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IPv6 over resource-constrained devices (6Lo) emerged as a de-facto standard for the Internet of Things (IoT) applications especially in home and building automation systems. We provide results of an investigation of the applicability of 6LoWPAN with RPL mesh networks for home and building automation use cases. The proper selection of Trickle parameters and neighbor reachable time-outs is important in the RPL protocol suite to respond efficiently to any path failure. These parameters were analyzed in the context of energy consumption w.r.t the number of control packets. The measurements were performed in an Automated Physical Testbeds (APTB). The results match the recommendation by RFC 7733 for selecting various parameters of RPL protocol suite. This paper shows the relationship between various RPL parameters and control traffic overhead during network rebuild. Comparative measurement results with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) in this work showed that 6Lo with RPL outperformed BLE in this use case with less control traffic overheads.
The Internet of Things (IoT) application has becoming progressively in-demand, most notably for the embedded devices (ED). However, each device has its own difference in computational capabilities, memory usage, and energy resources in connecting to the Internet by using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). In order for this to be achievable, the WSNs that form the bulk of the IoT implementation requires a new set of technologies and protocol that would have a defined area, in which it addresses. Thus, IPv6 Low Power Area Network (6LoWPAN) was designed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) as a standard network for ED. Nevertheless, the communication between ED and 6LoWPAN requires appropriate routing protocols for it to achieve the efficient Quality of Service (QoS). Among the protocols of 6LoWPAN network, RPL is considered to be the best protocol, however its Energy Consumption (EC) and Routing Overhead (RO) is considerably high when it is implemented in a large network. Therefore, this paper would propose the HRPL to enchance the RPL protocol in reducing the EC and RO. In this study, the researchers would present the performance of RPL and HRPL in terms of EC, Control traffic Overhead (CTO) and latency based on the simulation of the 6LoWPAN network in fixed environment using COOJA simulator. The results show HRPL protocol achieves better performance in all the tested topology in terms of EC and CTO. However, the latency of HRPL only improves in chain topology compared with RPL. We found that further research is required to study the relationship between the latency and the load of packet transmission in order to optimize the EC usage.
In the last decade, IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks, also known as 6LoWPAN, has well evolved as a primary contender for short range wireless communication and holds the promise of an Internet of Things, which is completely based on the Internet Protocol. In the meantime, various 6LoWPAN implementations are available, be it open source or commercial. One of these implementations, which was developed by the authors' team, was tested on an Automated Physical Testbed for Wireless Systems at the Laboratory Embedded Systems and Communication Electronics of Offenburg University of Applied Sciences, which allows the flexible setup and full control of arbitrary topologies. It also supports time-varying topologies and thus helps to measure performance of the RPL implementation. The results of the measurements show a very good stability and short-term and long-term performance also under dynamic conditions. In addition, it can be proven that the performance predictions from other papers are consistent with real-life implementations.
The monitoring of industrial environments ensures that highly automated processes run without interruption. However, even if the industrial machines themselves are monitored, the communication lines are currently not continuously monitored in todays installations. They are checked usually only during maintenance intervals or in case of error. In addition, the cables or connected machines usually have to be removed from the system for the duration of the test. To overcome these drawbacks, we have developed and implemented a cost-efficient and continuous signal monitoring of Ethernet-based industrial bus systems. Several methods have been developed to assess the quality of the cable. These methods can be classified to either passive or active. Active methods are not suitable if interruption of the communication is undesired. Passive methods, on the other hand, require oversampling, which calls for expensive hardware. In this paper, a novel passive method combined with undersampling targeting cost-efficient hardware is proposed.
6LoWPAN (IPv6 over Low Power Wireless Personal Area Networks) is gaining more and more attraction for the seamless connectivity of embedded devices for the Internet of Things. It can be observed that most of the available solutions are following an open source approach, which significantly leads to a fast development of technologies and of markets. Although the currently available implementations are in a pretty good shape, all of them come with some significant drawbacks. It was therefore decided to start the development of an own implementation, which takes the advantages from the existing solutions, but tries to avoid the drawbacks. This paper discussed the reasoning behind this decision, describes the implementation and its characteristics, as well as the testing results. The given implementation is available as open-source project under [15].
A highly scalable IEEE802.11p communication and localization subsystem for autonomous urban driving
(2013)
The IEEE802.11p standard describes a protocol for car-to-X and mainly for car-to-car-communication. It has found its place in hardware and firmware implementations and is currently tested in various field tests. In the research project Ko-TAG, which is part of the research initiative Ko-FAS, cooperative sensor technology is developed for the support of highly autonomous driving. A secondary radar principle based on communication signals enables localization of objects with simultaneous data transmission. It mainly concentrates on the detection of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users (VRU), but also supports pre crash safety applications. Thus it is mainly targeted for the support of traffic safety applications in intra-urban scenarios. This contribution describes the Ko-TAG part of the overall initiative, which develops a subsystem to improve the real-time characteristics of IEEE802.11p needed for precise time of flight real-time localization. In doing this, it still fits into the regulatory schemes. It discusses the approach for definition and verification of the protocol design, while maintaining the close coexistence with existing IEEE802.11p subsystems. System simulations were performed and hardware was implemented. Test results are shown in the last part of the paper.
The IEEE802.11p standard describes a protocol for car-to-X and mainly for car-to-car-communication. It has found its place in hardware and firmware implementations and is currently tested in various field tests. In the research project Ko-TAG, which is part of the research initiative Ko-FAS, cooperative sensor technology is developed and its benefit for traffic safety applications is evaluated. A secondary radar principle based on communication signals enables localization of objects with simultaneous data transmission. It mainly concentrates on the detection of pedestrians and other vulnerable road users (VRU), but also supports pre crash safety applications. The Ko-TAG proposal enriches the current IEEE802.11p real-time characteristics needed for precise time-of-flight real-time localization. This contribution describes the development of a subsystem, which extends the functionality of IEEE802.11p and fits into the regulatory schemes. It discusses the approach for definition and verification of the protocol design, while maintaining the close coexistence with existing IEEE802.11p subsystems. System simulations were performed and hardware was implemented. The next step will be field measurements to verify the simulation results.
In recent years, predictive maintenance tasks, especially for bearings, have become increasingly important. Solutions for these use cases concentrate on the classification of faults and the estimation of the Remaining Useful Life (RUL). As of today, these solutions suffer from a lack of training samples. In addition, these solutions often require high-frequency accelerometers, incurring significant costs. To overcome these challenges, this research proposes a combined classification and RUL estimation solution based on a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network. This solution relies on a hybrid feature extraction approach, making it especially appropriate for low-cost accelerometers with low sampling frequencies. In addition, it uses transfer learning to be suitable for applications with only a few training samples.
Uncontrollable manufacturing variations in electrical hardware circuits can be exploited as Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs). Herein, we present a Printed Electronics (PE)-based PUF system architecture. Our proposed Differential Circuit PUF (DiffC-PUF) is a hybrid system, combining silicon-based and PE-based electronic circuits. The novel approach of the DiffC-PUF architecture is to provide a specially designed real hardware system architecture, that enables the automatic readout of interchangeable printed DiffC-PUF core circuits. The silicon-based addressing and evaluation circuit supplies and controls the printed PUF core and ensures seamless integration into silicon-based smart systems. Major objectives of our work are interconnected applications for the Internet of Things (IoT).
The desire to connect more and more devices and to make them more intelligent and more reliable, is driving the needs for the Internet of Things more than ever. Such IoT edge systems require sound security measures against cyber-attacks, since they are interconnected, spatially distributed, and operational for an extended period of time. One of the most important requirements for the security in many industrial IoT applications is the authentication of the devices. In this paper, we present a mutual authentication protocol based on Physical Unclonable Functions, where challenge-response pairs are used for both device and server authentication. Moreover, a session key can be derived by the protocol in order to secure the communication channel. We show that our protocol is secure against machine learning, replay, man-in-the-middle, cloning, and physical attacks. Moreover, it is shown that the protocol benefits from a smaller computational, communication, storage, and hardware overhead, compared to similar works.
A Localization System Using Inertial Measurement Units from Wireless Commercial Handheld Devices
(2013)
This paper describes a newly developed technology for the calculation of trajectories of mobile objects, which is based on commercially available sensors being integrated into modern mobile phones and other gadgets. First, a step counting technique was implemented. Second, a novel step length estimator is proposed. These two algorithms utilize the data from accelerometer sensor only. Third, the heading information was obtained using a gyroscope with complementary filter in quaternion form. The combined algorithm was implemented on a low-power ARM processor to provide the trajectory points relative to an initial point. The proposed technique was tested by 10 subjects, in different shoes with different paces. The dependence of the performance of the technology on the attaching point of the mobile device is weak. The proposed algorithms have better balance and estimation accuracy and depend in less degree on the variety in physical parameters of people in comparison with the existing techniques. In experiments inertial measurement units were mounted in different places, i.e. in the hand, in trousers or in T-shirt pockets. The return position error did not exceed 5% of the total travelled distance for all performed tests.
Cryptographic protection of messages requires frequent updates of the symmetric cipher key used for encryption and decryption, respectively. Protocols of legacy IT security, like TLS, SSH, or MACsec implement rekeying under the assumption that, first, application data exchange is allowed to stall occasionally and, second, dedicated control messages to orchestrate the process can be exchanged. In real-time automation applications, the first is generally prohibitive, while the second may induce problematic traffic patterns on the network. We present a novel seamless rekeying approach, which can be embedded into cyclic application data exchanges. Although, being agnostic to the underlying real-time communication system, we developed a demonstrator emulating the widespread industrial Ethernet system PROFINET IO and successfully use this rekeying mechanism.
When designing and installing Indoor Positioning Systems, several interrelated tasks have to be solved to find an optimum placement of the Access Points. For this purpose, a mathematical model for a predefined number of access points indoors is presented. Two iterative algorithms for the minimization of localization error of a mobile object are described. Both algorithms use local search technique and signal level probabilities. Previously registered signal strengths maps were used in computer simulation.
As cyber-attacks and functional safety requirements increase in Operational Technology (OT), implementing security measures becomes crucial. The IEC/IEEE 60802 draft standard addresses the security convergence in Time-Sensitive Networks (TSN) for industrial automation.We present the standard’s security architecture and its goals to establish end-to-end security with resource access authorization in OT systems. We compare the standard to our abstract technology-independent model for the management of cryptographic credentials during the lifecycles of OT systems. Additionally, we implemented the processes, mechanisms, and protocols needed for IEC/IEEE 60802 and extended the architecture with public key infrastructure (PKI) functionalities to support complete security management processes.
The M-Bus protocol (EN13757) is in widespread use for metering applications within home area and neighborhood area networks, but lacks a strict specification. This may lead to incompatibilities in real-life installations and to problems in the deployment of new M-Bus networks. This paper presents the development of a novel testbed to emulate physical Metering Bus (M-Bus) networks with different topologies and to allow the flexible verification of real M-Bus devices in real-world scenarios. The testbed is designed to support device manufacturers and service technicians in test and analysis of their devices within a specific network before their installation. The testbed is fully programmable, allowing flexible changes of network topologies, cable lengths and types. Itis easy to use, as only the master and the slaves devices have to be physically connected. This allows to autonomously perform multiple tests, including automated regression tests. The testbed is available to other researchers and developers. We invite companies and research institutions to use this M-Bus testbed to increase the common knowledge and real-world experience.
In recent years, physically unclonable functions (PUFs) have gained significant attraction in IoT security applications, such as cryptographic key generation and entity authentication. PUFs extract the uncontrollable production characteristics of different devices to generate unique fingerprints for security applications. When generating PUF-based secret keys, the reliability and entropy of the keys are vital factors. This study proposes a novel method for generating PUF-based keys from a set of measurements. Firstly, it formulates the group-based key generation problem as an optimization problem and solves it using integer linear programming (ILP), which guarantees finding the optimum solution. Then, a novel scheme for the extraction of keys from groups is proposed, which we call positioning syndrome coding (PSC). The use of ILP as well as the introduction of PSC facilitates the generation of high-entropy keys with low error correction costs. These new methods have been tested by applying them on the output of a capacitor network PUF. The results confirm the application of ILP and PSC in generating high-quality keys.
This paper presents a novel low-jitter interface between a low-cost integrated IEEE802.11 chip and a FPGA. It is designed to be part of system hardware for ultra-precise synchronization between wireless stations. On physical level, it uses Wi-Fi chip coexistence signal lines and UART frame encoding. On its basis, we propose an efficient communication protocol providing precise timestamping of incoming frames and internal diagnostic mechanisms for detecting communication faults. Meanwhile it is simple enough to be implemented both in low-cost FPGA and commodity IEEE802.11 chip firmware. The results of computer simulation shows that developed FPGA implementation of the proposed protocol can precisely timestamp incoming frames as well as detect most of communication errors even in conditions of high interference. The probability of undetected errors was investigated. The results of this analysis are significant for the development of novel wireless synchronization hardware.
A novel approach of a testbed for embedded networking nodes has been conceptualized and implemented. It is based on the use of virtual nodes in a PC environment, where each node executes the original embedded code. Different nodes are running in parallel and are connected via so-called virtual interfaces. The presented approach is very efficient and allows a simple description of test cases without the need of a network simulator. Furthermore, it speeds up the process of developing new features.
In recent years, the topic of embedded machine learning has become very popular in AI research. With the help of various compression techniques such as pruning, quantization and others compression techniques, it became possible to run neural networks on embedded devices. These techniques have opened up a whole new application area for machine learning. They range from smart products such as voice assistants to smart sensors that are needed in robotics. Despite the achievements in embedded machine learning, efficient algorithms for training neural networks in constrained domains are still lacking. Training on embedded devices will open up further fields of applications. Efficient training algorithms would enable federated learning on embedded devices, in which the data remains where it was collected, or retraining of neural networks in different domains. In this paper, we summarize techniques that make training on embedded devices possible. We first describe the need and requirements for such algorithms. Then we examine existing techniques that address training in resource-constrained environments as well as techniques that are also suitable for training on embedded devices, such as incremental learning. At the end, we also discuss which problems and open questions still need to be solved in these areas.
Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) is the most promising time-deterministic wired communication approach for industrial applications. To extend TSN to "IEEE 802.11" wireless networks two challenging problems must be solved: synchronization and scheduling. This paper is focused on the first one. Even though a few solutions already meet the required synchronization accuracies, they are built on expensive hardware that is not suited for mass market products. While next Wi-Fi generation might support the required functionalities, this paper proposes a novel method that makes possible high-precision wireless synchronization using commercial low-cost components. With the proposed solution, a standard deviation of synchronization error of less than 500 ns can be achieved for many use cases and system loads on both CPU and network. This performance is comparable to modern wired real-time field busses, which makes the developed method a significant contribution for the extension of the TSN protocol to the wireless domain.
It is important to minimize the unscheduled downtime of machines caused by outages of machine components in highly automated production lines. Considering machine tools such as, grinding machines, the bearing inside of spindles is one of the most critical components. In the last decade, research has increasingly focused on fault detection of bearings. In addition, the rise of machine learning concepts has also intensified interest in this area. However, up to date, there is no single one-fits-all solution for predictive maintenance of bearings. Most research so far has only looked at individual bearing types at a time.
This paper gives an overview of the most important approaches for bearing-fault analysis in grinding machines. There are two main parts of the analysis presented in this paper. The first part presents the classification of bearing faults, which includes the detection of unhealthy conditions, the position of the error (e.g. at the inner or at the outer ring of the bearing) and the severity, which detects the size of the fault. The second part presents the prediction of remaining useful life, which is important for estimating the productive use of a component before a potential failure, optimizing the replacement costs and minimizing downtime.
The increase of the Internet of Things (IoT) calls for secure solutions for industrial applications. The security of IoT can be potentially improved by blockchain. However, blockchain technology suffers scalability issues which hinders integration with IoT. Solutions to blockchain’s scalability issues, such as minimizing the computational complexity of consensus algorithms or blockchain storage requirements, have received attention. However, to realize the full potential of blockchain in IoT, the inefficiencies of its inter-peer communication must also be addressed. For example, blockchain uses a flooding technique to share blocks, resulting in duplicates and inefficient bandwidth usage. Moreover, blockchain peers use a random neighbor selection (RNS) technique to decide on other peers with whom to exchange blockchain data. As a result, the peer-to-peer (P2P) topology formation limits the effective achievable throughput. This paper provides a survey on the state-of-the-art network structures and communication mechanisms used in blockchain and establishes the need for network-based optimization. Additionally, it discusses the blockchain architecture and its layers categorizes existing literature into the layers and provides a survey on the state-of-the-art optimization frameworks, analyzing their effectiveness and ability to scale. Finally, this paper presents recommendations for future work.
The Metering Bus, also known as M-Bus, is a European standard EN13757-3 for reading out metering devices, like electricity, water, gas, or heat meters. Although real-life M-Bus networks can reach a significant size and complexity, only very simple protocol analyzers are available to observe and maintain such networks. In order to provide developers and installers with the ability to analyze the real bus signals easily, a web-based monitoring tool for the M-Bus has been designed and implemented. Combined with a physical bus interface it allows for measuring and recording the bus signals. For this at first a circuit has been developed, which transforms the voltage and current-modulated M-Bus signals to a voltage signal that can be read by a standard ADC and processed by an MCU. The bus signals and packets are displayed using a web server, which analyzes and classifies the frame fragments. As an additional feature an oscilloscope functionality is included in order to visualize the physical signal on the bus. This paper describes the development of the read-out circuit for the Wired M-Bus and the data recovery.
The authentication method of electronic devices, based on individual forms of correlograms of their internal electric noises, is well-known. Specific physical differences in the components – for example, caused by variations in production quality – cause specific electrical signals, i.e. electric noise, in the electronic device. It is possible to obtain this information and to identify the specific differences of the individual devices using an embedded analog-to-digital converter (ADC). These investigations confirm the possibility to identify and authenticate electronic devices using bit templates, calculated from the sequence of values of the normalized autocorrelation function of noise. Experiments have been performed using personal computers. The probability of correct identification and authentication increases with increasing noise recording duration. As a result of these experiments, an accuracy of 98.1% was achieved for a 1 second-long registration of EM for a set of investigated computers.
Blockchain-IIoT integration into industrial processes promises greater security, transparency, and traceability. However, this advancement faces significant storage and scalability issues with existing blockchain technologies. Each peer in the blockchain network maintains a full copy of the ledger which is updated through consensus. This full replication approach places a burden on the storage space of the peers and would quickly outstrip the storage capacity of resource-constrained IIoT devices. Various solutions utilizing compression, summarization or different storage schemes have been proposed in literature. The use of cloud resources for blockchain storage has been extensively studied in recent years. Nonetheless, block selection remains a substantial challenge associated with cloud resources and blockchain integration. This paper proposes a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approach as an alternative to solving the block selection problem, which involves identifying the blocks to be transferred to the cloud. We propose a DRL approach to solve our problem by converting the multi-objective optimization of block selection into a Markov decision process (MDP). We design a simulated blockchain environment for training and testing our proposed DRL approach. We utilize two DRL algorithms, Advantage Actor-Critic (A2C), and Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO) to solve the block selection problem and analyze their performance gains. PPO and A2C achieve 47.8% and 42.9% storage reduction on the blockchain peer compared to the full replication approach of conventional blockchain systems. The slowest DRL algorithm, A2C, achieves a run-time 7.2 times shorter than the benchmark evolutionary algorithms used in earlier works, which validates the gains introduced by the DRL algorithms. The simulation results further show that our DRL algorithms provide an adaptive and dynamic solution to the time-sensitive blockchain-IIoT environment.
Wireless communication technologies play a major role to enable megatrends like Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0. The Narrowband Wireless WAN (NBWWAN) introduced to meet the long range and low power requirements of spatially distributed wireless communication use cases. These networks introduce additional challenges in testing because the network topology and RF characteristics become particularly complex and thus a multitude of different scenarios must be tested. This paper describes the infrastructure for automated testing of radio communication and for systematic measurements of the network performance of NBWWAN.
IoT networks are increasingly used as entry points for cyberattacks, as often they offer low-security levels, as they may allow the control of physical systems and as they potentially also open the access to other IT networks and infrastructures. Existing intrusion detection systems (IDS) and intrusion prevention systems (IPS) mostly concentrate on legacy IT networks. Nowadays, they come with a high degree of complexity and adaptivity, including the use of artificial intelligence. It is only recently that these techniques are also applied to IoT networks. In this paper, we present a survey of machine learning and deep learning methods for intrusion detection, and we investigate how previous works used federated learning for IoT cybersecurity. For this, we present an overview of IoT protocols and potential security risks. We also report the techniques and the datasets used in the studied works, discuss the challenges of using ML, DL and FL for IoT cybersecurity and provide future insights.
An Overview of Technologies for Improving Storage Efficiency in Blockchain-Based IIoT Applications
(2022)
Since the inception of blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, researchers have been fascinated with the idea of integrating blockchain technology into other fields, such as health and manufacturing. Despite the benefits of blockchain, which include immutability, transparency, and traceability, certain issues that limit its integration with IIoT still linger. One of these prominent problems is the storage inefficiency of the blockchain. Due to the append-only nature of the blockchain, the growth of the blockchain ledger inevitably leads to high storage requirements for blockchain peers. This poses a challenge for its integration with the IIoT, where high volumes of data are generated at a relatively faster rate than in applications such as financial systems. Therefore, there is a need for blockchain architectures that deal effectively with the rapid growth of the blockchain ledger. This paper discusses the problem of storage inefficiency in existing blockchain systems, how this affects their scalability, and the challenges that this poses to their integration with IIoT. This paper explores existing solutions for improving the storage efficiency of blockchain–IIoT systems, classifying these proposed solutions according to their approaches and providing insight into their effectiveness through a detailed comparative analysis and examination of their long-term sustainability. Potential directions for future research on the enhancement of storage efficiency in blockchain–IIoT systems are also discussed.
The communication technologies for automatic me-ter reading (smart metering) and for energy production and distribution networks (smart grid) have the potential to be one of the first really highly scaled machine-to-machine-(M2M)-applications. During the last years two very promising devel-opments around the wireless part of smart grid communication were initialized, which possibly have an impact on the markets far beyond Europe and far beyond energy automation. Besides the specifications of the Open Metering System (OMS) Group, the German Federal Office for Information Security (Bundesamt für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik, BSI) has designed a protection profile (PP) and a technical directive (TR) for the communication unit of an intelligent measurement sys-tem (smart meter gateway), which were released in March 2013. This design uses state-of-the-art technologies and prescribes their implementation in real-life systems. At first sight the expenditures for the prescribed solutions seem to be significant. But in the long run, this path is inevitable and comes with strategic advantages.
Die Energiewende ist ein elementares Thema, für Deutschland wie auch für viele andere Regionen weltweit. Bei der Bereitstellung effizienter und stabiler Verteilnetze stellen Kommunikationslösungen einen zentralen Baustein dar, um auf der Grundlage eines zeitnahen Monitorings koordinierte Regelalgorithmen zu realisieren. Dies gilt für alle Ebenen der Versorgung, wobei aus Sicht der Kommunikationstechnik die unterste Ebene der Verteilnetze am interessantesten ist: Hier sind die anspruchsvollsten Anforderungen im Hinblick auf die Kosten- und die Energieoptimierung der Kommunikationsknoten sowie die Administrierbarkeit, die Stabilität und die Skalierbarkeit der Gesamtlösung zu berücksichtigen. Das Steinbeis-Transferzentrum Embedded Design und Networking an der Hochschule Offenburg unter der Leitung von Prof. Dr.-Ing. Axel Sikora hat in verschiedenen Projekten mit renommierten Partnern umfangreiche Lösungen für diese sogenannte Primärkommunikation entwickelt.
Wireless communication networks are crucial for enabling megatrends like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Industry 4.0. However, testing these networks can be challenging due to the complex network topology and RF characteristics, requiring a multitude of scenarios to be tested. To address this challenge, the authors developed and extended an automated testbed called Automated Physical TestBed (APTB). This testbed provides the means to conduct controlled tests, analyze coexistence, emulate multiple propagation paths, and model dependable channel conditions. Additionally, the platform supports test automation to facilitate efficient and systematic experimentation. This paper describes the extended architecture, implementation, and performance evaluation of the APTB testbed. The APTB testbed provides a reliable and efficient solution for testing wireless communication networks under various scenarios. The implementation and performance verification of the testbed demonstrate its effectiveness and usefulness for researchers and industry practitioners.
Institute of Reliable Embedded Systems and Communication Electronics, Offenburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany has developed an automated testing environment, Automated Physical TestBeds (APTB), for analyzing the performance of wireless systems and its supporting protocols. Wireless physical networking nodes can connect to this APTB and the antenna output of this attaches with the RF waveguides. To model the RF environment this RF waveguides then establish wired connection among RF elements like splitters, attenuators and switches. In such kind of set up it’s well possible to vary the path characteristics by altering the attenuators and switches. The major advantage of using APTB is the possibility of isolated, well controlled, repeatable test environment in various conditions to run statistical analysis and even to execute regression tests. This paper provides an overview of the design and implementation of APTB, demonstrates its ability to automate test cases, and its efficiency.
Automated RF Emulator for a Highly Scalable IEEE802.11p Communication and Localization Subsystem
(2014)
The IEEE802.11p standard describes a protocol for car-to-X and mainly for car-to-car-communication. In the research project Ko-TAG, which is part of the research initiative Ko-FAS, cooperative sensor technology is developed for the support of highly autonomous driving. The Ko-TAG subsystem improves the real-time characteristics of IEEE802.11p needed for precise time of flight real-time localization while still fitting into the regulatory schemes. A secondary radar principle based on communication signals enables localization of objects with simultaneous data transmission. The Ko-TAG subsystem mainly concentrates on the support of traffic safety applications in intra-urban scenarios. This paper details on the development of a fully automated RF emulator used to test the Ko-TAG subsystem.
The RF emulator includes the physical networking nodes, but models the RF environment using RF-waveguides. The RF emulator allows the controlling of path loss and connectivity between any of the nodes with the help of RF attenuators and programmable RF switches, while it is shielded against its surrounding RF environment in the lab. Therefore it is an inexpensive alternative to an RF absorber chamber, which often is not available or exceeds the project’s budget.
Details about the system definition can be found in earlier papers. Test results are shown in the last part of the paper.
Automatisierte Tests für ein IEEE802.11p-kompatibles Kommunikations- und Lokalisierungssubsystem
(2014)
In the last decade, deep learning models for condition monitoring of mechanical systems increasingly gained importance. Most of the previous works use data of the same domain (e.g., bearing type) or of a large amount of (labeled) samples. This approach is not valid for many real-world scenarios from industrial use-cases where only a small amount of data, often unlabeled, is available.
In this paper, we propose, evaluate, and compare a novel technique based on an intermediate domain, which creates a new representation of the features in the data and abstracts the defects of rotating elements such as bearings. The results based on an intermediate domain related to characteristic frequencies show an improved accuracy of up to 32 % on small labeled datasets compared to the current state-of-the-art in the time-frequency domain.
Furthermore, a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture is proposed for transfer learning. We also propose and evaluate a new approach for transfer learning, which we call Layered Maximum Mean Discrepancy (LMMD). This approach is based on the Maximum Mean Discrepancy (MMD) but extends it by considering the special characteristics of the proposed intermediate domain. The presented approach outperforms the traditional combination of Hilbert–Huang Transform (HHT) and S-Transform with MMD on all datasets for unsupervised as well as for semi-supervised learning. In most of our test cases, it also outperforms other state-of-the-art techniques.
This approach is capable of using different types of bearings in the source and target domain under a wide variation of the rotation speed.
In this paper, we study the runtime performance of symmetric cryptographic algorithms on an embedded ARM Cortex-M4 platform. Symmetric cryptographic algorithms can serve to protect the integrity and optionally, if supported by the algorithm, the confidentiality of data. A broad range of well-established algorithms exists, where the different algorithms typically have different properties and come with different computational complexity. On deeply embedded systems, the overhead imposed by cryptographic operations may be significant. We execute the algorithms AES-GCM, ChaCha20-Poly1305, HMAC-SHA256, KMAC, and SipHash on an STM32 embedded microcontroller and benchmark the execution times of the algorithms as a function of the input lengths.
Blockchain interoperability: the state of heterogenous blockchain-to-blockchain communication
(2023)
Blockchain technology has been increasingly adopted over the past few years since the introduction of Bitcoin, with several blockchain architectures and solutions being proposed. Most proposed solutions have been developed in isolation, without a standard protocol or cryptographic structure to work with. This has led to the problem of interoperability, where solutions running on different blockchain platforms are unable to communicate, limiting the scope of use. With blockchains being adopted in a variety of fields such as the Internet of Things, it is expected that the problem of interoperability if not addressed quickly, will stifle technology advancement. This paper presents the current state of interoperability solutions proposed for heterogenous blockchain systems. A look is taken at interoperability solutions, not only for cryptocurrencies, but also for general data-based use cases. Current open issues in heterogenous blockchain interoperability are presented. Additionally, some possible research directions are presented to enhance and to extend the existing blockchain interoperability solutions. It was discovered that though there are a number of proposed solutions in literature, few have seen real-world implementation. The lack of blockchain-specific standards has slowed the progress of interoperability. It was also realized that most of the proposed solutions are developed targeting cryptocurrency-based applications.
The integration of Internet of Things devices onto the Blockchain implies an increase in the transactions that occur on the Blockchain, thus increasing the storage requirements.
A solution approach is to leverage cloud resources for storing blocks within the chain. The paper, therefore, proposes two solutions to this problem. The first being an improved hybrid architecture design which uses containerization to create a side chain on a fog node for the devices connected to it and an Advanced Time‑variant Multi‑objective Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm (AT‑MOPSO) for determining the optimal number of blocks that should be transferred to the cloud for storage. This algorithm uses time‑variant weights for the velocity of the particle swarm optimization and the non‑dominated sorting and mutation schemes from NSGA‑III. The proposed algorithm was compared with results from the original MOPSO algorithm, the Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm (SPEA‑II), and the Pareto Envelope‑based Selection Algorithm with region‑based selection (PESA‑II), and NSGA‑III. The proposed AT‑MOPSO showed better results than the aforementioned MOPSO algorithms in cloud storage cost and query probability optimization. Importantly, AT‑MOPSO achieved 52% energy efficiency compared to NSGA‑III.
To show how this algorithm can be applied to a real‑world Blockchain system, the BISS industrial Blockchain architecture was adapted and modified to show how the AT‑MOPSO can be used with existing Blockchain systems and the benefits it provides.
In recent times, 5G has found applications in several public as well as private networks. There is a growing need to make it compatible with diverse services without compromising security. Current security options for authenticating devices into a home network are 5G Authentication and Key Agreement (5G-AKA) and Extensible Authentication Protocol (EAP)-AKA'. However, for specific use cases such as private networks, more customizable and convenient authentication mechanisms are required. The current mobile networks use authentication based only on SIM cards, but as 5G is being applied in fields like IIoT and automation, even in Non-Public-Networks (NPNs), there is a need for a simpler method of authentication. Certificate-based authentication is one such mechanism that is passwordless and works solely on the information present in the digital certificate that the user holds. The paper suggests an authentication mechanism that performs certificate-based mutual authentication between the UE and the Home network. The proposed concept identifies both the user and network with digital certificates and intends to carry out primary authentication with the help of it. In this work we conduct a study on presently available authentication protocols for 5G networks, both theoretically and experimentally in hardware as well as virtual environments. On the basis of the analysis a series of proposed steps for certificate primary authentication are presented.
Real-Time Ethernet has become the major communication technology for modern automation and industrial control systems. On the one hand, this trend increases the need for an automation-friendly security solution, as such networks can no longer be considered sufficiently isolated. On the other hand, it shows that, despite diverging requirements, the domain of Operational Technology (OT) can derive advantage from high-volume technology of the Information Technology (IT) domain. Based on these two sides of the same coin, we study the challenges and prospects of approaches to communication security in real-time Ethernet automation systems. In order to capitalize the expertise aggregated in decades of research and development, we put a special focus on the reuse of well-established security technology from the IT domain. We argue that enhancing such technology to become automation-friendly is likely to result in more robust and secure designs than greenfield designs. Because of its widespread deployment and the (to this date) nonexistence of a consistent security architecture, we use PROFINET as a showcase of our considerations. Security requirements for this technology are defined and different well-known solutions are examined according their suitability for PROFINET. Based on these findings, we elaborate the necessary adaptions for the deployment on PROFINET.
There is an increasing demand by an ever-growing number of mobile customers for transfer of rich media content. This requires very high bandwidth which either cannot be provided by the current cellular systems or puts pressure on the wireless networks, affecting customer service quality. This study introduces COARSE – a novel cluster-based quality-oriented adaptive radio resource allocation scheme, which dynamically and adaptively manages the radio resources in a cluster-based two-hop multi-cellular network, having a frequency reuse of one. COARSE is a cross-layer approach across physical layer, link layer and the application layer. COARSE gathers data delivery-related information from both physical and link layers and uses it to adjust bandwidth resources among the video streaming end-users. Extensive analysis and simulations show that COARSE enables a controlled trade-off between the physical layer data rate per user and the number of users communicating using a given resource. Significantly, COARSE provides 25–75% improvement in the computed user-perceived video quality compared with that obtained from an equivalent single-hop network.
Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) provides mechanisms to enable deterministic and real-time networking in industrial networks. Configuration of these mechanisms is key to fully deploy and integrate TSN in the networks. The IEEE 802.1 Qcc standard has proposed different configuration models to implement a TSN configuration. Up until now, TSN and its configuration have been explored mostly for Ethernet-based industrial networks. However, they are still considered “work-in-progress” for wireless networks. This work focuses on the fully centralized model and describes a generic concept to enable the configuration of TSN mechanisms in wireless industrial networks. To this end, a configuration entity is implemented to conFigure the wireless end stations to satisfy their requirements. The proposed solution is then validated with the Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunication ultra-low energy (DECT ULE) wireless communication protocol.
This paper presents an extended version of a previously published Bayesian algorithm for the automatic correction of the positions of the equipment on the map with simultaneous mobile object trajectory localization (SLAM) in underground mine environment represented by undirected graph. The proposed extended SLAM algorithm requires much less preliminary data on possible equipment positions and uses an additional resample move algorithm to significantly improve the overall performance.
It seems to be a widespread impression that the use of strong cryptography inevitably imposes a prohibitive burden on industrial communication systems, at least inasmuch as real-time requirements in cyclic fieldbus communications are concerned. AES-GCM is a leading cryptographic algorithm for authenticated encryption, which protects data against disclosure and manipulations. We study the use of both hardware and software-based implementations of AES-GCM. By simulations as well as measurements on an FPGA-based prototype setup we gain and substantiate an important insight: for devices with a 100 Mbps full-duplex link, a single low-footprint AES-GCM hardware engine can deterministically cope with the worst-case computational load, i.e., even if the device maintains a maximum number of cyclic communication relations with individual cryptographic keys. Our results show that hardware support for AES-GCM in industrial fieldbus components may actually be very lightweight.
To demonstrate how deep learning can be applied to industrial applications with limited training data, deep learning methodologies are used in three different applications. In this paper, we perform unsupervised deep learning utilizing variational autoencoders and demonstrate that federated learning is a communication efficient concept for machine learning that protects data privacy. As an example, variational autoencoders are utilized to cluster and visualize data from a microelectromechanical systems foundry. Federated learning is used in a predictive maintenance scenario using the C-MAPSS dataset.
A physical unclonable function (PUF) is a hardware circuit that produces a random sequence based on its manufacturing-induced intrinsic characteristics. In the past decade, silicon-based PUFs have been extensively studied as a security primitive for identification and authentication. The emerging field of printed electronics (PE) enables novel application fields in the scope of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart sensors. In this paper, we design and evaluate a printed differential circuit PUF (DiffC-PUF). The simulation data are verified by Monte Carlo analysis. Our design is highly scalable while consisting of a low number of printed transistors. Furthermore, we investigate the best operating point by varying the PUF challenge configuration and analyzing the PUF security metrics in order to achieve high robustness. At the best operating point, the results show areliability of 98.37% and a uniqueness of 50.02%, respectively. This analysis also provides useful and comprehensive insights into the design of hybrid or fully printed PUF circuits. In addition, the proposed printed DiffC-PUF core has been fabricated with electrolyte-gated field-effect transistor technology to verify our design in hardware.
Efficient, low-cost, secure and reliable communication solutions are a major stepping stone for smart metering and smart grid applications. This especially holds true for the so called primary communication or local metrological network (LMN) between a local meter or actuator and a data collector or gateway, where the highest requirements with regard to cost, bandwidth, and energy efficiency have to be taken into consideration. Multiple developments and field tests are going on in this field, however, energy autarkic devices are hardly found, yet.
The efficient support of Hardwae-In-theLoop (HIL) in the design process of hardwaresoftware-co-designed systems is an ongoing challenge. This paper presents a network-based integration of hardware elements into the softwarebased image processing tool „ADTF“, based on a high-performance Gigabit Ethernet MAC and a highly-efficient TCP/IP-stack. The MAC has been designed in VHDL. It was verified in a SystemCsimulation environment and tested on several Altera FPGAs.
Efficient, secure and reliable communication is a major precondition for powerful applications in smart metering and smart grid. This especially holds true for the so called primary communication in the Local Metrological Network (LMN) between meter and data collector, as the LMN comes with the most stringent requirements with regard to cost, range, as well as bandwidth and energy efficiency. Until today, LMN field tests are operated all over the world. In these installations, however, energy autarkic systems play a marginal role. This contribution describes the results of the framework 7 (FP 7) WiMBex project (“Remote wireless water meter reading solution based on the EN 13757 standard, providing high autonomy, interoperability and range”). In this project an energy autarkic water meter was developed and tested, which follows the specification of the Wireless M-Bus protocol (EN 13757). The complete system development covers the PCB with the RF transceiver and the microcontroller, the energy converter and storage, and the software with the protocol. This contribution especially concentrates on the design, the development and the verification of the routing protocol. The routing protocol is based on the Q mode of EN13757-5 (Wireless M-Bus) and was extended by an additional energy state related parameter. This extension is orthogonal to the existing protocol and considers both the charge level and the charge characteristics (rate of occurrences, intensity). The software was implemented in NesC under the operating system TinyOS. The system was verified in an automated test bed and in field tests in UK and Ireland.
In recent years, Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) have gained significant attraction in the Internet of Things (IoT) for security applications such as cryptographic key generation and entity authentication. PUFs extract the uncontrollable production characteristics of physical devices to generate unique fingerprints for security applications. One common approach for designing PUFs is exploiting the intrinsic features of sensors and actuators such as MEMS elements, which typically exist in IoT devices. This work presents the Cantilever-PUF, a PUF based on a specific MEMS device – Aluminum Nitride (AlN) piezoelectric cantilever. We show the variations of electrical parameters of AlN cantilevers such as resonance frequency, electrical conductivity, and quality factor, as a result of uncontrollable manufacturing process variations. These variations, along with high thermal and chemical stability, and compatibility with silicon technology, makes AlN cantilever a decent candidate for PUF design. We present a cantilever design, which magnifies the effect of manufacturing process variations on electrical parameters. In order to verify our findings, the simulation results of the Monte Carlo method are provided. The results verify the eligibility of AlN cantilever to be used as a basic PUF device for security applications. We present an architecture, in which the designed Cantilever-PUF is used as a security anchor for PUF-enabled device authentication as well as communication encryption.
Automatic Meter Reading (AMR) is a major enabler for the upcoming smart grid. Potentially, it will be one of the first really large-scale M2M-communication solutions for sensor applications.
To date, the definition of the standardized communication stacks for Local Metrological Network (LMN) in AMR is still ongoing. This holds true both for ZigBee Smart Energy Profile and for Wireless M-Bus according to EN 13757. During this process, there is the necessity for flexible, albeit optimized solutions, which support the different existing and upcoming versions of the communication protocols. In the case of Wireless M-Bus, the major contender for European and possibly Asian installations, this is valid not only for the different operation modes (C-, N-, P-, Q-, R-, S-, and T-modes), which work in different frequencies (i.e. 868 MHz, 433 MHz, and 169 MHz) but also for the application layer, where additional bodies, like EN137575, Open Metering System (OMS) Group, or national bodies follow their approaches.
This contribution describes requirements, design techniques and experiences from the development of highly efficient Wireless M-Bus protocol stacks with support of good flexibility and portability between microcontroller platforms and RF-transceivers. The presented approach is not limited to the use of modern software engineering design processes, as such, but also includes essential additional features like testing or simulation, as well as tools for commissioning and monitoring.
The often-occurring short-term orders of manufactured products require a high machine availability. This requirement increases the importance of predictive maintenance solutions for bearings used in machines. There are, among others, hybrid solutions that rely on a physical model. For their usage, knowing the different degradation stages of bearings is essential. This research analyzes the underlying failure mechanisms of these stages theoretically and in a practical example of the well-known FEMTO dataset used for the IEEE PHM 2012 Data Challenge to provide this knowledge. In addition, it shows for which use cases the usage of low-frequency accelerometers is sufficient. The analysis provides that the degradation stages toward the end of the bearing life can also be detected with low-frequency accelerometers. Further, the importance of high-frequency accelerometers to detect bearing faults in early degradation stages is pointed out. These aspects have not been paid attention to by industry and research until now, despite providing a considerable cost-saving potential.
The research project Ko-TAG [2], as part of the research initiative Ko-FAS [1], funded by the German Ministry of Economics and Technologies (BMWi), deals with the development of a wireless cooperative sensor system that shall pro-vide a benefit to current driver assistance systems (DAS) and traffic safety applications (TSA). The system’s primary function is the localization of vulnerable road users (VRU) e.g. pedestrians and powered two-wheelers, using communication signals, but can also serve as pre-crash (surround) safety system among vehicles. The main difference of this project, compared to previous ones that dealt with this topic, e.g. the AMULETT project, is an underlying FPGA based Hardware-Software co-design. The platform drives a real-time capable communication protocol that enables highly scalable network topologies fulfilling the hard real-time requirements of the single localization processes. Additionally it allows the exchange of further data (e.g. sensor data) to support the accident pre-diction process and the channel arbitration, and thus supports true cooperative sensing. This paper gives an overview of the project’s current system design as well as of the implementations of the key HDL entities supporting the software parts of the communication protocol. Furthermore, an approach for the dynamic reconfiguration of the devices is described, which provides several topology setups using a single PCB design.
Efficient, low-cost, secure and reliable communication solutions are a major stepping stone for smart metering and smart grid applications. This especially holds true for the so called primary communication or local metrological network (LMN) between a local meter or actuator and a data collector or gateway, where the highest requirements with regard to cost, bandwidth, and energy efficiency have to be taken into consideration. Multiple developments and field tests are going on in this field, however, energy autarkic devices are hardly found, yet. This contribution describes the development of an automatic water meter reading (AWMR) technology based on Wireless M-Bus to provide water utility companies with an automatic remote water meter reading solution. It addresses the special needs of home utilities by providing a remote metering solution independent from the electricity infrastructure, both in terms of data communication and in terms of power supply. For this project, a cost efficient integrated energy harvesting system powered by the available water flow was developed, to enable operation independently of the mains grid, and eliminate the need for battery replacement for near-zero maintenance costs.
The communication between objects, i.e. between cars (car-2-car, C2C), between cars and infrastructure (car-2-infrastructure, C2I) and between cars and vulnerable road users (car-2-VRU, C2VRU) is a major stepping stone towards traffic applications to enable efficient and safe traffic flow. However, these applications pose very high requirements to the communication protocols, which go beyond the capabilities of an available standardized solution.
This contribution shows how iterative design processes can help to fulfill these requirements, while re-using a maximum of elements from one level to the next and thus avoiding unrealistic overhead. In especially, the added value of simulation and emulation in this iterative process is elaborated.
The Thread protocol is a recent development based on 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over IEEE 802.15.4), but with extensions regarding a more media independent approach, which – additionally – also promises true interoperability. To evaluate and analyse the operation of a Thread network a given open source 6LoWPAN stack for embedded devices (emb::6) has been extended in order to comply with the Thread specification. The implementation covers Mesh Link Establishment (MLE) and network layer functionality as well as 6LoWPAN mesh under routing mechanism based on MAC short addresses. The development has been verified on a virtualization platform and allows dynamical establishment of network topologies based on Thread's partitioning algorithm.
OPC UA (Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture) is already a well-known concept used widely in the automation industry. In the area of factory automation, OPC UA models the underlying field devices such as sensors and actuators in an OPC UA server to allow connecting OPC UA clients to access device-specific information via a standardized information model. One of the requirements of the OPC UA server to represent field device data using its information model is to have advanced knowledge about the properties of the field devices in the form of device descriptions. The international standard IEC 61804 specifies EDDL (Electronic Device Description Language) as a generic language for describing the properties of field devices. In this paper, the authors describe a possibility to dynamically map and integrate field device descriptions based on EDDL into OPCUA.
The increasing number of transistors being clocked at high frequencies of modern microprocessors lead to an increasing power consumption, which calls for an active dynamic thermal management. In a research project a system environment has been developed, which includes thermal modeling of the microprocessor in the board system, a software environment to control the characteristics of the system’s timing behavior, and a modified Linux scheduler, which is enhanced with a prediction controller. Measurement results are shown for this development for a Freescale i.MX6Q quad-core microprocessor.
The EREMI project is a 2-year project funded under the ERASMUS+ framework programme and its team has developed and will validate an advanced higher education program, including life-long learning, on the interdisciplinary topic of resource efficiency in manufacturing industries and the overall system optimization of low or not digitized physical infrastructure. All of these will be achieved by applying IoT technologies towards efficient industrial systems, and by utilizing a high-level educated human capital on these economically, politically, and technically crucial and highly relevant topics for the rapidly developing industries and economies of intensively economically and industrially transforming countries - Bulgaria, North Macedonia, and Romania. Efficiency will be attained by utilizing the experience and expertise of the involved German partner organisation.
To deal with frequent power outages in developing countries, people turn to solutions like uninterruptible power supply (UPS), which stores electric energy during normal operating hours and use it to meet energy needs during rolling blackout intervals. Locally produced UPSs of poorer power quality are widely accessible in the marketplaces, and they have a negative impact on power quality. The charging and discharging of the batteries in these UPSs generate significant amount of power losses in weak grid environments. The Smart-UPS is our proposed smart energy metering (SEM) solution for low voltage consumers that is provided by the distribution company. It does not require batteries, therefore there is no power loss or harmonic distortion due to corresponding charging and discharging. Through load flow and harmonic analysis of both traditional UPS and Smart-UPS systems on ETAP, this paper examines their impact on the harmonics and stability of the distribution grid. The simulation results demonstrate that Smart-UPS can assist fixing power quality issues in a developing country like Pakistan by providing cleaner energy than the battery-operated traditional UPSs.
Embedded Analog Physical Unclonable Function System to Extract Reliable and Unique Security Keys
(2020)
Internet of Things (IoT) enabled devices have become more and more pervasive in our everyday lives. Examples include wearables transmitting and processing personal data and smart labels interacting with customers. Due to the sensitive data involved, these devices need to be protected against attackers. In this context, hardware-based security primitives such as Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) provide a powerful solution to secure interconnected devices. The main benefit of PUFs, in combination with traditional cryptographic methods, is that security keys are derived from the random intrinsic variations of the underlying core circuit. In this work, we present a holistic analog-based PUF evaluation platform, enabling direct access to a scalable design that can be customized to fit the application requirements in terms of the number of required keys and bit width. The proposed platform covers the full software and hardware implementations and allows for tracing the PUF response generation from the digital level back to the internal analog voltages that are directly involved in the response generation procedure. Our analysis is based on 30 fabricated PUF cores that we evaluated in terms of PUF security metrics and bit errors for various temperatures and biases. With an average reliability of 99.20% and a uniqueness of 48.84%, the proposed system shows values close to ideal.
Digital networked communications are the key to all Internet-of-Things applications, especially to smart metering systems and the smart grid. In order to ensure a safe operation of systems and the privacy of users, the transport layer security (TLS) protocol, a mature and well standardized solution for secure communications, may be used. We implemented the TLS protocol in its latest version in a way suitable for embedded and resource-constrained systems. This paper outlines the challenges and opportunities of deploying TLS in smart metering and smart grid applications and presents performance results of our TLS implementation. Our analysis shows that given an appropriate implementation and configuration, deploying TLS in constrained smart metering systems is possible with acceptable overhead.
Precisely synchronized communication is a major precondition for many industrial applications. At the same time, hardware cost and power consumption need to be kept as low as possible in the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. While many wired solutions on the market achieve these requirements, wireless alternatives are an interesting field for research and development. This article presents a novel IEEE802.11n/ac wireless solution, exhibiting several advantages over state-of-the-art competitors. It is based on a market-available wireless System on a Chip with modified low-level communication firmware combined with a low-cost field-programmable gate array. By achieving submicrosecond synchronization accuracy, our solution outperforms the precision of low-cost products by almost four orders of magnitude. Based on inexpensive hardware, the presented wireless module is up to 20 times cheaper than software-defined-radio solutions with comparable timing accuracy. Moreover, it consumes three to five times less power. To back up our claims, we report data that we collected with a high sampling rate (2000 samples per second) during an extended measurement campaign of more than 120 h, which makes our experimental results far more representative than others reported in the literature. Additional support is provided by the size of the testbed we used during the experiments, composed of a hybrid network with nine nodes divided into two independent wireless segments connected by a wired backbone. In conclusion, we believe that our novel Industrial IoT module architecture will have a significant impact on the future technological development of high-precision time-synchronized communication for the cost-sensitive industrial IoT market.
Due to climate change and scarcity of water reservoirs, monitoring and control of irrigation systems is now becoming a major focal area for researchers in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are rapidly finding their way in the field of irrigation and play the key role as data gathering technology in the domain of IoT and CPS. They are efficient for reliable monitoring, giving farmers an edge to take precautionary measures. However, designing an energy-efficient WSN system requires a cross-layer effort and energy-aware routing protocols play a vital role in the overall energy optimization of a WSN. In this paper, we propose a new hierarchical routing protocol suitable for large area environmental monitoring such as large-scale irrigation network existing in the Punjab province of Pakistan. The proposed protocol resolves the issues faced by traditional multi-hop routing protocols such as LEACH, M-LEACH and I-LEACH, and enhances the lifespan of each WSN node that results in an increased lifespan of the whole network. We used the open-source NS3 simulator for simulation purposes and results indicate that our proposed modifications result in an average 27.8% increase in lifespan of the overall WSN when compared to the existing protocols.
Die neueste Generation von programmierbaren Logikbausteinen verfügt neben den konfigurierbaren Logikzellen über einen oder mehrere leistungsfähige Mikroprozessoren. In dieser Arbeit wird gezeigt, wie ein bestehendes Zwei-Chip-System auf einen Xilinx Zynq 7000 mit zwei ARM A9-Cores migriert wird. Bei dem System handelt es sich um das „GPS-gestützte Kreisel-system ADMA“ des Unternehmens GeneSys. Die neue Lösung verbessert den Datenaustausch zwischen dem ersten Mikroprozessor zur digitalen Signalverarbeitung und dem zweiten Prozessor zur Ablaufsteuerung durch ein Shared Memory. Für die schnelle und echtzeitfähige Datenübertragung werden zahlreiche hochbitratige Schnittstellengenutzt.
This paper presents an overview of EREMI, a two-year project funded under ERASMUS+ KA203, and its results. The project team’s main objective was to develop and validate an advanced interdisciplinary higher education curriculum, which includes lifelong learning components. The curriculum focuses on enhancing resource efficiency in the manufacturing industry and optimising poorly or non-digitised industrial physical infrastructure systems. The paper also discusses the results of the project, highlighting the successful achievement of its goals. EREMI effectively supports the transition to Industry 5.0 by preparing a common European pool of future experts. Through comprehensive research and collaboration, the project team has designed a curriculum that equips students with the necessary skills and knowledge to thrive in the evolving manufacturing landscape. Furthermore, the paper explores the significance of EREMI’s contributions to the field, emphasising the importance of resource efficiency and system optimisation in industrial settings. By addressing the challenges posed by under-digitised infrastructure, the project aims to drive sustainable and innovative practices in manufacturing. All five project partner organisations have been actively engaged in offering relevant educational content and framework for decentralised sustainable economic development in regional and national contexts through capacity building at a local level. A crucial element of the added value is the new channel for obtaining feedback from students. The survey results, which are outlined in the paper, offer valuable insights gathered from students, contributing to the continuous improvement of the project.
eTPL: An Enhanced Version of the TLS Presentation Language Suitable for Automated Parser Generation
(2017)
The specification of the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol defines its own presentation language used for the purpose of semi-formally describing the structure and on-the-wire format of TLS protocol messages. This TLS Presentation Language (TPL) is more expressive and concise than natural language or tabular descriptions, but as a result of its limited objective has a number of deficiencies. We present eTPL, an enhanced version of TPL that improves its expressiveness, flexibility, and applicability to non-TLS scenarios. We first define a generic model that describes the parsing of binary data. Based on this, we propose language constructs for TPL that capture important information which would otherwise have to be picked manually from informal protocol descriptions. Finally, we briefly introduce our software tool etpl-tool which reads eTPL definitions and automatically generates corresponding message parsers in C++. We see our work as a contribution supporting sniffing, debugging, and rapid-prototyping of wired and wireless communication systems.
Wireless sensor networks have found their way into a wide range of applications, among which environmental monitoring systems have attracted increasing interests of researchers. Main challenges for these applications are scalability of the network size and energy efficiency of the spatially distributed nodes. Nodes are mostly battery-powered and spend most of their energy budget on the radio transceiver module. In normal operation modes most energy is spent waiting for incoming frames. A so-called Wake-On-Radio (WOR) technology helps to optimize trade-offs between energy consumption, communication range, complexity of the implementation and response time. We already proposed a new protocol called SmartMAC that makes use of such WOR technology. Furthermore, it gives the possibility to balance the energy consumption between sender and receiver nodes depending on the use case. Based on several calculations and simulations, it was predicted that the SmartMAC protocol was significantly more efficient than other schemes being proposed in recent publications, while preserving a certain backward compatibility with standard IEEE802.15.4 transceivers. To verify this prediction, we implemented the SmartMAC protocol for a given hardware platform. This paper compares the realtime performance of the SmartMAC protocol against simulation results, and proves the measured values are very close to the estimated values. Thus we believe that the proposed MAC algorithms outperforms all other Wake-on-Radio MACs.
Active safety systems for advanced driver assistance systems act within a complex, dynamic traffic environment featuring various sensor systems which detect the vehicles’ surroundings and interior. This paper describes the recent progress towards a performance evaluation of car-to-car communication (C2C) for active safety systems - in particular for crash constellation prediction. The methodology introduced in this work is designed to evaluate the impact of different sensors on the accuracy of a crash constellation prediction algorithm. The benefit of C2C communication (viewed as a virtual sensor) within a sensor data fusion architecture for pre-crash collision prediction is explored. Therefore, a simulation environment for accident scenarios analysis reproducing real-world sensor behaviour, is designed and implemented. Performance evaluation results show that C2C increases confidence in the estimated position of the oncoming vehicle. With C2C enhancement the given accuracy in time-to-collision (TTC) estimation is achievable about 110 ms earlier for moderate velocities at TTC range of [0.5s..0.2s]. The uncertainty in the vehicle position prediction at the time of collision can be reduced about half by integrating C2C communication into the sensor data fusion.
Objective: Dickkopf 3 (DKK3) has been identified as a urinary biomarker. Values above 4000 pg/mg creatinine (Cr) were linked with a higher risk of short-term decline of kidney function (J Am Soc Nephrol 29: 2722–2733). However, as of today, there is little experience with DKK3 as a risk marker in everyday clinical practice. We used algorithm-based data analysis to evaluate the potential dependence of DKK3 in a cohort from a large single center in Germany.
Method: DKK3 was measured in all CKD patients in our center October 1 st 2018 till Dec. 31 2019, together with calculated GFR (eGFR) and urinary albumin/creatinine ratio (UACR). Kidney transplant patients were excluded. Until the end of follow-up Dec 31 st 2021, repeated measurements were performed for all parameters. Data analysis was performed using MD-Explorer (BioArtProducts, Rostock, Germany) and Python with multiple libraries. Linear regression models were applied in patients for DKK3, eGFR and UACR. Comparison of the models was performed with a twosided Kolmogorov-Smirnov test.
Results: 1206 DKK3 measurements were performed in 1103 patients (621 male, age 70yrs, eGFR 29,41 ml/min/1.73qm, UACR 800 mg/g). 134 patients died during follow-up. DKK3 mean was 2905 pg/mg Cr (max. 20000, 75 % percentile 3800). 121 pts had DKK3 > 4000. At the end of follow-up 7 % of patients with DKK3 < 4000 (initial eGFR 17.6) versus 39.6 % of patients with DDK3 > 4000 (initial eGFR 15.7) underwent dialysis. Compared to eGFR and UACR at baseline, DKK3 > 4000 performed best to predict eGFR loss over the next 12 months.
Conclusion: In this cohort of CKD patients, DKK3 > 4000 at baseline predicted the eGFR slope better than eGFR or UACR at baseline. DKK3 > 4000 reflected a higher risk of progression towards ESRD in patients with similar baseline eGFR levels.
Bluetooth Low Energy extends the Bluetooth standard in version 4.0 for ultra-low energy applications through the extensive usage of low-power sleeping periods, which inherently difficult in frequency hopping technologies. This paper gives an introduction into the specifics of the Bluetooth Low Energy protocol, shows a sample implementation, where an embedded device is controlled by an Android smart phone, and shows the results of timing and current consumption measurements.
Experiences with a telecare platform integration of ZigBee sensors into a middleware platform
(2012)
Narrowband Internet-of-Things (NB-IoT) is a 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) standardized cellular technology, adopted for 5G and optimized for massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC). Applications are anticipated around infrastructure monitoring, asset management, smart city and smart energy applications. In this paper, we evaluate the suitability of NB-IoT for private (campus) networks in industrial environments, including complex cloud-based applications around process automation. An end-to-end system has been developed, comprising of a sensor unit connected to a NB-IoT modem, a base station (gNodeB) equipped with a beamforming array and a local (private) network architecture comprising a sensor management system in the edge cloud. The experimental study includes field tests in realistic industrial environments with latency, reliability and coverage measurements. The results show a good suitability of NB-IoT for process automation with high scalability, low-power requirements and moderate latency requirements.
Exploiting Dissent: Towards Fuzzing-based Differential Black Box Testing of TLS Implementations
(2017)
The Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol is one of the most widely used security protocols on the internet. Yet do implementations of TLS keep on suffering from bugs and security vulnerabilities. In large part is this due to the protocol's complexity which makes implementing and testing TLS notoriously difficult. In this paper, we present our work on using differential testing as effective means to detect issues in black-box implementations of the TLS handshake protocol. We introduce a novel fuzzing algorithm for generating large and diverse corpuses of mostly-valid TLS handshake messages. Stimulating TLS servers when expecting a ClientHello message, we find messages generated with our algorithm to induce more response discrepancies and to achieve a higher code coverage than those generated with American Fuzzy Lop, TLS-Attacker, or NEZHA. In particular, we apply our approach to OpenssL, BoringSSL, WolfSSL, mbedTLS, and MatrixSSL, and find several real implementation bugs; among them a serious vulnerability in MatrixSSL 3.8.4. Besides do our findings point to imprecision in the TLS specification. We see our approach as present in this paper as the first step towards fully interactive differential testing of black-box TLS protocol implementations. Our software tools are publicly available as open source projects.
Extended Performance Measurements of Scalable 6LoWPAN Networks in an Automated Physical Testbed
(2015)
IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks, also known as 6LoWPAN, is becoming more and more a de facto standard for such communications for the Internet of Things, be it in the field of home and building automation, of industrial and process automation, or of smart metering and environmental monitoring. For all of these applications, scalability is a major precondition, as the complexity of the networks continuously increase. To maintain this growing amount of connected nodes a various 6LoWPAN implementations are available. One of the mentioned was developed by the authors' team and was tested on an Automated Physical Testbed for Wireless Systems at the Laboratory Embedded Systems and Communication Electronics of Offenburg University of Applied Sciences, which allows the flexible setup and full control of arbitrary topologies. It also supports time-varying topologies and thus helps to measure performance of the RPL implementation. The results of the measurements prove an excellent stability and a very good short and long-term performance also under dynamic conditions. In all measurements, there is an advantage of minimum 10% with regard to the average times, like global repair time; but the advantage with reagr to average values can reach up to 30%. Moreover, it can be proven that the performance predictions from other papers are consistent with the executed real-life implementations.
Wireless sensor networks have recently found their way into a wide range of applications among which environmental monitoring system has attracted increasing interests of researchers. Such monitoring applications, in general, don way into a wide range of applications among which environmental monitoring system has attracted increasing interests of researc latency requirements regarding to the energy efficiency. Also a challenge of this application is the network topology as the application should be able to be deployed in very large scale. Nevertheless low power consumption of the devices making up the network must be on focus in order to maximize the lifetime of the whole system. These devices are usually battery-powered and spend most of their energy budget on radio transceiver module. A so-called Wake-On-Radio (WoR) technology can be used to achieve a reasonable balance among power consumption, range, complexity and response time. In this paper, some designs for integration of WOR into IEEE 802.1.5.4 are to be discussed, providing an overview of trade-offs in energy consumption while deploying the WoR schemes in a monitoring system.
Wireless sensor networks have found their way into a wide range of applications among which environmental monitoring systems have attracted increasing interests of researchers. The main challenges for the applications are scalability of the network size and energy efficiency of the spatially distributed motes. These devices are mostly battery-powered and spend most of their energy budget on the radio transceiver module. A so-called Wake-On-Radio (WOR) technology can be used to achieve a reasonable balance among power consumption, range, complexity and response time. In this paper, a novel design for integration of WOR into IEEE802.1.5.4 is presented, which flexibly allows trade-offs in energy consumption between sender and receiver station, between real-time capability and energy consumption. For identical behavior, the proposed scheme is significantly more efficient than other schemes, which were proposed in recent publications, while preserving backward compatibility with standard IEEE802.15.4 transceivers.
Formal Description of Use Cases for Industry 4.0 Maintenance Processes Using Blockchain Technology
(2019)
Maintenance processes in Industry 4.0 applications try to achieve a high degree of quality to reduce the downtime of machinery. The monitoring of executed maintenance activities is challenging as in complex production setups, multiple stakeholders are involved. So, full transparency of the different activities and of the state of the machine can only be supported, if these stakeholders trust each other. Therefore, distributed ledger technologies, like Blockchain, can be promising candidates for supporting such applications. The goal of this paper is a formal description of business and technical interactions between non-trustful stakeholders in the context of Industry 4.0 maintenance processes using distributed ledger technologies. It also covers the integration of smart contracts for automated triggering of activities.
Although short range wireless communication explicitly targets local and very regional applications, range continues to be an extremely important issue. The range directly depends on the so called link budget, which can be increased by the choice of modulation and coding schemes. Especially, the recent transceiver generation comes with extensive and flexible support for Software Defined Radio (SDR). The SX127x family from Semtech Corp. is a member of this device class and promises significant benefits for range, robust performance, and battery lifetime compared to competing technologies. This contribution gives a short overview into the technologies to support Long Range (LoRa ™), describes the outdoor setup at the Laboratory Embedded Systems and Communication Electronics of Offenburg University of Applied Sciences, shows detailed measurement results and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of this technology.
The paper describes the hardware and software architecture of the developed multi MEMS sensor prototype module, consisting of ARM Cortex M4 STM32F446 microcontroller unit, five 9-axis inertial measurement units MPU9255 (3D accelerometer, 3D gyroscope, 3D magnetometer and temperature sensor) and a BMP280 barometer. The module is also equipped with WiFi wireless interface (Espressif ESP8266 chip). The module is constructed in the form of a truncated pyramid. Inertial sensors are mounted on a special basement at different angles to each other to eliminate hardware sensors drifts and to provide the capability for self-calibration. The module fuses information obtained from all types of inertial sensors (acceleration, rotation rate, magnetic field and air pressure) in order to calculate orientation and trajectory. It might be used as an Inertial Measurement Unit, Vertical Reference Unit or Attitude and Heading Reference System.
Novel manufacturing technologies, such as printed electronics, may enable future applications for the Internet of Everything like large-area sensor devices, disposable security, and identification tags. Printed physically unclonable functions (PUFs) are promising candidates to be embedded as hardware security keys into lightweight identification devices. We investigate hybrid PUFs based on a printed PUF core. The statistics on the intra- and inter-hamming distance distributions indicate a performance suitable for identification purposes. Our evaluations are based on statistical simulations of the PUF core circuit and the thereof generated challenge-response pairs. The analysis shows that hardware-intrinsic security features can be realized with printed lightweight devices.
Android is an operating system which was developed for use in smart mobile phones and is the current leader in this market. A lot of efforts are being spent to make Android available to the embedded world, as well. Many embedded systems do not have a local GUI and are therefore called headless devices. This paper presents the results of an analysis of the general suitability of Anroid in headless embedded systems and ponders the advantages and disadvantages. It focuses on the hardware related issues, i.e. to what extent Android supports hardware peripherals normally used in embedded systems.
Wireless synchronization of industrial controllers is a challenging task in environments where wired solutions are not practical. The best solutions proposed so far to solve this problem require pretty expensive and highly specialized FPGA-based devices. With this work we counter the trend by introducing a straightforward approach to synchronize a fairly cheap IEEE 802.11 integrated wireless chip (IWC) with external devices. More specifically we demonstrate how we can reprogram the software running in the 802.11 IWC of the Raspberry Pi 3B and transform the receiver input potential of the wireless transceiver into a triggering signal for an external inexpensive FPGA. Experimental results show a mean-square synchronization error of less than 496 ns, while the absolute synchronization error does not exceed 6 μs. The jitter of the output signal that we obtain after synchronizing the clock of the external device did not exceed 5.2 μs throughout the whole measurement campaign. Even though we do not score new records in term of accuracy, we do in terms of complexity, cost, and availability of the required components: all these factors make the proposed technique a very promising of the deployment of large-scale low-cost automation solutions.
The development of Internet of Things (IoT) embedded devices is proliferating, especially in the smart home automation system. However, the devices unfortunately are imposing overhead on the IoT network. Thus, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) have introduced the IPv6 Low-Power Wireless Personal Area Network (6LoWPAN) to provide a solution to this constraint. 6LoWPAN is an Internet Protocol (IP) based communication where it allows each device to connect to the Internet directly. As a result, the power consumption is reduced. However, the limitation of data transmission frame size of the IPv6 Routing Protocol for Low-power and Lossy Network’s (RPL’s) had made it to be the running overhead, and thus consequently degrades the performance of the network in terms of Quality of Service (QoS), especially in a large network. Therefore, HRPL was developed to enhance the RPL protocol to minimize redundant retransmission that causes the routing overhead. We introduced the T-Cut Off Delay to set the limit of the delay and the H field to respond to actions taken within the T-Cut Off Delay. Thus, this paper presents the comparison performance assessment of HRPL between simulation and real-world scenarios (6LoWPAN Smart Home System (6LoSH) testbed) in validating the HRPL functionalities. Our results show that HRPL had successfully reduced the routing overhead when implemented in 6LoSH. The observed Control Traffic Overhead (CTO) packet difference between each experiment is 7.1%, and the convergence time is 9.3%. Further research is recommended to be conducted for these metrics: latency, Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), and throughput.
Hybrid low-voltage physical unclonable function based on inkjet-printed metal-oxide transistors
(2020)
Modern society is striving for digital connectivity that demands information security. As an emerging technology, printed electronics is a key enabler for novel device types with free form factors, customizability, and the potential for large-area fabrication while being seamlessly integrated into our everyday environment. At present, information security is mainly based on software algorithms that use pseudo random numbers. In this regard, hardware-intrinsic security primitives, such as physical unclonable functions, are very promising to provide inherent security features comparable to biometrical data. Device-specific, random intrinsic variations are exploited to generate unique secure identifiers. Here, we introduce a hybrid physical unclonable function, combining silicon and printed electronics technologies, based on metal oxide thin film devices. Our system exploits the inherent randomness of printed materials due to surface roughness, film morphology and the resulting electrical characteristics. The security primitive provides high intrinsic variation, is non-volatile, scalable and exhibits nearly ideal uniqueness.