CTN Issue: February 2012

1. A Survey on Facilities for Experimental Internet of Things Research

The proliferation of an enlarged gamut of devices able to be directly connected to the Internet is leading to a new ubiquitous-computing paradigm. Indeed, the Internet has experienced a tremendous growth in the past three decades, evolving from a network of a few hundred hosts to a platform capable linking billions of “things” globally, including individual people as well as enterprises of various sizes, through computers and computerized devices of any conceivable size and capability and the applications running on them. The growth of the Internet shows no signs of slowing down and it steadily becomes the fabric of a new pervasive paradigm in computing and communications. This new paradigm enhances the traditional Internet into a smart Internet of Things (IoT) created around intelligent interconnections of diverse objects in the physical world, such as vehicles, smartphones, habitats, and habitat occupants. The IoT aims at closing the gap between objects in the material world and their representation in information systems. The IEEE Communications Magazine recently had a series of articles discussing this emerging topic.

Title and author(s) of the original paper in IEEE Xplore:
Title: A Survey on Facilities for Experimental Internet of Things Research
Author: Alexander Gluhak, Srdjan Krco, Michele Nati, Dennis Pfisterer, Nathalie Mitton and Tahiry Razafindralambo
This paper appears in: IEEE Communications Magazine
Issue Date: November 2011

2. NGSON: Features, State of the Art, and Realization

The rapid deployment and expansion of the Internet has created both an opportunity as well as a challenge in terms of service delivery. The opportunity comes from the variety and global scale of value added applications that can be supported for users. The challenge comes from the difficulties of developing and deploying software to support these applications and users. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Service Delivery Platform (SDP) were introduced to help with these issues, but lacked support for service delivery and QoS across different domains. Service Overlay Networks (SON) were then introduced as an intermediate layer to support the creation of value added serviced over heterogenous networks. Over time however, SON has run into intrinsic limitations in terms of handling the increasingly dynamic nature of users, services and networks which characterize todays global network. The IEEE P1903 Working Group proposed Next Generation Service Overlay Network (NGSON) to address some of these limitations. NGSON supports service delivery over various kinds of IP-based networks, while leaving QoS support to the underlying network. NGSON aims to support context-aware and adaptive features within the service control and delivery functions of SON, with the ultimate goal of improving the user's quality of experience (QoE). In their article, the authors explain the basic concepts behind NGSON, including a review of recent standardization activities. Technical challenges and roadmap items are also discussed. Interested readers can continue on to more detailed articles in the same issue if interested.

Title and author(s) of the original paper in IEEE Xplore:
Title: NGSON: Features, State of the Art, and Realization
Author: S. Lee and S. Kang
This paper appears in: IEEE Communications Magazine
Issue Date: January 2012

3. An Analytical Energy Consumption Model for Packet Transfer over Wireless Links

Energy-efficient data communication is an important requirement in wireless networks. Reducing energy consumption in transceivers during data communication can extend the operational lifetime of battery-powered devices and save energy in a global scale. A fundamental step, however, is to accurately model the energy consumption for data communication over a wireless link. Without the use of such a model, any mechanism designed to be energy-efficient may not be optimal, and any analysis of energy-efficiency may only be a poor approximation. In this article, the authors provide a comprehensive analytical model for estimating the total energy consumed when exchanging data over a wireless link. The model improves previous models by considering many pertinent details, such as link reliability, data packet size, acknowledgment packet size, wireless link data rate, and energy consumed by processing elements in wireless devices. To develop the model, the authors use experimental results and discover that the energy consumed for receiving erroneous data is comparable to the energy consumed for receiving error-free data. A high volume of data reported as lost during the wireless transmission is actually received completely (like error-free data), but is discarded at the receiver due to erroneous bits. The experimental results also verify that even if there is practically no wireless link between two devices (due to very low link quality), up to 60% of transmitted data is completely received and discarded. In other words, wireless devices consume energy not only to receive correct data but also to receive and process data that will be reported as lost to the application layer. This is an important finding that should be taken into account when designing energy-efficient wireless networks.

Title and author(s) of the original paper in IEEE Xplore:
Title: An Analytical Energy Consumption Model for Packet Transfer over Wireless Links
Author: Javad Vazifehdan, R. Venkatesha Prasad, Martin Jacobsson, and Ignas Niemegeers
This paper appears in: IEEE Communications Letters
Issue Date: January 2012

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