as an essential mechanism to reach the maximum network capacity. A variety of systems have been deployed in practice for multimedia multicast applications. For wireless infrastructure, it is known that networks using WiFi/802.11 suffer from a number of unique problems, including low throughput, dead spots, and inadequate support of mobility. However, these networks also have some characteristics, such as the broadcast nature of the medium, spatial diversity, and significant data redundancy, which would provide an opportunity to address these problems efficiently using network coding. This talk presents some basic concepts and principles of wired and wireless NC, e.g., Min-Cut/Max-Flow, butterfly example of linear network coding, physical layer network coding. The talk will also involve some advanced topics in this research area, such as fountain code based network coding.
Bio: Dr. Bo Rong received the B.S. degree from Shandong University in 1993, the M.S. degree from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in 1997, and the Ph.D. degree from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications in 2001. He is currently a Research Scientist with Communications Research Centre (CRC) Canada, Ottawa, ON. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Ecole de technologie superieure (ETS), Universite du Quebec, Canada. Dr. Rong has authored or coauthored over 70 technical papers in major journals and conferences, as well as two book chapters in the areas of wireless networking & communications. Many of these publications have theoretical and practical significance to the research community and industry. For example, his work “Call Admission Control Optimization in WiMAX Networks,” was ranked #1 most accessed paper in August 2008 among all papers published in IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, and #69 among all IEEE papers. Dr. Rong’s current research interests include cognitive wireless access, OFDM, channel coding, network coding, cooperative networks, and wireless sensor networks.

*This talk is sponsored by NSERC DIVA, Carleton University and IEEE Signal Processing
 

Context-aware Approach for Driver's Fatigue Detection

March 28, 2013 - 2:00pm

Speaker: Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, University of Ottawa, Ottawa - Canada
Abstract: : The aim of this work is to reduce the number of car accidents caused by mental fatigue or drowsiness. We propose a new decision support system based on a Bayesian Network in order to detect the driver's fatigue. The assessment of the driver's state is enhanced by combining data provided by different embedded sensors and context aware information. The parameters of the network can be feasibly acquired in modern cars such as data from the steering wheel and the pedals. Also, they are updated on a regular basis which makes the fatigue detection more reliable. Moreover, the fatigue's detection is accomplished using individual profiles of the different drivers since the driving style differs from one drive to another
Bio: Abdulmotaleb El Saddik, a University Research Chair and Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Ottawa, is an internationally-recognized scholar who has made strong contributions to the knowledge and understanding of multimedia computing, communications and applications, particularly in the digitization, communication and security of the sense of touch, or haptics, which is a new medium that is significantly changing the way in which human-to-human and human-computer interactions are performed. Prof. El Saddik is the director of the Multimedia Communications Research Laboratory (MCRLab) and the Distributed & Collaborative Virtual Environments Research Laboratory (DISCOVER).

Vehicular Networks and Cloud Computing: A Desirable Collision Course

February 22nd, 2013 | 12:00pm

Speaker: Antonio A.F. Loureiro, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
Abstract: : Vehicular networks and cloud services will have far-reaching effects and become an essential part of our daily life and work. Cloud computing services provide a catalyst for ICT convergence, and based on ubiquitous wireless communication will leverage the next generation of vehicular networks. An important aspect in such scenario is the delivery of event notifications of interest for drivers and passengers in VANETs. In this talk, we will discuss the benefits of integrating cloud computing services to vehicular networks considering different types of application, in particular their challenges and research opportunities.
Bio: Antonio A.F. Loureiro received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in computer science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil, and the Ph.D. degree in computer science from the University of British Columbia, Canada, 1995. Currently, he is a full professor of computer science at UFMG, where he leads the research group in wireless sensor networks and mobile computing. In the last 15 years he has published regularly in international conferences and journals related to those areas, and also presented tutorials and invited talks at international conferences. In the last 10 years, Dr. Loureiro has had a close and fruitful collaboration with Dr. Azzedine Boukerche, and currently he's visiting the Paradise Research Lab at uOttawa.

Opportunistic Routing in Wireless and Mobile Networks

January 11, 2013 | 12:00pm

Speaker: Amir Darehshoorzadeh, Research Associate at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), Spain
Abstract: : Opportunistic Routing (OR) has been proposed as a way to increase the performance of wireless networks by exploiting its broadcast nature. In OR, instead of pre-selecting a single specific node to be the next-hop as a forwarder for a packet, multiple nodes can potentially be selected as the next-hop forwarder. Thus the source can use multiple potential paths to deliver the packets to the destination. More specially, when the current node transmits a packet, all the candidates that receive the packet successfully will coordinate with each other to determine which one would actually forward the packet according to some criteria, while the other nodes will simply discard the packet. In this talk, we shall present different research areas in OR. Then, we focus on the performance analysis of OR using a Discrete Time Markov Chain (DTMC) paradigm. The proposed model can be used to evaluate OR in terms of expected number of transmissions from the source to the destination. Furthermore, we show how to apply our Markov model to compare relevant candidate selection algorithms that have been proposed in the literature. In the third part of this talk, we shall discuss a new metric that measures the expected distance progress of sending a packet using a set of candidates. Based on this metric we present our candidate selection algorithm which exhibits a better performance when compared to existing protocols. Finally, we shall show, if time permits, how OR can efficiently support multicast paradigm. Unlike traditional multicast protocols, there is no designated next-hop forwarder for each destination in our protocol, thus the delivery ratio is maximized by taking advantage of spatial diversity. We will show simulation results we have obtained to evaluate the performance of our schemes.
Bio: Amir Darehshoorzadeh is Research Associate at the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), SPAIN. He obtained his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). He received his B.Sc in computer engineering from Shahid Bahonar University of Kerman (SBUK), kerman, Iran in 2003, and his M.Sc Degree from Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST), Tehran, Iran in 2006. His research interests include opportunistic routing, wireless ad-hoc networks, vehicular networks, quality of service providing and multicast routing. In these areas he has extensively published research papers in international conferences and journals.

A Routing Based Time Synchronization Protocol for Multi-Hop Wireless Networks

December 20, 2012 | 12:00pm

Speaker: Cheng Li, Associate Professor, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Abstract: : The speaker discussed the critical importance of time synchronization in distributed wireless networks to achieve and maintain coordination among distributed network nodes. In this talk, the speaker presented a routing based time synchronization protocol (RBTSP) for multi-hop wireless networks. Different from many existing time synchronization protocols, our objective aims at minimizing the number of timing packet exchange and reducing the non-deterministic delay. We conduct mathematical analysis and simulation experiments to demonstrate the working of the proposed time synchronization method. The results manifest that our scheme can achieve better performance on synchronization accuracy and power efficiency.
Bio: Cheng Li received the B. Eng. and M. Eng. degrees from Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, P. R. China, in 1992 and 1995, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical and computer engineering from Memorial University, St. John’s, Canada, in 2004. He is currently an Associate Professor with the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science of Memorial University, St. John’s, Canada. His research interests include mobile ad hoc and wireless sensor networks, wireless communications and mobile computing, switching and routing, and broadband communication networks. He is an editorial board member of Wiley Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, an associate editor of Wiley Security and Communication Networks, and an editorial board member of the Journal of Networks. He has served a technical program committee (TPC) co-chair for IEEE WiMob’11 and QBSC’10. He has served as a co-chair for various technical symposia of many international conferences, including IEEE GLOBECOM and ICC. He is the recipient of the best paper award at IEEE ICC 2010. Dr. Li is a registered Professional Engineer (P.Eng.) in Canada and is a Senior Member of the IEEE and a member of the IEEE Communications Society, Computer Society, Vehicular Technology Society, and Ocean Engineering Society.

Energy-Efficient GPS Sensing with Cloud Offloading

Wednesday, November 16th, 2012 at 3:30 pm in UA4170. This research seminar is in collaboration between uOttawa, UOIT - Faculty of Science and UOIT- Faculty of Business and IT

Speaker: Dr. Heitor S. Ramos, Assistant Professor, Computer Science - Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil
Abstract: : Location is a fundamental service for mobile computing. Typical GPS receivers, although widely available, consume too much energy to be useful for many applications. Observing that in many sensing scenarios, the location information can be post-processed when the data is uploaded to a server, we design a Cloud-Offloaded GPS (CO-GPS) solution that allows a sensing device to aggressively duty-cycle its GPS receiver and log just enough raw GPS signal for post-processing. Leveraging publicly available information such as GNSS satellite ephemeris and an Earth elevation database, a cloud service can derive good quality GPS locations from a few milliseconds of raw data. Using our design of a portable sensing device platform called CLEO, we evaluate the accuracy and efficiency of the solution. Compared to more than 30 seconds of heavy signal processing on standalone GPS receivers, we can achieve three orders of magnitude lower energy consumption per location tagging
Bio: Dr. Heitor S. Ramos is currently an assistant professor at the Federal University of Alagoas, Brazil. He received a PhD degree in Computer Science from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. His research interests rely on wireless networks, sensors networks, and mobile and ad hoc networks. He is the recipient of the Microsoft Latin American PhD Fellowship award of 2010, and spent the 2010's summer as an intern at the Networked Embedded Computing group (NEC) at Microsoft Research, Redmond, USA. In 2011 he worked as a visiting researcher at the Paradise Laboratory, at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

Social-Aware Trustworthy Data Forwarding in Vehicular Delay Tolerant Networks

July 18, 2012 | 01:30pm

Speaker: Xiaodong Lin, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Business and Information Technology, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Abstract: : In this talk, we first identify some security and privacy challenges in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs), also modeled as Vehicular Delay Tolerant Networks (VDTNs). Then, we introduce a social-aware privacy-preserving packet forwarding protocol, called SPRING, for VDTNs. With SPRING, Roadside Units (RSUs) deployed along the roadside can assist in packet forwarding to achieve highly reliable transmissions. In specific, we first heuristically define how to evaluate each traffic intersection’s social degree in a VDTN. Based on the social degree information, we then strategically place RSUs at some high-social intersections. As a result, these RSUs can provide tremendous assistance in temporarily storing packets and helping packet forwarding in order to achieve high delivery ratio. Performance evaluations via extensive simulations demonstrate the SPRING’s efficiency. In addition, detailed security analyses show that the proposed SPRING can achieve conditional privacy preservation and resist most attacks in VDTNs.
Bio: Dr. Xiaodong Lin received the Ph.D. in Information Engineering from the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China, and the Ph.D. degree (with Outstanding Achievement in Graduate Studies Award) in electrical and computer engineering from the University of Waterloo, Canada. He is currently an assistant professor of information security with the Faculty of Business and Information Technology, University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT), Canada. He is also an Adjunct Professor of the University of Waterloo, Canada.Dr. Lin's research interests include computer and network security, especially in the fields of wireless network security, applied cryptography, computer forensics and software security. Dr. Lin has published extensively in leading scholarly journals and highly competitive conferences, and won several Best Paper Awards at international conferences, including the 18th International Conference on Computer Communications and Networks (ICCCN 2009), the 5th International Conference on Body Area Networks (BodyNets 2010), and IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2007). Dr. Lin is a recipient of NSERC Canada Graduate Scholarships (CGS) Doctoral, and selected as university nominee for NSERC Doctoral Prize (Engineering and Computer Sciences category).He is a senior member of IEEE.

Driver safety and object detection schemes for VANET Class of Applications: Challenges and Issues

July 11, 2012 | 01:00pm

Speaker: Abdelhamid Mammeri, Senior Research Associate at Sherbrooke University, Canada
Abstract: : In this talk, we shall discuss how to integrate Visual Sensor Networks (VSN) within VANET in order to increase road safety while assisting vehicle drivers. Visual sensors are basically deployed around strategic locations to sense road conditions and deliver information to the concerned vehicles. We will present our proposed VSN-VANET system, which consists mainly of vehicle nodes and low-power visual sensors (e.g., CMUCam3). Vehicle nodes should have two communication interfaces: an embedded WiFi card used for communication with vehicles; and an interface for communication with visual sensors deployed around highways. Low-power visual sensors are used to sense the environment, process the visual flows, and send the collected images to the surrounded vehicles. The suggested system is analysed and new challenges and issues will be discussed.
Bio: Abdelhamid Mammeri is Senior Research Associate at Sherbrooke University, Canada. He obtained his Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Sherbrooke University. He received his M.Sc Degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UCL (Belgium). He is the recipient of the FQRNT Quebec Scholarship award at Postdoc-level in 2012. He has served as a technical program committee member for several conferences including MIC-CAI2012, IEEE VTC 2013, and MIC-CAI2013 . He serves as Computer Graphics and Visualization Track chair for MIC-CAI2013. His research interests include visual sensor networks, wireless ad-hoc networks, vehicular networks, energy minimization schemes for visual sensor networks, object detection through vision applied on VANET, etc. He has extensively published in highly ranked international conferences and journals in his area.

Security in VANets

June 20, 2012

Speaker: Jalel Ben-Othman, Full Professor, Department of Computer Science, L2TI Laboratory, Université de Paris 13, Paris, France
Abstract: : Vehicular Ad hoc Networks, VANET, are part of the Intelligent Transportation Systems, ITS, that aim to improve transportation reliability, optimize driving and navigation and enhance the vehicle users safety. The system consists of specific embedded equipments and applications that must exchange information between each others, i.e., between vehicles (V2V communications) and between vehicles and the infrastructure (V2I communications). VANETs are a key basis of ITS and the networking of vehicle is essential for the efficiency of the whole system. Hence, the reliability of the intelligent transportation systems and drivers safety depend strongly on the reliability and the security of the VANETs. In fact, securing VANETs will ensure the reliability of data exchanged by vehicles, especially for crucial safety applications (accidents, safety alerts, …) that require efficient transmissions in terms of security, quality of service (QoS) and delivery guarantees. Communications in VANETs are very challenging and existing solutions, for instance, from the Ad Hoc networking field are not adapted. This is due to some specificities of VANETs, including the high speed of vehicles, mobility patterns of vehicles (related to roads, highways, …). New efforts at different levels of the communications systems are required including at the routing and security levels. The key objective of this talk is the works developed in our team to improve security in VANETs. The proposed methods aims to propose specific detection methods for security attacks and appropriate algorithm to avoid and/or foil them. We have particularly focused our works on Denial of Service attacks (DoS), greedy and jamming, and attacks that target data integrity as those could have major effects on users safety. In this talk we will describe RLGREEDY whoch is a new method to detect greedy attacks in VANET base and the linear regression, and I will present another approach to detect jamming attacks with RLJAM method.
Bio: Dr. Ben-Othman received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees both in Computer Science from the University of Pierre et Marie Curie, (Paris 6) France in 1992, and 1994 respectively. He received his PhD degree from the University of Versailles, France, in 1998. He was an Assistant Professor at the University of Orsay (Paris 11) and University of Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6), in 1998 and 1999 respectively. He was an Associate Professor at the University of Versailles from 2000 to 2011. He is now full professor at University of Paris 13. Dr. Ben-Othman’s research interests are in the area of wireless ad hoc and sensor networks, Broadband Wireless Networks, multi-services bandwidth management in WLAN (IEEE 802.11), WMAN (IEEE 802.16), WWAN (LTE), security in wireless networks in general and wireless sensor and ad hoc networks in particular. His work appears in highly respected international journals and conferences, including, IEEE ICC, Globecom, LCN, VTC, PIMRC, etc. He has supervised and co-supervised several graduate students in these areas. He is widely known for his work on wireless ad hoc and sensor Networks, in particular, security. He is an editorial board member of Wiley Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing, Inderscience Int. J. of Satellite Communications Policy and Management and an Associate Editor of Wiley International Journal of Communication Systems. He has served as a member of Technical Committees of more than 40 international IEEE/ACM conferences and workshops including ICC, Globecom, MSWIM, LCN. He is a member of IEEE and ACM. He served as Local Arrangement Chair for the 13th IEEE International Symposium on Computer Communication (ISCC 09). He served as a TPC Co-Chair of IEEE Globecom Wireless Communications Symposium (Globecom 2010) and 9th international Workshop on Wireless local Networks (WLN09) and 10th international Workshop on Wireless local Networks (WLN10). He served as a publicity chair of several conferences such as the 12th ACM International Conference on Modelling, Analysis and Simulation of Wireless and Mobile Systems (MSWIM 09), IEEE International Symposium on a World of Wireless Mobile and Multimedia Networks (WOWMOM 2010), 25th Biennial Symposium on Communications. Currently he is serving as TPC Co-Chair for IEEE Globecom Ad hoc, Sensor and Mesh Networking (Globecom 2011), 6th ACM International Symposium on QoS and Security for Wireless and Mobile Networks (Q2SWinet 2010, Q2SWinet 2011, Q2SWinet 2012), Wireless Networking Symposium of The 7th International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC 2011, IWCMC 2012), IEEE International Conference on Communications Ad hoc, Sensor and Mesh Networking (ICC 2012). He is an active member of IEEE CIS-TC, TC AHSN, and WTC.

An Agent Based Dissemination Protocol for Stealth Optimization in Wireless Sensor Networks

June 15, 2012 - 09:00am

Speaker: Damla Turgut, Associate Professor, Dept. of EECS, University of Central Florida
Abstract: : Many sensor networks are deployed to detect and track intruders. If the existence and location of sensor nodes is disclosed to the opponent, the nodes can be easily disabled or compromised. Wireless transmissions in the presence of the opponent are an important source of disclosure. We first describe a way to quantify the stealthiness of the sensor node, with a numerical stealthiness metric. Then, we introduce a local model based dissemination protocol, Try and Bounce(TAB) which takes into account stealth considerations while reporting and forwarding observation reports. In an experimental study comparing TAB to the widely used directed diffusion dissemination protocol, we find that TAB achieves significantly higher stealth for equivalent tracking accuracy, or, alternatively, lower tracking error for equivalent stealth expenditure.
Bio: Damla Turgut is an Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of University of Central Florida. She received her BS, MS, and PhD degrees from the Computer Science and Engineering Department of University of Texas at Arlington. Her research interests include wireless networking and mobile computing, wireless communication and coordination in embodied agents, and urban sensing. Dr. Turgut has published over five dozens of refereed technical papers and book chapters. Dr. Turgut serves as a member of the editorial board and of the technical program committee of ACM and IEEE journals and international conferences. She is a member of IEEE, member of the ACM, and the Upsilon Pi Epsilon honorary society.

Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Networks - A Solution for Vehicular Communications

June 14, 2012 - 02:30pm

Speaker: Joel José P. C. Rodrigues, Assistant Professor, Department of Informatics, University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal
Abstract: : This presentation will introduce a proposal for vehicular communications based on the delay-tolerant networks paradigm, called vehicular delay-tolerant networks (VDTNs). It also gather contributions for other network technologies, such as optical burst switching, opportunistic networks, and cooperative networks. Vehicular Delay-Tolerant Network (VDTN) is a new disruptive network architecture where vehicles act as the communication infrastructure, furnishing low-cost asynchronous opportunistic communications, variable delays and bandwidth limitations defining a non-TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) network. A VDTN assumes asynchronous, bundle-oriented communication, and a store-carry-and-forward routing paradigm. VDTNs should make the best use of the tight resources available in the network. These technologies are also important in the context of the Future Internet. A real and a laboratory deployment of VDTNs will be shown and discuss, and main challenges will be addressed.
Bio: Joel José P. C. Rodrigues is an assistant professor in the Department of Informatics of the University of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal, and researcher at the Instituto de Telecomunicações, Portugal. He received a PhD degree in informatics engineering, an MSc degree from the University of Beira Interior, and a five-year BSc degree (licentiate) in informatics engineering from the University of Coimbra, Portugal. His main research interests include sensor networks, e-health, e-learning, vehicular delay-tolerant networks, and mobile and ubiquitous computing. He is the leader of NetGNA Research Group (http://netgna.it.ubi.pt), the Vice-chair of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on Communications Software, the Vice-Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Technical Committee on eHealth, and Member Representative of the IEEE Communications Society on the IEEE Biometrics Council. He is the editor-in-chief of the International Journal on E-Health and Medical Communications, the editor-in-chief of the Recent Patents on Telecommunications, and editorial board member of several journals. He has been general chair and TPC Chair of many international conferences. He is a member of many international TPCs and participated in several international conferences organization. He has authored or coauthored over 200 papers in refereed international journals and conferences, a book, and 2 patents. He had been awarded the Outstanding Leadership Award of IEEE GLOBECOM 2010 as CSSMA Symposium Co-Chair and several best papers awards. Prof. Rodrigues is a licensed professional engineer (as senior member), member of the Internet Society, an IARIA fellow, and a senior member of ACM and IEEE.

Intersection-based Routing in Urban Vehicular Ad hoc Networks

June 13, 2012 - 09:00am

Speaker: Yacine Ghamri-Doudane, Associate Professor, ENSIIE, Evry, France ; Researcher, CNRS Gaspard Monge Computer Science Laboratory (LIGM), Université Paris-Est, Marne-la-Vallée, France
Abstract: : Inter-Vehicle Communication (IVC) is attracting considerable attention from the research community and the automotive industry, where it is beneficial in providing Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) as well as assistance services for drivers and passengers. In this context, Vehicular Networks are emerging as a novel category of wireless networks, spontaneously formed between moving vehicles equipped with wireless interfaces that could have similar or different radio interface technologies, employing short-range to medium-range communication systems. The distinguished characteristics of vehicular networks such as high mobility, potentially large scale, and network partitioning introduce several challenges, which can greatly impact the future deployment of these networks. In this presentation, we focus on IVC in urban environments. Our main goal is to propose a new routing scheme, which efficiently adapts to the vehicular networks’ characteristics and applications. Temporary disconnection in vehicular network is unavoidable. It is thereby of imminent practical interest to consider the vehicular traffic density. Therefore, at first, we discuss a way to estimate city-road densities in completely distributed and infrastructure–free manner. Then, and based on such traffic estimation, discuss the design of a novel intersection-based geographical routing protocol, capable to find robust and optimal routes within urban environments. Finally, we discuss a set of complements that such a routing should encompass in order to be used whatever the road traffic densities are (sparse vs. dense).
Bio: Yacine Ghamri-Doudane is currently associate professor (maître de conferences HDR) at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Informatique pour l’Industrie et l’Entreprise (ENSIIE), a major French post-graduate school located in Evry, France, and member of the Gaspard-Monge Computer Science Laboratory (LIGM – UMR 8049) at Marne-la-Vallée, France. Since February 2011, he is regularly visiting the Performance Engineering Laboratory of University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. Yacine received an engineering degree in computer science from the National Institute of Computer Science (INI), Algiers, Algeria, in 1998, an M.S. degree in signal, image and speech processing from the National Institute of Applied Sciences (INSA), Lyon, France, a Ph.D. degree in computer networks from the Pierre & Marie Curie University, Paris 6, France, and an Habilitation to Direct Research (HDR) from the University Paris-Est, Marne-la-Vallée, France, in 1999, 2003 and 2010, respectively. His current research interests include Vehicular Networks, Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN), TCP and Multimedia over Wireless, QoS in WLAN/WMAN, Mobility Management in 4G Mobile Networks, Management of Wireless/Mobile Networks. Yacine holds three (3) international patents and he authored or co-authored six (7) book chapters, eighteen (18) peer-reviewed international journal articles and more than 60 peer-reviewed conference papers. As part of his professional activities linked to the computer networking research community, Yacine acts as the General co-Chair pof the IFIP Wireless Days conference in 2012. Yacine also acted or still acts as IEEE ICC Selected Area in Communications Symposium Co-Chair in 2009, 2010 and 2012, IEEE GLOBECOM Ad hoc and Sensor Networking Symposium in 2012, IFIP Wireless Days conference TPC co-Chair in 2011, IEEE GIIS General co-chair in 2011, ACM IWCMC Vehicular Communications Technologies (VCT) Symposium Co-Chair in 2010, IEEE/IFIP Wireless Days Wireless Multimedia Track Co-Chair in 2010, and the Vehicular Technology and Telematics Symposium Chair for CMC 2012. He was the TPC Co-Chair of SSMO’08, MACE’09 and IEEE WVCN’12 as well as the General Co-Chair of the VehiCom’09 workshops. He was or is also involved in the organizing committees of IEEE GIIS 2007, IEEE MUCS 2008, IEEE IM 2009 and IEEE GIIS 2009. He is the Chair of two IEEE Communications Society (ComSoc) committees: the Technical Committee on Information Infrastructure & Networking (TCIIN) and the Humanitarian Communications Technologies Ad hoc Committee (HCTC). He is the founding co-editor of the IEEE ComSoc Ad Hoc and Sensor Network Technical Committee (AHSN TC) Newsletter.

Safety and Infotainment Communications for Vehicles – Opportunities and Challenges

June 12, 2012 - 02:30 pm

Speaker: Professor Mahbub Hassan, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
Abstract: : Despite the recent advancements in car safety, motor vehicle accident remains one of the leading causes of human death. For the first time, the automotive industry is now considering wireless communication as a potential solution for avoiding car accidents. At the same time, advancements in cellular networking promise lucrative infotainment opportunities for road users. The dynamic vehicular environment, however, poses new networking challenges not faced in traditional mobile computing. This talk will discuss the vehicular safety and infotainment opportunities made possible by recent advances in wireless technology, examine key networking challenges to overcome, and present results from recent research.
Bio: Mahbub Hassan is a Full Professor in the School of Computer Science and Engineering, the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He has held visiting professor positions at Osaka University, University of Nantes, and National ICT Australia (NICTA). Professor Hassan has co-authored three books, which are used in over 75 universities across America, Europe and Asia. Professor Hassan is currently an editor of IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials and Elsevier journal of Computer Communications. He served as guest-editor for IEEE Network, IEEE Communications Magazine, Journal of Supercomputing, and journal of Real Time Imaging. Professor Hassan received his PhD from Monash University, Australia, MSc from University of Victoria, Canada, and B.Sc. from Middle East Technical University, Turkey. More information about his activities is available on-line.

Measuring Privacy in VANETs

June 5th, 2012 - 11:00 am

Speaker: Khalil El Khatib, Associate Professor, Faculty of Business and Information Technology, University of Ontario Institute of Technology
Abstract: : There is no unified theory of privacy. Law, political science, economics, sociology and psychology have thoroughly explored the concepts of privacy, while computer science has attempted to apply them with varying degrees of success. In this presentation, we will ignores that debate, reasoning that privacy is legislated so the values issue is no longer relevant, and present our work on a framework for measuring privacy based on the need that knowledge about an individual's state of privacy is necessary. We will also present our effort to apply the framework to the Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET)
Bio: Developing security and privacy solutions for the smart grid, for wireless sensor networks, and for vehicular ad hoc networks is the current focus of research conducted by Dr. Khalil El-Khatib at UOIT. He started research in the security and privacy field after he was hired as a research officer at the National Research Council of Canada in 2002. Until now, Dr. El-Khatib has successfully completed a number of security and privacy projects, including, intrusion detection systems for wireless network, anonymous communication for mobile ad hoc network (MANET), anonymous communication, secure time synchronization, and key management for wireless sensors. He has also worked on other projects related to trust management, privacy negotiation, and privacy protection for smart environments. Dr. El-Khatib has published a large number of papers in prestigious IEEE and ACM journals and peer-reviewed conferences.

Authentication and Key Management Schemes in Mobile Ad hoc Networks

Friday, May 25, 2012

Speaker: Helen Tang, Scientist at Defence R&D Ottawa; Adjunct Professor, Carleton University
Abstract: : Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks (MANETs) enable wireless devices to establish a dynamic network without the need of a fixed infrastructure. In such a self-organized network, each node can pass information and control packets from one neighbor to another. This type of network is very useful in tactical operations where there is no communication infrastructure. However, security is a major concern for providing trusted communications in a potentially hostile environment. Authentication and key management schemes are important elements of MANET security because they are essential to prevent unauthorized access to network resources and sensitive information.
In this talk, we will present several attack-resilient security schemes in tactical MANETs, including Lightweight Integrated Authentication, multi-modal biometric-based continuous authentication, combined intrusion detection and authentication, and ID-based distributed key management.
Bio: Helen Tang is a Defence Scientist at Defence R&D Canada Ottawa. She is also an Adjunct Professor at the Department of System and Computer Engineering of Carleton University. She received her Ph.D. degree from Carleton University in 2005. From 1999 to 2005, she had worked in several R&D organizations in Canada and USA including Alcatel-Lucent, Mentor Graphics and Communications Research Center Canada. In Oct. 2005, she joined Defence R&D Canada as a Defence Scientist. Dr. Tang has published over 40 journal/conference papers and book chapters. She received the Best Paper Award at IEEE/IFIP TrustCom 2009, Outstanding Contribution Award at DRDC Ottawa in 2009, and Outstanding Leadership Award at IEEE/IFIP TrustCom 2010. Her research interests include architectural and protocol design for computer networks, with a current focus on wireless network security.

Probabilistic distributed algorithms for wireless sensor networks

May 10, 2012

Speaker: Sotiris Nikoletseas,Professor at University of Patras, Greece
Abstract: We first discuss some critical challenges in sensor networks research (such as scalability, efficiency, fault-tolerance and self-stabilization) and explain why standard approaches fail in this emerging technology domain. Then we present some key issues, including Technology independent models (Models of deployment, Models of dynamics, Models of collaboration and competition for resources), Energy management, balancing and complexity formulation, Scaling laws (Global impact of the local sensor interactions, Self-organization, Adaptation, Nature inspired control mechanisms), Efficient management of mobility and Heterogeneity even at the sensor level. In the light of the above, we present some characteristic examples from our recent research, on issues like New random graphs models, Probabilistic trade-offs, Randomized global balance via local decisions, Trust-based obstacle avoidance, Adaptive random walks.)
Sotiris Nikoletseas is currently an Associate Professor at the Computer Engineering and Informatics Department of Patras University, Greece. Also, the Director of the SensorsLab and a Scientific Consultant of the Algorithms Group at the Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Geneva, Ottawa and Southern California (USC). His research interests include algorithmic aspects of wireless sensor networks and ad-hoc mobile computing, fundamental aspects of modern networking (focus on efficiency and reliability), probabilistic techniques and random graphs, average case analysis and probabilistic algorithms, computational complexity and approximation algorithms, algorithmic engineering.

From High Speed Trains to Intelligent Transportation Systems

Friday, April 27, 2012

Speaker: Bing BU, visiting professor at Carleton University from Beijing Jiaotong University
Abstract: : China has scored the top mark in high-speed railway development worldwide, with a maximum speed of 486.1 km/h recorded in 2010 and an operating speed of 350 km/h covered most areas of the whole county. All of these achievements could not happen without extensive research works conducted in the State Key Lab of Rail Traffic Control and Safety in China.
In this talk, we will introduce some recent research works in this lab. Particularly, we present wireless networks technologies, such as cellular networks and WLANs, used in controlling high-speed trains and urban metro automated trains. Some measurement results from real fields will be presented. Research challenges and future directions will be discussed in this talk.
Bio: Prof. Bing BU received his Ph.D from the Beijing Jiaotong University, China in 2001. From 2001 to 2007, he participated in the R&D of TD-SCDMA in Siemens Ltd. From 2002 to 2007, as a high delegate of SAMSUNG, he took part in the standardization works of EUCH and LTE. From 2007 to now, he is an associate professor and directional assistant in the State Key Laboratory of Rail Traffic Control and Safety. During that time, as a key member, he participates in the R&D of the first home-made CBTC system of China. He is in charge of the design of the DCS in CBTC, which has been successfully used in several lines in China now. He is also in charge of several key research projects related to the Driverless Train Operation system, the optimization of train control, key technologies of CBTC, etc. Currently, he is a visiting professor at Carleton University. His primary research interests are the theories and techniques for the improvement of train-to-ground wireless communications and methods for the optimization of train control.

First Responder LTE Test-Bed

Friday, March 30, 2012

Speaker: Barry Gander, Co-Founder at i-CANADA, Executive Vice President at Canada Advanced Technology Alliance (CATA)
Abstract: : A First Responder Test Bed for the development and demonstration of broadband communications apluicaiotn s and communications applications and interoperability testing is being created along roadways in the Kanata area of Ottawa.
The test bed communications infrastructure will be provided by the Networked Vehicle Association (NVA) association.  The Control Center will be located at Industry Canada Communications Research Centre.   The NVA is a not-for-profit organization which has become the premier workgroup for executives from companies such as IBM, HP, CA, INTEL, Cisco, BMW, GM, Ford and HP. They use the NVA as their premier platform for exploring the new Internet-enabled high-speed vehicle networks.
The Test Bed program gives Canadian First Responders a framework in which to explore the future as it unfolds. The Test Bed will be opened for the participation of all interested partners. The overarching goal is to foster collaboration between First Responders and major research organizations of the public and private sectors. While the Project is initially planned for a three-year period, it is hoped that we will be able to maintain the test bed over a longer period for the benefits of all participants.
Bio: For 25 years, Barry Gander has helped jump-start the development of advanced technology organizations in Canada and abroad. Working in both companies and in associations, with the public sector and academia, he has created business programs that have boosted revenues and markets. Two new initiatives are showcasing the best of Canadian innovation to global markets. The Networked Vehicle Association, which he founded, is helping to move vehicles into the next technology space, making possible social benefits such as a ”crashless highway”. The i-CANADA program, which he co-founded, aims to create an “Intelligent Nation” by establishing a grass-roots movement of communities that network at ultra-fast speed.
He has authored several best-selling books including “Fast Lane”, which crystallized the growth ideas of the pinnacle CEO’s, and a landmark book called “SUCCESS”, which highlights the views of 100 top executives. His programs for effective, creative new ways to expand business, either through selling more product, positioning it more forcefully, or establishing a better partnership network, have helped CATA expand to 33,000 members. He has helped expand this into a social network of more than five million executives.

On the Impact of Mobility in Vehicular Sensor Networks

March 10, 2012

Speaker: Sotiris Nikoletseas,Professor at University of Patras, Greece
Abstract: We consider sensor networks where the sensor nodes are attached on entities that move in a highly dynamic, heterogeneous manner. To capture this mobility diversity we first introduce a new network parameter, the direction-aware mobility level, which measures how fast and close each mobile node is expected to get to the data destination (the sink). We then provide local, distributed data dissemination protocols that adaptively exploit the node mobility to improve performance. In particular, high mobility is used as a low cost replacement for data dissemination (due to the ferrying of data), while in the case of "low" mobility either (angel) data propagation redundancy is increased (when highly mobile neighbors exist) or (beer) long-distance data transmissions are used (when the entire neighborhood is of low mobility) to accelerate data dissemination toward the sink. An extensive performance comparison to relevant methods from the state of the art demonstrates significant improvements, i.e. latency is reduced by even four times while keeping energy dissipation and delivery success at very satisfactory levels. We shall also discuss how to enhance further these techniques for the next generation of vehicular sensor networks.
Sotiris Nikoletseas is currently an Associate Professor at the Computer Engineering and Informatics Department of Patras University, Greece. Also, the Director of the SensorsLab and a Scientific Consultant of the Algorithms Group at the Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Geneva, Ottawa and Southern California (USC). His research interests include algorithmic aspects of wireless sensor networks and ad-hoc mobile computing, fundamental aspects of modern networking (focus on efficiency and reliability), probabilistic techniques and random graphs, average case analysis and probabilistic algorithms, computational complexity and approximation algorithms, algorithmic engineering.

A Joint Design of Security and Quality of Service (QoS) Provisioning in Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks with Cooperative Communications

Friday, February 24, 2012

Speaker: F. Richard Yu, Associate Professor Carleton School of Information Technology
Abstract: In vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs), some distinct characteristics, such as high node mobility, introduce new non-trivial challenges to quality of service (QoS) provisioning. Although some excellent works have been done on QoS issues in VANETs, security issues are largely ignored in these works. However, it is know that security always comes with a price in terms of QoS performance degradation.
In this talk, we consider security and QoS issues jointly for VANETs with cooperative communications. We take an integrated approach of optimizing both security and QoS parameters, and study the tradeoffs between them in VANETs. Specifically, we use recent advances in cooperative communication to enhance the QoS performance of VANETs. In addition, we present a prevention-based security technique that provides both hop-by-hop and end-to-end authentication and integrity protection. We derive the closed-form effective secure throughput considering both security and QoS provisioning in VANETs with cooperative communications. The system is formulated as a partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP). Simulation results are presented to show that security schemes have significant impacts on the throughput QoS of VANETs, and our proposed scheme can substantially improve the effective secure throughput of VANETs with cooperative communications.
Bio: F. Richard Yu received the PhD degree in electrical engineering from the University of British Columbia (UBC) in 2003. From 2002 to 2004, he was with Ericsson (in Lund, Sweden), where he worked on the research and development of 3G cellular networks. From 2005 to 2006, he was with a start-up in California, USA, where he worked on the research and development in the areas of advanced wireless communication technologies and new standards. He joined Carleton School of Information Technology and the Department of Systems and Computer Engineering at Carleton University in 2007, where he is currently an Associate Professor. He received the Carleton University Research Achievement Award in 2012, the Ontario Early Researcher Award in 2011, the Excellent Contribution Award at IEEE/IFIP TrustCom 2010, the Leadership Opportunity Fund Award from Canada Foundation of Innovation in 2009 and the Best Paper Awards at IEEE/IFIP TrustCom 2009 and Int’l Conference on Networking 2005. His research interests include cross-layer design, security and QoS provisioning in wireless networks.
Dr. Yu is a senior member of the IEEE. He serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, ACM/Springer Wireless Networks, EURASIP Journal on Wireless Communications Networking, Ad Hoc & Sensor Wireless Networks, Wiley Journal on Security and Communication Networks, and International Journal of Wireless Communications and Networking. He has served on the Technical Program Committee (TPC) of numerous conferences, as the TPC Co-Chair of IEEE INFOCOM-GCN’2012, ICC-GCN’2012, VTC’2012S, Globecom’11, INFOCOM-GCN’2011, INFOCOM-CWCN'2010, IEEE IWCMC'2009, VTC'2008F and WiN-ITS'2007, as the Publication Chair of ICST QShine 2010, and the Co-Chair of ICUMT-CWCN'2009.

Networking of Vehicles - Applications, Challenges and Some Recent Results

Monday, January 23, 2012

Speaker: Victor C.M. Leung, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Abstract: Recent advances in wireless communication technologies are making it possible for automobiles to be integrated into the global network. Intelligent Transportation Systems with vehicles in the loop are expected to significantly improve road safety, reduce traffic congestion and cut greenhouse gas emissions. This is made possible in the USA by Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC), which employs the IEEE 802.11p standard over the 75MHz of spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band allocated by the FCC for vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communications. DSRC is expected to revolutionize road transportation by making possible many real-time safety applications. However, global deployment of DSRC is not expected to materialize in the near term due to regulatory and financial challenges. In the meantime, vehicles and their passengers are increasingly equipped with different forms of wireless networking capabilities, e.g., cellular, WiFi and WiMAX. Thus there is also a growing interest in supporting applications like infotainment, travel advisory, route planning, etc., using heterogeneous wireless networks. In this presentation, I shall describe several applications that leverage the wireless communications to put vehicles in the loop. Different applicants impose different requirements on the wireless network for data routing, transfer latency, etc. I shall review the technical challenges that need to be overcome to meet some of these requirements, and describe solutions developed in our recent research to meet these challenges. I shall conclude the presentation by discussing some future research directions.
Victor C. M. Leung received the B.A.Sc. (Hons.) degree in electrical engineering from the University of British Columbia (U.B.C.) in 1977, and was awarded the APEBC Gold Medal as the head of the graduating class in the Faculty of Applied Science. He attended graduate school at U.B.C. on a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Postgraduate Scholarship and completed the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 1981.
From 1981 to 1987, Dr. Leung was a Senior Member of Technical Staff at MPR Teltech Ltd., specializing in the planning, design and analysis of satellite communication systems. In 1988, he started his academic career at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he was a Lecturer in the Department of Electronics. He returned to U.B.C. as a faculty member in 1989, currently holds the positions of Professor and TELUS Mobility Research Chair in Advanced Telecommunications Engineering in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He is a member of the Institute for Computing, Information and Cognitive Systems at U.B.C. He also holds adjunct/guest faculty appointments at Jilin University, Beijing Jiaotong University, South China University of Technology, the Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. Dr. Leung has co-authored more than 500 technical papers in international journals and conference proceedings, and several of these papers had been selected for best paper awards. His research interests are in the areas of architectural and protocol design, management algorithms and performance analysis for computer and telecommunication networks, with a current focus on wireless networks and mobile systems.
Dr. Leung is a registered professional engineer in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. He is a Fellow of IEEE, a Fellow of the Engineering Institute of Canada, and a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering. He is a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Communications Society. He is serving on the editorial boards of the IEEE Transactions on Computers, IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, Computer Communications, the Journal of Communications and Networks, as well as several other journals. Previously, he has served on the editorial boards of the IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications – Wireless Communications Series, the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications and the IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology. He has guest-edited several journal special issues, and served on the technical program committee of numerous international conferences. He is a General Co-chair of GCSG Workshop at Infocom 2012, GCN Workshop at ICC 2012, CIT 2012, FutureTech 2012, CSA 2011. He is a TPC Co-chair of the MAC and Cross-layer Design track of IEEE WCNC 2012. He chaired the TPC of the wireless networking and cognitive radio track in IEEE VTC-fall 2008. He was the General Chair of AdhocNets 2010, WC 2010, QShine 2007, and Symposium Chair for Next Generation Mobile Networks in IWCMC 2006-2008. He was a General Co-chair of Chinacom 2011, MobiWorld and GCN Workshops at IEEE Infocom 2011, BodyNets 2010, CWCN Workshop at Infocom 2010, ASIT Workshop at IEEE Globecom 2010, MobiWorld Workshop at IEEE CCNC 2010, IEEE EUC 2009 and ACM MSWiM 2006, and a TPC Vice-chair of IEEE WCNC 2005. He is a recipient of an IEEE Vancouver Section Centennial Award.

Efficient Heuristics for Low Radiation Paths in Wireless Sensor Networks

November 23, 2011

Speaker: Sotiris Nikoletseas,Professor at University of Patras, Greece
Abstract: We call radiation at a point of a wireless network the total amount of electromagnetic quantity (energy or power density) the point is exposed to. The impact of radiation can be high and we believe it is worth studying and control; towards radiation aware wireless networking we take (for the first time in the study of this aspect) a distributed computing, algorithmic approach. We exemplify this line of research by focusing on sensor networks, studying the minimum radiation path problem of finding the lowest radiation trajectory of a person moving from a source to a destination point in the network region. For this problem, we sketch the main ideas behind a linear program that can provide a tight approximation of the optimal solution, and then we discuss three heuristics that can lead to low radiation paths. We also plan to investigate the impact of diverse node mobility to the heuristics' performance.
Sotiris Nikoletseas is currently an Associate Professor at the Computer Engineering and Informatics Department of Patras University, Greece. Also, the Director of the SensorsLab and a Scientific Consultant of the Algorithms Group at the Research Academic Computer Technology Institute, Greece. He has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Geneva, Ottawa and Southern California (USC). His research interests include algorithmic aspects of wireless sensor networks and ad-hoc mobile computing, fundamental aspects of modern networking (focus on efficiency and reliability), probabilistic techniques and random graphs, average case analysis and probabilistic algorithms, computational complexity and approximation algorithms, algorithmic engineering.