High-level Communication Protocol Research Articles

Improved methodology for assessment of communication protocols for distributed road traffic simulation

A computer simulation of road traffic is a commonly used tool, which can help to manage constantly intensifying road traffic. It can help to analyze behavior of existing road traffic networks or to predict the behavior of new designed road traffic structures. There are several existing simulators designed or adapted to run in a distributed computing environment in order to achieve a faster execution. In this environment, the inter-process communication ensured by a high-level communication protocol is one of the main bottlenecks limiting the speed of the entire computation. Various high-level communication protocols can have various efficiency, applicability, and scalability. This paper describes an improved methodology for testing and assessment of high-level communication protocols for micro-scale (or microscopic) distributed road traffic simulations. The methodology investigates the dependencies of the communication protocols’ performance on various features of the simulation and enables to easily calculate score for each of the tested protocols. Using the scores, the tested protocols can be directly compared. This can be useful when designing or improving a distributed road traffic simulation as the best protocol can be used in this simulation to improve its performance (e.g., its speedup or communication time). The improved version of the methodology is an evolution of its original version. It newly incorporates the assessment of the error introduced into the simulation by lossy communication protocols and reduces overall number of performed tests. The improved methodology was tested using a case study assessing several communication protocols of our own design.

Mobile AC/DC test device for electric vehicle charging infrastructure communication

The large-scale deployment of charging infrastructure poses challenges to the distribution grid stability. In Hamburg, the project Electrify Buildings for Electric Vehicles (ELBE) implements and tests a demand side management communication protocol that allows the distribution grid operator to reduce the charging power of electric vehicle charging stations if necessary. For this purpose, a test device capable of testing the signal chain as well as a real load reduction is presented for DC charging infrastructure. The standardized high-level communication protocols are described. With the charger’s power electronics located in the DC charging station, the need for a battery emulation arises, which is also discussed. Finally, a novel concept for a mobile and modular test setup for combined testing signal and real load reduction of AC and DC charging infrastructure is presented.

Blockchains as security-enabler for industrial IoT-applications

Purpose This paper aims to describe a method for Internet-of-Things-devices to achieve industrial grade reliability for information transfer from wireless sensor systems to production systems using blockchain technologies. Design/methodology/approach An increased security and reliability of submitted data within the sensor network could be achieved on an application level. Therefore, a lightweight, high-level communication protocol based on blockchain principles was designed. Findings Blockchain mechanisms can secure the wireless communication of Internet-of-Things-devices in a lightweight and scalable manner. Originality/value The innovation of this research is the successful application of general blockchain mechanisms to increase security of a wireless sensor system without binding to a dedicated blockchain technology.

Towards a greater reliability of driver/device communication around the system life cycle through a contract‐based protocol specification

Vehicle computers, Internet of Things and cyber-physical systems are all examples of electronic devices in which embedded systems require greater flexibility to process different types of applications and communication protocols. High flexibility requires the use of general purpose processors as a solution for configuring and controlling several peripherals. However, this also increases the need for hardware-dependent software. Since this is a highly critical and error-prone component due to the nature of its coding and the surrounding environment, it is essential to support the development and runtime phases through methodologies that can detect violations and errors when accessing devices by monitoring the communication protocol. This approach proposes a technique for monitoring temporal properties in high-level communication protocols between devices and drivers using a contract-based specification mechanism for describing the interface and protocol. From this specification, a monitoring module is synthesised, which can detect violation during the simulation of virtual platforms or execution of hardware platforms. The proposed specification language is a domain-specific language that supports platform-based design and enables the iteractive refinement of communication protocol and temporal property specifications along with platform stepwise implementation. Some experiments have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed approach for detecting errors in device drivers and device access violation.

A Formal Method of Obligation Policy for Agent Interaction

In Multi-Agent System, obligations are actions that agents are required to take or some states of affairs which should be maintained, formal modeling and verifying obligation policy which is high-level requirements specifications or communication protocol for constraining agent interaction can enhance the correctness of the system design. Therefore, in this paper a formal framework language for modeling obligation policy is introduced. In this method, the obligations are defined as a special social commitment, the state models of obligation are defined by classifying the obligation. Then we use the policy context and state model to formal the dynamic execution of obligation policy, finally the operational semantics of the framework language is defined as a state transition system which has Kripke semantic structure and it can be as formal foundation for model checking.

Testbench Qualification of SystemC TLM Protocols through Mutation Analysis

Transaction-level modeling (TLM) has become the de-facto reference modeling style for system-level design and verification of embedded systems. It allows designers to implement high-level communication protocols for simulations up to $1000 \times $ faster than at register-transfer level (RTL). To guarantee interoperability between TLM IP suppliers and users, designers implement the TLM communication protocols by relying on a reference standard, such as the standard OSCI for SystemC TLM. Functional correctness of such protocols as well as their compliance to the reference TLM standard are usually verified through user-defined testbenches, whose high quality and completeness play a key role for an efficient TLM design and verification flow. This article presents a methodology to apply mutation analysis, a technique applied in literature for SW testing, for measuring the testbench quality in verifying TLM protocols. In particular, the methodology aims at (i) qualifying the testbenches by considering both the TLM protocol correctness and their compliance to a defined standard (i.e., OSCI TLM), (ii) optimizing the simulation time during mutation analysis by avoiding mutation redundancies, and (iii) driving the designers in the testbench improvement. Experimental results on benchmarks of different complexity and architectural characteristics are reported to analyze the methodology applicability.

Impact Analysis on the Performance of Zigbee Protocol Under Various Mobility Models

Wireless sensor network, IEEE 802.15.4/Zigbee is a specification for a suite of high level communication protocols that interconnects simple low power low processing capability wireless nodes for the transfer of data This paper aims at finding out the suitable mobility model that determines the effective positioning of nodes that gives the best throughput. In this study, the effect of four different mobility models, such as group, random walk, random waypoint and pursue mobility models has evaluated on various IEEE 802.15.4 based zigbee standard network. After the intensive simulations, it has been seen that by using the tree topology for the placement of nodes in the network and by configuring the movement of the nodes according to the group mobility model, network gives the maximum throughput and possess minimum data dropped in the network. So, it has concluded that under the given conditions, group mobility model outperforms other three mobility models.

Inter-organizational Workflow for Intelligent Audit of Information Technologies in terms of Entreprise Business Processes

IT governance is critical to the success of Enterprise governance by providing effective, efficient and measurable improvements in business processes by ensuring that information technologies are in line with business objectives. Consequently, this paper provides an intelligent solution to audit Information System Business processes using the IT Governance Framework COBIT. The particularity of this solution is the use of Inter-organization Workflows (IOW), Multi-agent System and semantic web. In fact Inter-Organizational Workflow is used to cooperate autonomous, heterogeneous and distributed organizations processes to reach a common goal. In this paper case the goal is the dynamic alignment of every Business Process with the convenient Information System component and this through a permanent interaction with different stockholders. Multi-agent Systems (MAS) are known as the natural solution for IOW modeling since they provide dynamic modification and execution of adaptive processes. In addition, MAS have the ability to describe distribution and coordination of IOW organizations in micro and macro level, with high level communication protocols. As for the semantic web, the proposed IT Governance IOW based on COBIT, has the principal role to match Enterprise real Business Goals with COBIT Business goals , so the use of the semantic web is a way to share business terminology and avoid semantic conflict for a correct and efficient Audit operation.

ZigBee: Simulation and Investigation of Star and Mesh Topology by Varying Channel Sensing Duration

ZigBee was developed by IEEE 802.15.4 Task Group and ZigBee Alliance. ZigBee (IEEE 802.15.4‐2006 standard) is a category in the IEEE 802 family and ZigBee alliance is responsible for ZigBee standard which uses the transported services of the 802.15.4 network specification therefore ZigBee is a specification for a suite of high level communication protocols using small, low-power digital radios based on an IEEE 802 standard for personal area networks. ZigBee devices are often used in mesh network form to transmit data over longer distances, passing data through intermediate devices to reach more distant ones. This allows ZigBee networks to be formed ad-hoc, with no centralized control or high-power transmitter/receiver able to reach all of the devices. In this research paper, the effect of channel sensing duration on star and mesh topologies is analyze by varying Channel Sensing duration by using OPNET Modeler. The performance is compared in terms of Data Traffic send, Data Traffic Received and Mac Delay.

효율적인 원거리 데이터 전송을 위한 Zigbee 노드들의 그룹화 알고리즘

ZigBee network, based on PHY, MAC layer provides a specification for a suite of high level communication protocols using small, low-power digital radio based on an IEEE 802.15.4 standard. Meshing is a type of daisy chaining from one device to another. This technique allows the short range of an individual node to be expanded and multiplied, covering a much larger area. Each wireless technology that makes it to market serves a special purpose or function. Zigbee provides short-range connectivity in what is called a personal-area network (PAN). Within ZigBee PAN coordinator as manages an entire ZigBee network, the short range of frequency band was only selected because the technology allows typically less than 100 kbp or ZigBee troubles in retransmission processing and delaying data tranmission works to create unproductive condition of work. This research was proposed the method, based on short range frequency of zigBee nodes enable to long range of remote data transmission with specific algorithm tools.

Reasoning about interaction protocols for customizing web service selection and composition

This work faces the problem of automatic selection and composition of web services, discussing the advantages that derive from the inclusion, in a web service declarative description, of the high-level communication protocol, that is used by the service for interacting with its partners, allowing a rational inspection of it. The approach we propose is set in the Semantic Web field of research and inherits from research in the field of multi-agent systems. Web services are viewed as software agents, communicating by predefined sharable interaction protocols. A logic programming framework based on modal logic is proposed, where the protocol-based interactions of web services are formalized and the use of reasoning about actions and change techniques (planning) for performing the tasks of selection and composition of web services in a way that is personalized w.r.t. the user request is enabled. We claim that applying reasoning techniques on a declarative specification of the service interactions allows to gain flexibility in fulfilling the user preference in the context of a web service matchmaking process.

Reasoning About Interaction Protocols for Web Service Composition

In this work, we face the problem of web service composition, arguing the importance of the inclusion, in a web service description, of the high-level communication protocol used by a service to interact with a client. The work is set in the same multi-agent research area from which DAML- S is derived: reasoning about actions and about the change produced by actions on the world. In this perspective web services are viewed as actions, either simple or complex, characterized by preconditions and effects. In our proposal, interaction is interpreted as the effect of communicative action execution, so that it can be reasoned about.

INTELLIGENT AND COOPERATIVE INFORMATION SYSTEMS MEET MACHINE LEARNING

Intelligent and Cooperative Information Systems (ICIS) will have large numbers of distributed, heterogeneous agents interacting and cooperating to solve problems regardless of location, original mission, or platform. The agents in an ICIS will adapt to new and possibly surprising situations, preferably without human intervention. These systems will not only control a domain, but also will improve their own performance over time, that is, they will learn. This paper describes five heterogeneous learning agents and how they are integrated into an Integrated Learning System (ILS) where some of the agents cooperate to improve performance. The issues involve coordinating distributed, cooperating, heterogeneous problem-solvers, combining various learning paradigms, and integrating different reasoning techniques. ILS also includes a central controller, called The Learning Coordinator (TLC), that manages the control of flow and communication among the agents, using a high-level communication protocol. In order to demonstrate the generality of the ILS architecture, we implemented an application which, through its own experience, learns how to control the traffic in a telephone network, and show the results for one set of experiments. Options for enhancements of the ILS architecture are also discussed.

Higher-level protocols are not necessary end-to-end

The higher-level communication protocols in computer networks, such as belonging to the OSI Transport through Application layers, are usually considered to have an end-to-end significance, that is the entities executing the protocol reside at the two respective ends of the connection, close to the application users. This question of end-to-end significance was in particular an issue in the discussion of the meaning of acknowledgements in the Transport layer, and in the distinction between the OSI Network and Transport layers. The OSI protocols are developed for the interworking of "Open Systems". It seems that an Open System may be, in particular, a distributed computing system which presents to its environment, for example through a gateway, the protocol behavior defined by OSI. In this case the Open System would use internally, possibly over a local area network, specific protocols, which may or may not be structured according to the OSI Reference Model, but which are different to the protocols defined for OSI. In this case the OSI higher-level protocols would be executed between the entities in the environment of the Open System (e.g. system of user A1) and the gateway of the Open System, which is not end-to-end, as indicated in the figure below. The purpose of this contribution is to point out that this situation can be considered normal (i.e. end-to-end significance is irrelevant) provided that the OSI services have a property, which we call in the following "concatenation property". A service specification has the concatenation property if two service providing subsystems may be concatenated such that the system (consisting of the concatenated subsystems) provides a service which has the same logical properties as the original services. (Clearly, the performance of the concatenated service would in general be lower). It is important to note that we assume that the services of the non-OSI system (e.g. service provider B) are logically identical to those defined for OSI (e.g. service provider A). In this case the concatenation entity has a straightforward function (see below). In the case that they are different, some adaptation may be performed which has, however, an impact on all users and could sometimes result in quite complex gateway functions. The OSI Transport service has the concatenation property to a large extent. It is sufficient to use a concatenation entity that generates service requests to the service provider B for each service indication received from service provider A (with same parameter values). A problem arising, however, is one of addressing. It is necessary that the addressing space within the service provider B be foreseen by the addressing conventions used within the service provider A (and inversely) such that a user connected to the service provider A may select an address which identifies a user connected to the service provider B. It is then necessary that all service indications generated by service provider A destined to users connected to service provider B be generated over the interface to the concatenation entity, and similarly in the opposite direction. Another problem is related to error reporting. It seems that a distinction between connection aborts generated by the user or service provider, respectively, is not possible in the manner defined for OSI. It seems that the services specified for the other higher layers of OSI have similar concatenation properties. We can see two conclusions from the above discussion: (1) If services have the concatenation property the question of end-to-end significance is irrelevant. Gateways may be constructed which realize the concatenation of two or more distributed system services. (2) The service specifications of OSI are the main documents on which the construction of OSI gateways is based. These specifications are therefore essential, not only as a basis for checking the consistency of several protocol layers within the OSI hierarchy, but also as as basis for interworking between existing systems according to OSI.