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RETIS – Real-Time Sensitive Wireless Communication Solution for Industrial Control Applications
(2020)
Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communications (URLLC) has been always a vital component of many industrial applications. The paper proposes a new wireless URLLC solution called RETIS, which is suitable for factory automation and fast process control applications, where low latency, low jitter, and high data exchange rates are mandatory. In the paper, we describe the communication protocol as well as the hardware structure of the network nodes for implementing the required functionality. Many techniques enabling fast, reliable wireless transmissions are used – short Transmission Time Interval (TTI), Time-Division Multiple Access (TDMA), MIMO, optional duplicated data transfer, Forward Error Correction (FEC), ACK mechanism. Preliminary tests show that reliable end-to-end latency down to 350 μs and packet exchange rate up to 4 kHz can be reached (using quadruple MIMO and standard IEEE 802.15.4 PHY at 250 kbit/s).
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.
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).
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.
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.
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 (IEEE802.15.4), also known as 6LoWPAN, has well evolved as a primary contender for short range wireless communications and holds the promise of an Internet of Things, which is completely based on the Internet Protocol. The authors' team has developed a 6LoWPAN protocol stack in C language, the stack without the necessity to use a specific design environment or operating system. It is highly flexible, modular, and portable and can be enhanced by several interesting modules, like a Wake-On-Radio-(WOR) MAC layer or a TLS1.2 based security sublayer. The stack is made available as open source at https://github.com/hso-esk/emb6. It was extensively tested on the Automated Physical Testbed (APTB) for Wireless Systems, which is available in the authors' lab and allows a flexible setup and full control of arbitrary topologies. The results of the measurements demonstrate a very good stability and short-term with long-term performance also under dynamic conditions.
The overview of public key infrastructure based security approaches for vehicular communications
(2015)
Modern transport infrastructure becomes a full member of globally connected network. Leading vehicle manufacturers have already triggered development process, output of which will open a new horizon of possibilities for consumers and developers by providing a new communication entity - a car, thus enabling Car2X communications. Nevertheless some of available systems already provide certain possibilities for vehicles to communicate, most of them are considered not sufficiently secured. During last 15 years a number of big research projects funded by European Union and USA governments were started and concluded after which a set of standards were published prescribing a common architecture for Car2X and vehicles onboard communications. This work concentrates on combining inner and outer vehicular communications together with a use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).
Wireless communication systems more and more become part of our daily live. Especially with the Internet of Things (IoT) the overall connectivity increases rapidly since everyday objects become part of the global network. For this purpose several new wireless protocols have arisen, whereas 6LoWPAN (IPv6 over Low power Wireless Personal Area Networks) can be seen as one of the most important protocols within this sector. Originally designed on top of the IEEE802.15.4 standard it is a subject to various adaptions that will allow to use 6LoWPAN over different technologies; e.g. DECT Ultra Low Energy (ULE). Although this high connectivity offers a lot of new possibilities, there are several requirements and pitfalls coming along with such new systems. With an increasing number of connected devices the interoperability between different providers is one of the biggest challenges, which makes it necessary to verify the functionality and stability of the devices and the network. Therefore testing becomes one of the key components that decides on success or failure of such a system. Although there are several protocol implementations commonly available; e.g., for IoT based systems, there is still a lack of according tools and environments as well as for functional and conformance testing. This article describes the architecture and functioning of the proposed test framework based on Testing and Test Control Notation Version 3 (TTCN-3) for 6LoWPAN over ULE networks.
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.
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 CAN bus still is an important fieldbus in various domains, e.g. for in-car communication or automation applications. To counter security threats and concerns in such scenarios we design, implement, and evaluate the use of an end-to-end security concept based on the Transport Layer Security protocol. It is used to establish authenticated, integrity-checked, and confidential communication channels between field devices connected via CAN. Our performance measurements show that it is possible to use TLS at least for non time-critical applications, as well as for generic embedded networks.
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.
IPv6 over LoRaWAN™
(2016)
Although short-range wireless communication explicitly targets local and regional applications, range continues to be a highly important issue. The range directly depends on the so-called link budget, which can be increased by the choice of modulation and coding schemes. The recent transceiver generation in particular comes with extensive and flexible support for software-defined radio (SDR). The SX127× 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 of the technologies to support Long Range (LoRa™) and the corresponding Layer 2 protocol (LoRaWAN™). It particularly describes the possibility to combine the Internet Protocol, i.e. IPv6, into LoRaWAN™, so that it can be directly integrated into a full-fledged Internet of Things (IoT). The proposed solution, which we name 6LoRaWAN, has been implemented and tested; results of the experiments are also shown in this paper.
Security in IT systems, particularly in embedded devices like Cyber Physical Systems (CPSs), has become an important matter of concern as it is the prerequisite for ensuring privacy and safety. Among a multitude of existing security measures, the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol family offers mature and standardized means for establishing secure communication channels over insecure transport media. In the context of classical IT infrastructure, its security with regard to protocol and implementation attacks has been subject to extensive research. As TLS protocols find their way into embedded environments, we consider the security and robustness of implementations of these protocols specifically in the light of the peculiarities of embedded systems. We present an approach for systematically checking the security and robustness of such implementations using fuzzing techniques and differential testing. In spite of its origin in testing TLS implementations we expect our approach to likewise be applicable to implementations of other cryptographic protocols with moderate efforts.
The Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol is a cornerstone of secure network communication, not only for online banking, e-commerce, and social media, but also for industrial communication and cyber-physical systems. Unfortunately, implementing TLS correctly is very challenging, as becomes evident by considering the high frequency of bugfixes filed for many TLS implementations. Given the high significance of TLS, advancing the quality of implementations is a sustained pursuit. We strive to support these efforts by presenting a novel, response-distribution guided fuzzing algorithm for differential testing of black-box TLS implementations. Our algorithm generates highly diverse and mostly-valid TLS stimulation messages, which evoke more behavioral discrepancies in TLS server implementations than other algorithms. We evaluate our algorithm using 37 different TLS implementations and discuss―by means of a case study―how the resulting data allows to assess and improve not only implementations of TLS but also to identify underspecified corner cases. We introduce suspiciousness as a per-implementation metric of anomalous implementation behavior and find that more recent or bug-fixed implementations tend to have a lower suspiciousness score. Our contribution is complementary to existing tools and approaches in the area, and can help reveal implementation flaws and avoid regression. While being presented for TLS, we expect our algorithm's guidance scheme to be applicable and useful also in other contexts. Source code and data is made available for fellow researchers in order to stimulate discussions and invite others to benefit from and advance our work.
PROFINET Security: A Look on Selected Concepts for Secure Communication in the Automation Domain
(2023)
We provide a brief overview of the cryptographic security extensions for PROFINET, as defined and specified by PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI). These come in three hierarchically defined Security Classes, called Security Class 1,2 and 3. Security Class 1 provides basic security improvements with moderate implementation impact on PROFINET components. Security Classes 2 and 3, in contrast, introduce an integrated cryptographic protection of PROFINET communication. We first highlight and discuss the security features that the PROFINET specification offers for future PROFINET products. Then, as our main focus, we take a closer look at some of the technical challenges that were faced during the conceptualization and design of Security Class 2 and 3 features. In particular, we elaborate on how secure application relations between PROFINET components are established and how a disruption-free availability of a secure communication channel is guaranteed despite the need to refresh cryptographic keys regularly. The authors are members of the PI Working Group CB/PG10 Security.
The Datagram Transport Layer Security (DTLS) protocol has been designed to provide end-to-end security over unreliable communication links. Where its connection establishment is concerned, DTLS copes with potential loss of protocol messages by implementing its own loss detection and retransmission scheme. However, the default scheme turns out to be suboptimal for links with high transmission error rates and low data rates, such as wireless links in electromagnetically harsh industrial environments. Therefore, in this paper, as a first step we provide an analysis of the standard DTLS handshake's performance under such adverse transmission conditions. Our studies are based on simulations that model message loss as the result of bit transmission errors. We consider several handshake variants, including endpoint authentication via pre-shared keys or certificates. As a second step, we propose and evaluate modifications to the way message loss is dealt with during the handshake, making DTLS deployable in situations which are prohibitive for default DTLS.
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.
Due to its numerous application fields and benefits, virtualization has become an interesting and attractive topic in computer and mobile systems, as it promises advantages for security and cost efficiency. However, it may bring additional performance overhead. Recently, CPU virtualization has become more popular for embedded platforms, where the performance overhead is especially critical. In this article, we present the measurements of the performance overhead of the two hypervisors Xen and Jailhouse on ARM processors in the context of the heavy load “Cpuburn-a8” application and compare it to a native Linux system running on ARM processors.
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.
As industrial networks continue to expand and connect more devices and users, they face growing security challenges such as unauthorized access and data breaches. This paper delves into the crucial role of security and trust in industrial networks and how trust management systems (TMS) can mitigate malicious access to these networks.The TMS presented in this paper leverages distributed ledger technology (blockchain) to evaluate the trustworthiness of blockchain nodes, including devices and users, and make access decisions accordingly. While this approach is applicable to blockchain, it can also be extended to other areas. This approach can help prevent malicious actors from penetrating industrial networks and causing harm. The paper also presents the results of a simulation to demonstrate the behavior of the TMS and provide insights into its effectiveness.
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.
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.
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.
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.
With the increasing degree of interconnectivity in industrial factories, security becomes more and more the most important stepping-stone towards wide adoption of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). This paper summarizes the most important aspects of one keynote of DESSERT2020 conference. It highlights the ongoing and open research activities on the different levels, from novel cryptographic algorithms over security protocol integration and testing to security architectures for the full lifetime of devices and systems. It includes an overview of the research activities at the authors' institute.
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 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.
The low cost and small size of MEMS inertial sensors allows their combination into a multi sensor module in order to improve performance. However the different linear accelerations measured on different places on a rotating rigid body have to be considered for the proper fusion of the measurements. The errors in measurement of MEMS inertial sensors include deterministic imperfection, but also random noise. The gain in accuracy of using multiple sensors depends strongly on the correlation between these errors from the different sensors. Although for sensor fusion it usually assumed that the measurement errors of different sensors are uncorrelated, estimation theory shows that for the combination of the same type of sensors actually a negative correlation will be more beneficial. Therefore we describe some important and often neglected considerations for the combination of several sensors and also present some preliminary results with regard to the correlation of measurements from a simple multi sensor setup.
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.
A novel approach of a test environment for embedded networking nodes has been conceptualized and implemented. Its basis is the use of virtual nodes in a PC environment, where each node executes the original embedded code. Different nodes run in parallel, connected via so-called virtual channels. The environment allows to modifying the behavior of the virtual channels as well as the overall topology during runtime to virtualize real-life networking scenarios. 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 as well as it supports the identification of bugs in wireless communication stacks. In combination with powerful test execution systems, it is possible to create a continuous development and integration flow.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Legacy industrial communication protocols are proved robust and functional. During the last decades, the industry has invented completely new or advanced versions of the legacy communication solutions. However, even with the high adoption rate of these new solutions, still the majority industry applications run on legacy, mostly fieldbus related technologies. Profibus is one of those technologies that still keep on growing in the market, albeit a slow in market growth in recent years. A retrofit technology that would enable these technologies to connect to the Internet of Things, utilize the ever growing potential of data analysis, predictive maintenance or cloud-based application, while at the same time not changing a running system is fundamental.
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 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.
Energy and environment continue to be major issues of human mankind. This holds true on the regional, the national, and the global level. And it is one of the problems, where engineers and scientists in conjunction with political will and people's awareness, can find new approaches and solutions to save the natural resources and to make their use more efficient.
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.
In the field of smart metering it can be observed that standardized protocol, like Wireless M-Bus or ZigBee, enjoy a rapidly increasing popularity. For the protocol implementations, however, up to now, mostly legacy engineering processes and technologies are used, and modern approaches such as model driven design processes or open software platform are disregarded. Therefore, within the WiMBex project, it shall be demonstrated that it is possible to develop a commercial class Wireless M-Bus implementation following state-of-the art design process and using TinyOS as an open source platform. This contribution describes the overall approach of the project, as well as the state and the first experiences of the current work in progress.
Climate change and resultant scarcity of water are becoming major challenges for countries around the world. With the advent of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in the last decade and a relatively new concept of Internet of Things (IoT), embedded systems developers are now working on designing control and automation systems that are lower in cost and more sustainable than the existing telemetry systems for monitoring. The Indus river basin in Pakistan has one of the world's largest irrigation systems and it is extremely challenging to design a low-cost embedded system for monitoring and control of waterways that can last for decades. In this paper, we present a hardware design and performance evaluation of a smart water metering solution that is IEEE 802.15.4-compliant. The results show that our hardware design is as powerful as the reference design, but allows for additional flexibility both in hardware and in firmware. The indigenously designed solution has a power added efficiency (PAE) of 24.7% that is expected to last for 351 and 814 days for nodes with and without a power amplifier (PA). Similarly, the results show that a broadband communication (434 MHz) over more than 3km can be supported, which is an important stepping stone for designing a complete coverage solution of large-scale waterways.
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 immer weitreichenderen Anwendungen des Smart Metering und des Smart Grid stellen immer höhere Anforderungen an Kommunikationstechnologien, die die Zielkonflikte aus Echtzeitfähige, Stabilität, Kosten und Energieeffizienz möglichst anwendungsoptimiert und auf einem immer höheren Niveau lösen. Insbesondere im Bereich der so genannten Primärkommunikation zwischen einem Sensor- oder Aktorknoten und einem Datensammler mit Gatewayfunktionalität konnten in den vergangenen Jahren wesentliche Fortschritte erzielt werden. Zu nennen sind hierbei insbesondere die Aktivitäten der ZigBee Alliance rund um den offenen Spezifikationsprozess des ZigBee Smart Energy Profiles (SEP) und der OMS-Gruppe beim ZVEI, die auf dem Wireless M-Bus nach EN13757-4 aufbauen, der sich seinerseits lebhaft und zielgerichtet weiter entwickelt. Der Beitrag diskutiert die vorhandenen Einschränkungen und die verfügbaren Lösungsansätze. Er illustriert diese anhand einiger öffentlich geförderter Projekte, an denen das Team des Autors beteiligt ist.
This paper presents the elements and the results from the European research project inCASA (Integrated Network for Completely Assisted Senior Citizen’s Autonomy), which designed and implemented a seamless integration of heterogeneous systems and network protocols for regionally distributed telecare and telehealth applications. The integration includes a multitude of physical interface, the transcoding of data models using embedded middleware, and a backend system with open interfaces. The implementation was verified in field tests in five European countries.
Immer mehr Anwendungen der Heim- und der Gebäudeautomatisierung werden vernetzt, weil damit erweiterte Funktionen ermöglicht oder Kosten gespart werden können. Dabei führt eine Reihe von Aspekten zu einem erhöhten Risiko für diese vernetzten Systeme. Gegenwärtig arbeiten verschiedene Gruppen an Sicherheitslösungen für die vernetzte Heim- und Gebäudeautomatisierung. Der Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über diese Aktivitäten und zeigt die wesentlichen Entwicklungsrichtungen auf.
Home Care Applications and Ambient Assisted Living become increasingly attractive. This is caused as well by market pull, as the number of elderly people grows monotonously, as well as by technology push, as technological advances and attractive products pave the way to economically advantageous offerings. However, in real-life applications, a significant number of challenges remain. Those include seamless communication between products from different supplier, due to the lack of sufficiently standardized solutions, energy budgets, and scalability of solutions. This paper presents the experience from the InCASA project (Integrated Network for Completely Assisted Senior Citizen's Autonomy), where architectures for heterogeneous physical and logical communication flows are examined.
The communication technologies for automatic meter 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 developments around the wireless part of the smart grid communication were initialized, which possibly could have an impact on the network architectures and the markets far beyond Germany and far beyond energy automation. Besides the specification of the OMS Group of a security extension to the Wireless M-Bus protocol (EN13757-4), 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 system (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, the proposed paper will present the most important characteristics of this architecture. It will then give an insight into the implementation of the OMS security protocols, which imply the usage of a mutually authenticated SSL protocol also in the Local Metrological Network. This is achieved with the help of an additional Authentication and Fragmentation Layer (AFL). This secure communication will be terminated in a BSI conformant secure smart meter gateway, which is developed in a different project and described in the second step. Finally, the contribution will discuss the integration of such a metering network into an overall telecommunication network and PKI infrastructure.
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 provisioning of security for highly dynamic wireless networks, as for Car2X applications is still a major topic, as very specific requirements have to be solved. Those include a perfect privacy level and advanced real-time behavior, and the necessity to work with a public infrastructure (PKI) to support secure authentication.
This contribution analyzes these requirements, discusses the existing approaches, performs a gap analysis and elaborates on proposals to fill these gaps. It describes work in progress within the KoFAS-initiative for the development of a cooperative pedestrian protection system (CPPS).
The Internet of Things (IoT), ubiquitous computing and ubiquitous connectivity, Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), ambient intelligence, Machine-to-Machine communication (M2M) or Car-to-Car (C2C)-communication, smart metering, smart grid, telematics, telecare, telehealth – there are many buzzwords around current developments related to the Internet.
This contribution gives an overview on such IoT-applications, as they are already used today to improve the availability of information, increase efficiency, push system limits and extend the value chain. At a closer look, the economic and technical development can be separated into different phases. It is interesting that we are currently at the threshold to a new phase, with decentralized and cooperative communication and control nodes as cornerstones. Thus, embedded systems and their connectivity are in the middle of the scene.
This recent development is described along with some example projects from the author’s team which are used in industrial automation, energy supply and distribution (home automation and smart metering), traffic engineering (cooperative driver assistance systems), and in telehealth and telecare.
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.
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.
In this work, we consider a duty-cycled wireless sensor network with the assumption that the on/off schedules are uncoordinated. In such networks, as all nodes may not be awake during the transmission of time synchronization messages, nodes will require to re-transmit the synchronization messages. Ideally a node should re-transmit for the maximum sleep duration to ensure that all nodes are synchronized. However, such a proposition will immensely increase the energy consumption of the nodes. Such a situation demands that there is an upper bound of the number of retransmissions. We refer to the time a node spends in re-transmission of the control message as broadcast duration. We ask the question, what should be the broadcast duration to ensure that a certain percentage of the available nodes are synchronized. The problem to estimate the broadcast duration is formulated so as to capture the probability threshold of the nodes being synchronized. Results show the proposed analytical model can predict the broadcast duration with a given lower error margin under real world conditions, thus demonstrating the efficiency of our solution.
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.
The application of leaky feeder (radiating) cables is a common solution for the implementation of reliable radio communication in huge industrial buildings, tunnels and mining environment. This paper explores the possibilities of leaky feeders for 1D and 2D localization in wireless systems based on time of flight chirp spread spectrum technologies. The main focus of this paper is to present and analyse the results of time of flight and received signal strength measurements with leaky feeders in indoor and outdoor conditions. The authors carried out experiments to compare ranging accuracy and radio coverage area for a point-like monopole antenna and for a leaky feeder acting as a distributed antenna. In all experiments RealTrac equipment based on nanoLOC radio standard was used. The estimation of the most probable path of a chirp signal going through a leaky feeder was calculated using the ray tracing approach. The typical non-line-of-sight errors profiles are presented. The results show the possibility to use radiating cables in real time location technologies based on time-of-flight method.
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.
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.
Physically Unclonable Functions (PUFs) are hardware-based security primitives, which allow for inherent device fingerprinting. Therefore, intrinsic variation of imperfect manufactured systems is exploited to generate device-specific, unique identifiers. With printed electronics (PE) joining the internet of things (IoT), hardware-based security for novel PE-based systems is of increasing importance. Furthermore, PE offers the possibility for split-manufacturing, which mitigates the risk of PUF response readout by third parties, before commissioning. In this paper, we investigate a printed PUF core as intrinsic variation source for the generation of unique identifiers from a crossbar architecture. The printed crossbar PUF is verified by simulation of a 8×8-cells crossbar, which can be utilized to generate 32-bit wide identifiers. Further focus is on limiting factors regarding printed devices, such as increased parasitics, due to novel materials and required control logic specifications. The simulation results highlight, that the printed crossbar PUF is capable to generate close-to-ideal unique identifiers at the investigated feature size. As proof of concept a 2×2-cells printed crossbar PUF core is fabricated and electrically characterized.
Printed electronics can add value to existing products by providing new smart functionalities, such as sensing elements over large-areas on flexible or non-conformal surfaces. Here we present a hardware concept and prototype for a thinned ASIC integrated with an inkjet-printed temperature sensor alongside in-built additional security and unique identification features. The hybrid system exploits the advantages of inkjet-printable platinum-based sensors, physically unclonable function circuits and a fluorescent particle-based coating as a tamper protection layer.
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].
For the past few years Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) have emerged as key technologies for the connectivity of many applications in the Internet of Things (IoT) combining low-data rates with strict cost and energy restrictions. Especially LoRa/LoRaWAN enjoys a high visibility on today’s markets, because of its good performance and its open community. Originally LoRa was designed for operation within the Sub-GHz ISM bands for Industrial, Scientific and Medical applications. However, at the end of 2018, a LoRa-based solution in the 2.4GHz ISM-band was presented promising higher bandwidths and higher data rates. Furthermore, it overcomes the limited duty-cycle prescribed by the regulations in the ISM-bands and therefore also opens doors to many novel application fields. Also, due to higher bandwidths and shorter transmission times, the use of alternative MAC layer protocols becomes very interesting, i.e. for TDMA based-approaches. Within this paper, we propose a system architecture with 2.4GHz LoRa components combining two aspects. On the one hand, we present a design and an implementation of a 2.4GHz based LoRaWAN solution that can be seamlessly integrated into existing LoRaWAN back-hauls. On the other hand, we describe deterministic setup using a Time Slotted Channel Hopping (TSCH) approach as defined in the IEEE802.15.4-2015 standard for industrial applications. Finally, measurements show the performance of the system.
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.
Training deep neural networks using backpropagation is very memory and computationally intensive. This makes it difficult to run on-device learning or fine-tune neural networks on tiny, embedded devices such as low-power micro-controller units (MCUs). Sparse backpropagation algorithms try to reduce the computational load of on-device learning by training only a subset of the weights and biases. Existing approaches use a static number of weights to train. A poor choice of this so-called backpropagation ratio limits either the computational gain or can lead to severe accuracy losses. In this paper we present TinyProp, the first sparse backpropagation method that dynamically adapts the back-propagation ratio during on-device training for each training step. TinyProp induces a small calculation overhead to sort the elements of the gradient, which does not significantly impact the computational gains. TinyProp works particularly well on fine-tuning trained networks on MCUs, which is a typical use case for embedded applications. For typical datasets from three datasets MNIST, DCASE2020 and CIFAR10, we are 5 times faster compared to non-sparse training with an accuracy loss of on average 1%. On average, TinyProp is 2.9 times faster than existing, static sparse backpropagation algorithms and the accuracy loss is reduced on average by 6 % compared to a typical static setting of the back-propagation ratio.
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.
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 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.
The paper describes the methodology and experimental results for revealing similarities in thermal dependencies of biases of accelerometers and gyroscopes from 250 inertial MEMS chips (MPU-9250). Temperature profiles were measured on an experimental setup with a Peltier element for temperature control. Classification of temperature curves was carried out with machine learning approach.
A perfect sensor should not have thermal dependency at all. Thus, only sensors inside the clusters with smaller dependency (smaller total temperature slopes) might be pre-selected for production of high accuracy inertial navigation modules. It was found that no unified thermal profile (“family” curve) exists for all sensors in a production batch. However, obviously, sensors might be grouped according to their parameters. Therefore, the temperature compensation profiles might be regressed for each group. 12 slope coefficients on 5 degrees temperature intervals from 0°C to +60°C were used as the features for the k-means++ clustering algorithm.
The minimum number of clusters for all sensors to be well separated from each other by bias thermal profiles in our case is 6. It was found by applying the elbow method. For each cluster a regression curve can be obtained.
The Bluetooth community is in the process to develop mesh technology. This is highly promising as Bluetooth is widely available in Smart Phones and Tablet PCs, allowing an easy access to the Internet of Things. In this paper work, we investigate the performance of Bluetooth enabled mesh networking that we performed to identify the strengths and weaknesses. A demonstrator for this protocol has been implemented by using the Fruity Mesh protocol implementation. Extensive test cases have been executed to measure the performance, the reliability, the power consumption and the delay. For this, an Automated Physical Testbed (APTB), which emulates the physical channels has been used. The results of these measurements are considered useful for the real implementation of Bluetooth; not only for home and building automation, but also for industrial automation.
Enabling ultra-low latency is one of the major drivers for the development of future cellular networks to support delay sensitive applications including factory automation, autonomous vehicles and tactile internet. Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT) is a 3 rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Release 13 standardized cellular network currently optimized for massive Machine Type Communication (mMTC). To reduce the latency in cellular networks, 3GPP has proposed some latency reduction techniques that include Semi Persistent Scheduling (SPS) and short Transmission Time Interval (sTTI). In this paper, we investigate the potential of adopting both techniques in NB-IoT networks and provide a comprehensive performance evaluation. We firstly analyze these techniques and then implement them in an open-source network simulator (NS3). Simulations are performed with a focus on Cat-NB1 User Equipment (UE) category to evaluate the uplink user-plane latency. Our results show that SPS and sTTI have the potential to greatly reduce the latency in NB-IoT systems. We believe that both techniques can be integrated into NB-IoT systems to position NB-IoT as a preferred technology for low data rate Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communication (URLLC) applications before 5G has been fully rolled out.
Low latency communication is essential to enable mission-critical machine-type communication (mMTC) use cases in cellular networks. Factory and process automation are major areas that require such low latency communication. In this paper, we investigate the potential of adopting the semi-persistent scheduling (SPS) latency reduction technique in narrowband LTE (NB-LTE) networks and provide a comprehensive performance evaluation. First, we investigate and implement SPS in an open-source network simulator (NS3). We perform simulations with a focus on LTE-M and Narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) systems and evaluate the impact of the SPS technique on the uplink latency of these narrowband systems in real industrial automation scenarios. The performance gain of adopting SPS is analyzed and the results is compared with the legacy dynamic scheduling. Our results show that SPS has the potential to reduce the latency of cellular Internet of Things (cIoT) networks. We believe that SPS can be integrated into LTE-M and NB-IoT systems to support low-latency industrial applications.
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.
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.
Environmental Monitoring is an attractive application field for Wireless Sensor Network (WSN). Water Level Monitoring helps to increase the efficiency of water distribution and management. In Pakistan, the world’s largest irrigation system covers 90.000 km of channels which needs to be monitored and managed on different levels. Especially the sensor systems for the small distribution channels need to be low energy and low cost. The distribution presents a technical solution for a communication system which is developed in a research project being co-funded by German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). The communication module is based on IEEE-802.15.4 transceivers which are enhanced through Wake-On-Radio (WOR) to combine low-energy and real-time behavior. On higher layers, IPv6 (6LoWPAN) and corresponding routing protocols like Routing Protocol for Low power and Lossy Networks (RPL) can extend range of the network. The data are stored in a database and can be viewed online via a web interface. Of course, also automatic data analysis can be performed.
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.
TSN, or Time Sensitive Networking, is becoming an essential technology for integrated networks, enabling deterministic and best effort traffic to coexist on the same infrastructure. In order to properly configure, run and secure such TSN, monitoring functionality is a must. The TSN standard already has some preparations to provide such functionality and there are different methods to choose from. We implemented different methods to measure the time synchronisation accuracy between devices as a C library and compared the measurement results. Furthermore, the library has been integrated into the ControlTSN engineering framework.
Recently, the demand for scalable, efficient and accurate Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS) has seen a rising trend due to their utility in providing Location Based Services (LBS). Visible Light Communication (VLC) based IPS designs, VLC-IPS, leverage Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) in indoor environments for localization. Among VLC-based designs, Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) based techniques are shown to provide very low errors in the relative position of receivers. Our considered system consists of five LEDs that act as transmitters and a single receiver (photodiode or image sensor in smart phone) whose position coordinates in an indoor environment are to be determined. As a performance criterion, Cramer Rao Lower Bound (CRLB) is derived for range estimations and the impact of various factors, such as, LED transmission frequency, position of reference LED light, and the number of LED lights, on localization accuracy has been studied. Simulation results show that depending on the optimal values of these factors, location estimation on the order of few centimeters can be realistically achieved.
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.
Ultra wide band (UWB) signals are well suited both for short-range wireless communication and for high-precision localization applications. Channel impulse response (CIR) analysis in UWB systems is a major element in localization estimation. In this paper, practical aspects of CIR are presented. I.e. a technique for the construction of the accumulated echo-gram of a multipath delayed signal is proposed. Decawave hardware was used to demonstrate the technique of analysis of fine structure of signals with a sub-nanosecond resolution. Temporal stability, reliability and two-way characteristics of such echo-grams are discussed as well. The results of using two EVK1000 radio modules as a radar installation to detect a target in indoor environments prove that a low cost UWB intrusion detection and through-the-wall-vision systems might be developed using the proposed technique.
On the possibility to use leaky feeders for positioning in chirp spread spectrum technologies
(2014)
Real Time Localization Systems using electromagnetic waves have significantly evolved during the last years. They also might be used in industrial and in mining environments. Here, topologies might include tunnels, where it might be difficult to ensure the field coverage. Leaky feeder cables are a common solution in case of normal radio communication. In this paper, we study the possibilities to use leaky feeders also for Time-of-Flight based real time localization in such linear topologies, like tunnels, but possibly also for 2D-localization. Theoretical analysis is verified with real-life measurements, which were performed using Chirp Spread Spectrum Technologies.
Ranging errors are inevitable in all local positioning systems, including those based on Time-of-Flight (ToF) technique. Results of experiments show that the major cause for these errors is a signal degradation from multipath propagation. This effect is especially critical in case of Non-Light-of-Sight (NLOS) conditions. This paper describes causes that affects ranging errors for nanoLOC™-TOF-technology and presents estimations for the probability density functions of such errors under different NLOS conditions. The provided estimations allow the improvement of the accuracy of the localization through the subsequent mitigation of the ranging errors from the measurements. Additionally, it is proposed to increase the number of cases of NLOS-conditions for the improvement of the accuracy.
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.
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.
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) have emerged as interesting topic in the research community due to its manifold applications. One of the main challenges of this field is the energy consumption of the nodes, which typically is quite restricted due to the required lifetime of such WSNs. To solve that problem several energy-saving MAC protocols have been developed so far. One of them recently presented by the authors is the so-called SmartMAC as an extension to the IEEE802.15.4 standard. In this paper, we present the implementation details of the porting of the SmartMAC protocol to the discrete event network simulator NS3. We develop this module for NS3 to simulate the performance, multi node execution, and multi node configuration. Along with this model, we also present an energy model for the evaluation of the energy consumption. The current implementation in NS3 is based on the LR-WPAN (Low-Rate Wireless Personal Area Networks) as specified by the IEEE802.15.4 (2006) standard. The simulation results show that the SmartMAC with its sleep and wake-up mechanisms for the transceivers, is significantly more efficient than the current NS3 MAC (Medium Access Control) scheme.