Network

The Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) is widely recognized as an effective multi-criteria decision-making algorithm for handover management in terrestrial cellular networks, especially in scenarios involving dynamic and multi-faceted criteria. While TOPSIS is widely adopted in terrestrial cellular networks for handover management, its application in satellite networks, particularly in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellations, remains limited and underexplored. In this work, the performance of three TOPSIS algorithms is evaluated for handover management in LEO satellite networks, where efficient handover management is crucial due to rapid changes in satellite positions and network conditions. Sensitivity analysis is conducted on Standard Deviation TOPSIS (SD-TOPSIS), Entropy-TOPSIS, and Importance-TOPSIS in the context of LEO satellite networks, assessing their responsiveness to small variations in key performance metrics such as upload speed, download speed, ping, and packet loss. This study uses real-world data from “Starlink-on-the-road-Dataset”. Results show that SD-TOPSIS effectively optimizes handover management in dynamic LEO satellite networks thanks to its lower standard deviation scores and reduced score variation rate, thus demonstrating superior stability and lower sensitivity to small variations in performance metrics values compared to both Entropy-TOPSIS and Importance-TOPSIS. This ensures more consistent decision-making, avoidance of unnecessary handovers, and enhanced robustness in rapidly-changing network conditions, making it particularly suitable for real-time services that require stable, low-latency, and reliable connectivity. Full article

The integration of Internet of Things (IoT) technology into the agricultural sector enables the collection and analysis of large amounts of data, facilitating greater control over internal processes, resulting in cost reduction and improved quality of the final product. One of the main challenges in designing an IoT system is the need for interoperability among devices: different sensors collect information in non-homogeneous formats, which are often incompatible with each other. Therefore, the user of the system is forced to use different platforms and software to consult the data, making the analysis complex and cumbersome. The solution to this problem lies in the adoption of an IoT standard that standardizes the output of the data. This paper first provides an overview of the standards and protocols used in precision farming and then presents a system architecture designed to collect measurements from sensors and translate them into a standard. The standard is selected based on an analysis of the state of the art and tailored to meet the specific needs of precision agriculture. With the introduction of a connector device, the system can accommodate any number of different sensors while maintaining the output data in a uniform format. Each type of sensor is associated with a specific connector that intercepts the data intended for the database and translates it into the standard format before forwarding it to the central server. Finally, examples with real sensors are presented to illustrate the operation of the connectors and their role in an interoperable architecture, aiming to combine flexibility and ease of use with low implementation costs. Full article

The increase in new cyber threats is the result of the rapid growth of using the Internet, thus raising questions about the effectiveness of traditional Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSs). Machine learning (ML) technology is used to enhance cybersecurity in general and especially for reactive approaches, such as traditional IDSs. In several instances, it is seen that a single assailant may direct their efforts towards different servers belonging to an organization. This behavior is often perceived by IDSs as infrequent attacks, thus diminishing the effectiveness of detection. In this context, this paper aims to create a machine learning-based IDS model able to detect malicious traffic received by different organizational network interfaces. A centralized proxy server is designed to receive all the incoming traffic at the organization’s servers, scan the traffic by using the proposed IDS, and then redirect the traffic to the requested server. The proposed IDS was evaluated by using three datasets: CIC-MalMem-2022, CIC-IDS-2018, and CIC-IDS-2017. The XGBoost model showed exceptional performance in rapid detection, achieving 99.96%, 99.73%, and 99.84% accuracy rates within short time intervals. The Stacking model achieved the highest level of accuracy among the evaluated models. The developed IDS demonstrated superior accuracy and detection time outcomes compared with previous research in the field. Full article

With the widespread deployment of various emerging intelligent applications, information timeliness is crucial for intelligent decision-making in vehicular networks, where vehicular edge computing (VEC) has become an important paradigm to enhance computing capabilities by offloading tasks to edge nodes. To promote the information timeliness in VEC, an optimization problem is formulated to minimize the age of information (AoI) by jointly optimizing task offloading and subcarrier allocation. Due to the time-varying channel and the coupling of the continuous and discrete optimization variables, the problem exhibits non-convexity, which is difficult to solve using traditional mathematical optimization methods. To efficiently tackle this challenge, we employ a hybrid proximal policy optimization (HPPO)-based deep reinforcement learning (DRL) method by designing the mixed action space involving both continuous and discrete variables. Moreover, an action masking mechanism is designed to filter out invalid actions in the action space caused by limitations in the effective communication distance between vehicles. As a result, a mask-assisted HPPO (MHPPO) method is proposed by integrating the action masking mechanism into the HPPO. Simulation results show that the proposed MHPPO method achieves an approximately 28.9% reduction in AoI compared with the HPPO method and about a 23% reduction compared with the mask-assisted deep deterministic policy gradient (MDDPG). Full article

Localization plays a crucial role in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and it has sparked significant research interest. GPSs provide quite accurate positioning estimations, but they are ineffective indoors and in environments like underwater. Power usage and cost are further disadvantages, and so many alternatives have been proposed. Many works in the literature still base localization on RSSI measurements and often rely on methods to mitigate the effects of fluctuations in values, so it is important to know real values of RSSIs measured using common devices. This work presents the main localization techniques and exploits a real testbed to collect and evaluate RSSI measurements. An accuracy evaluation and a comparison among several localization techniques are also provided. Full article

Information-centric networking (ICN) is a promising approach to address the limitations of current host-centric IP-based networking. ICN models feature ubiquitous in-network caching to provide faster and more reliable content delivery, name-based routing to provide better scalability, and self-certifying contents to ensure better security. Due to the differences in the core architecture of ICN compared to existing IP-based networks, it requires special considerations to provide quality-of-service (QoS) or quality-of-experience (QoE) support for applications based on ICNs. This paper discusses the latest advances in QoS and QoE research for ICNs. First, an overview of ICN architectures is given, followed by a summary of different factors that influence QoS and QoE. Approaches for improving QoS and QoE in ICNs are then discussed in five main categories: in-network caching, name resolution and routing, transmission and flow control, software-defined networking, and media-streaming-based strategies. Finally, open research questions for providing QoS and QoE support in ICNs are outlined for future research. Full article

Blockchains are designed to produce a secure, append-only sequence of transactions. Establishing transaction sequentiality is typically achieved by underlying consensus protocols that either prevent forks entirely (no-forking-ever) or make forks short-lived. The main challenges facing blockchains are to achieve this no-forking condition while achieving high throughput, low response time, and low energy costs. This paper presents the Bounce blockchain protocol along with throughput and response time experiments. The core of the Bounce system is a set of satellites that partition time slots. The satellite for slot i signs a commit record that includes the hash of the commit record of slot $i-1$ as well as a sequence of zero or more Merkle tree roots whose corresponding Merkle trees each has thousands or millions of transactions. The ledger consists of the transactions in the sequence of the Merkle trees corresponding to the roots of the sequence of commit records. Thus, the satellites work as arbiters that decide the next block(s) for the blockchain. Satellites orbiting around the Earth are harder to tamper with and harder to isolate than terrestrial data centers, though our protocol could work with terrestrial data centers as well. Under reasonable assumptions—intermittently failing but non-Byzantine (i.e., non-traitorous) satellites, possibly Byzantine Ground Stations, and “exposure-averse” administrators—the Bounce System achieves high availability and a no-fork-ever blockchain. Our experiments show that the protocol achieves high transactional throughput (5.2 million transactions per two-second slot), low response time (less than three seconds for “premium” transactions and less than ten seconds for “economy” transactions), and minimal energy consumption (under 0.05 joules per transaction). Moreover, given five more cloud sites of the kinds currently available in CloudLab, Clemson, we show how the design could achieve throughputs of 15.2 million transactions per two second slot with the same response time profile. Full article

The security of a network is based on the foundation of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, often referred to as the CIA triad. The privacy of data over a network, maintained by confidentiality, has long been one of the major issues in network settings. With the decoupling of the data plane and control plane in the software-defined networking (SDN) environment, this challenge is significantly amplified. This paper aims to address the challenges of confidentiality in SDN by introducing a genetic algorithm-based hybrid encryption network policy to secure messages across the network. The proposed approach achieved an average entropy of 0.989, revealing a significant improvement in the strength of the encryption with the hybrid mechanism. However, the method exhibited processing overhead, significantly increasing the transmission time for encrypted messages compared to unencrypted transmission. Compared to standalone AES, DES, and RSA, this approach shows better encryption randomness, but a trade-off between security and network performance is evident in the absence of load-balancing techniques. Full article

The paper intends to contribute to readers’ comprehension of the Greek telecommunications market, focusing on the strategic decisions associated with network tower-sharing analysis in Greece. The Greek telecommunications industry is described for the first time following the Structure–Conduct–Performance (SCP) paradigm of Industrial Organisation (IO), as a methodological tool of analysis. In that respect, an SCP model in its extended form is constructed, aiming to examine how structure, conduct, and performance interrelate to each other. More precisely, the SCP model explains how strategic decisions regarding tower infrastructure sharing between 2013–2022 were developed, as a result of a series of interactions and feedback effects, amongst market structure, operators’ conducts, and performances, resulting in strengthening competition and reshaping market structure with the entrance of a new player in the Greek mobile market, an independent TowerCo (Athens, Greece) in Greece. International tendencies and competition issues influencing domestic growth potentialities and alternative operators’ concentration will be addressed, too. The paper concludes with presenting a basically qualitative, explanatory interpretive analysis of the perspectives of network tower-sharing analysis in the Greek telecommunication industry, including policy recommendations for the near future and thoughts on future research, as well. Full article

Machine learning (ML) promises advances in automation and threat detection for the future generations of communication networks. However, new threats are introduced, as adversaries target ML systems with malicious data. Adversarial attacks on tree-based ML models involve crafting input perturbations that exploit non-smooth decision boundaries, causing misclassifications. These so-called evasion attacks are imperceptible, as they do not significantly alter the input data distribution and have been shown to degrade the performance of tree-based models across various tasks. Adversarial training and genetic algorithms have been proposed as potential defenses against these attacks. In this paper, we explore the robustness of tree-based models for network intrusion detection systems. This study evaluates an optimization approach inspired by genetic algorithms to generate adversarial samples and studies the impact of adversarial training on the accuracy of attack detection. This paper exposed random forest and extreme gradient boosting classifiers to various adversarial samples generated from communication network-related CIC-IDS2019 and 5G-NIDD datasets. The results indicate that the improvements of robustness to adversarial attacks come with a cost to the accuracy of the network intrusion detection models. These costs can be optimized with intelligent, use case-specific feature engineering. Full article

The Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) is a widely used communication standard in IoT systems due to its robust and reliable message delivery capabilities. However, its increasing adoption has made it a target for various cyber threats, including Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), Man-in-the-Middle (MitM), and brute force attacks. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of AMQP-specific vulnerabilities and introduces a statistical model for the detection and classification of malicious activities in IoT networks. Leveraging a custom-designed IoT testbed, realistic attack scenarios were simulated, and a dataset encompassing normal, malicious, and mixed traffic was generated. Unique attack signatures were identified and validated through repeated experiments, forming the foundation of a signature-based detection mechanism tailored for AMQP networks. The proposed model demonstrated high accuracy in detecting and classifying attack-specific traffic while maintaining a low false positive rate for benign traffic. Notable results include effective detection of RST packets in DDoS scenarios, precise classification of MitM attack patterns, and identification of brute force attempts on AMQP systems. This research highlights the efficacy of signature-based approaches in enhancing IoT security and offers a benchmark for future machine learning-driven detection systems. By addressing AMQP-specific challenges, the study contributes to the development of resilient and secure IoT ecosystems. Full article

The issue of organizing efficient interaction between vehicle-to-everything (V2X) system elements has become increasingly critical in recent years. Utilizing V2X technology enables achieving the necessary balance of safety, reducing system load, and ensuring a high degree of vehicle automation. This study aims to develop a simulation system for V2X applications in various element placement configurations and conduct a numerical analysis of several V2X system interaction schemes. The research analyzes various methods, including clustering, edge computing, and fog computing, aimed at minimizing system losses. The results demonstrate that each proposed model can be effectively implemented on mobile nodes. The results also provide insights into the average expected request processing times, thereby enhancing the organization of the V2X system. The authors propose a model that enables the distribution of system parameters and resources for diverse computational tasks, which is essential for the successful implementation and utilization of V2X technology. Full article

Sequential decision-making in dynamic and interconnected environments is a cornerstone of numerous applications, ranging from communication networks and finance to distributed blockchain systems and IoT frameworks. The multi-armed bandit (MAB) problem is a fundamental model in this domain that traditionally assumes independent and identically distributed (iid) rewards, which limits its effectiveness in capturing the inherent dependencies and state dynamics present in some real-world scenarios. In this paper, we lay a theoretical framework for a modified MAB model in which each arm’s reward is generated by a hidden Markov process. In our model, each arm undergoes Markov state transitions independent of play in a way that results in varying reward distributions and heightened uncertainty in reward observations. The number of states for each arm can be up to three states. A key challenge arises from the fact that the underlying states governing each arm’s rewards remain hidden at the time of selection. To address this, we adapt traditional index-based policies and develop a modified index approach tailored to accommodate Markovian transitions and enhance selection efficiency for our model. Our proposed proposed Markovian Upper Confidence Bound (MC-UCB) policy achieves logarithmic regret. Comparative analysis with the classical UCB algorithm reveals that MC-UCB consistently achieves approximately a 15% reduction in cumulative regret. This work provides significant theoretical insights and lays a robust foundation for future research aimed at optimizing decision-making processes in complex, networked systems with hidden state dependencies. Full article

In a global context where reducing the carbon footprint has become an urgent necessity, this article presents a hybrid CNN-LSTM prediction model to estimate CO₂ emission rates of Paris road traffic using spatio-temporal data. Our hybrid prediction model relies on a real-time road traffic database that we built by fusing several APIs and datasets. In particular, we trained two specialized models: a CNN to extract spatial patterns and an LSTM to capture temporal dynamics. By merging their outputs, we leverage both spatial and temporal dependencies, ensuring more accurate predictions. Thus, this article aims to compare various strategies and configurations, allowing us to identify the optimal architecture and parameters for our CNN-LSTM model. Moreover, to refine the predictive learning evolution of our hybrid model, we used optimization techniques like gradient descent to monitor the learning progress. The results show that our hybrid CNN-LSTM model achieved an R² value of 0.91 and an RMSE of 0.086, outperforming conventional models regarding CO₂ emission rate prediction accuracy. These results validate the efficiency and relevance of using hybrid CNN-LSTM models for the spatio-temporal modelling of CO₂ emissions in the context of road traffic. Full article

Artificial intelligence (AI) transforms communication networks by enabling more efficient data management, enhanced security, and optimized performance across diverse environments, from dense urban 5G/6G networks to expansive IoT and cloud-based systems. Motivated by the increasing need for reliable, high-speed, and secure connectivity, this study explores key AI applications, including traffic prediction, load balancing, intrusion detection, and self-organizing network capabilities. Through detailed case studies, I illustrate AI’s effectiveness in managing bandwidth in high-density urban networks, securing IoT devices and edge networks, and enhancing security in cloud-based communications through real-time intrusion and anomaly detection. The findings demonstrate AI’s substantial impact on creating adaptive, secure, and efficient communication networks, addressing current and future challenges. Key directions for future work include advancing AI-driven network resilience, refining predictive models, and exploring ethical considerations for AI deployment in network management. Full article

This paper presents the development of an advanced battery management system (BMS) for electric vehicles (EVs), designed to enhance battery performance, safety, and longevity. Central to the BMS is its precise monitoring of critical parameters, including voltage, current, and temperature, enabled by dedicated sensors. These sensors facilitate accurate calculations of the state of charge (SOC) and state of health (SOH), with real-time data displayed through an IoT cloud interface. The proposed BMS employs data-driven approaches, like advanced Kalman filters (KF), for battery state estimation, allowing continuous updates to the battery state with improved accuracy and adaptability during each charging cycle. Simulation tests conducted in MATLAB’s Simulink across multiple charging and discharging cycles demonstrate the superior accuracy of the advanced Kalman filter (KF), in handling non-linear battery behaviours. Results indicate that the proposed BMS achieves a significantly lower error margin in SOC tracking, ranging from 0.32% to 1%, compared to traditional methods with error margins up to 5%. These findings underscore the importance of integrating robust sensor systems in BMSs to optimise EV battery management, reduce maintenance costs, and improve battery sustainability. Full article

In this paper, we introduce the Secured Real-Time Machine Communication Protocol (SRMCP), a novel industrial communication protocol designed to address the increasing demand for security and performance in Industry 4.0 environments. SRMCP integrates post-quantum cryptographic techniques, including the Kyber Key Encapsulation Mechanism (Kyber-KEM) and AES-GCM encryption, to ensure robust protection against both current and future cryptographic threats. We also present an innovative “Port Hopping” mechanism inspired by frequency hopping, enhancing security by distributing communication across multiple channels. Comparative performance analysis was conducted with widely-used protocols such as ModBus and the OPC UA, focusing on key metrics such as connection, reading, and writing times across local and remote networks. Results demonstrate that SRMCP outperforms ModBus in reading and writing operations while offering enhanced security, although it has a higher connection time due to its dual-layer encryption. The OPC UA, while secure, lags significantly in performance, making it less suitable for real-time applications. The findings suggest that SRMCP is a viable solution for secure and efficient machine communication in modern industrial settings, particularly where quantum-safe security is a concern. Full article

High-precision indoor positioning is essential for various applications, such as the Internet of Things, robotics, and smart manufacturing, requiring accuracy better than 1 m. Conventional indoor positioning methods, like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth fingerprinting, typically provide low accuracy within a range of several meters, while techniques such as laser or visual odometry often require fusion with absolute positioning methods. Ultra-wideband (UWB) and Wi-Fi Round-Trip Time (RTT) are emerging radio positioning technologies supported by industry leaders like Apple and Google, respectively, both capable of achieving high-precision indoor positioning. This paper offers a comprehensive survey of UWB and Wi-Fi positioning, beginning with an overview of UWB and Wi-Fi RTT ranging, followed by an explanation of the fundamental principles of UWB and Wi-Fi RTT-based geometric positioning. Additionally, it compares the strengths and limitations of UWB and Wi-Fi RTT technologies and reviews advanced studies that address practical challenges in UWB and Wi-Fi RTT positioning, such as accuracy, reliability, continuity, and base station coordinate calibration issues. These challenges are primarily addressed through a multi-sensor fusion approach that integrates relative and absolute positioning. Finally, this paper highlights future directions for the development of UWB- and Wi-Fi RTT-based indoor positioning technologies. Full article

Currently, more studies are focusing on traffic classification in software-defined networks (SDNs). Accurate classification and selecting the appropriate controller have benefited from the application of machine learning (ML) in practice. In this research, we study different classification models to see which one best classifies the generated dataset and goes on to be implemented for real-time classification. In our case, the classification and regression tree (CART) classifier produces the best classification results for the generated dataset, and logistic regression is also considerable. Based on the evaluation of various algorithmic outputs for the training and validation datasets, and also when execution time is taken into account, the CART is found to be the best algorithm. While testing the impact of load balancing in a multi-controller SDN environment, in different load case scenarios, we observe network performance parameters like bit rate, packet rate, and jitter. Here, the use of traffic classification-based load balancing improves the bit rate as well as the packet rate of traffic flow on a network and thus considerably enhances throughput. Finally, the reduction in jitter while increasing the controllers confirms the improvement in QoS in a balanced multi-controller SDN environment. Full article