Open Research Issues Research Articles

Radicalization of Airspace Security: Prospects and Botheration of Drone Defense System Technology

The development of a comprehensive and decisive drone defense integrated control system that can provide maximum security is crucial for maintaining territorial integrity and accelerating smart aerial mobility to sustain the emerging drone transportation system (DTS) for priority-based logistics and mobile communication. This study explores recent developments in the design of robust drone defense control systems that can observe and respond not only to drone attacks inside and outside a facility but also to equipment data such as CCTV security control on the ground and security sensors in the facility at a glance. Also, it considered DDS strategies, schema, and innovative security setups in different regions. Finally, open research issues in DDs designs are discussed, and useful recommendations are provided. Effective means for drone source authentication, delivery package verification, operator authorization, and dynamic scenario-specific engagement are solicited for comprehensive DDS design for maximum security Received: 2023-03-07 Revised: 2023-04-27

A review: Monitoring situational awareness of smart grid cyber‐physical systems and critical asset identification

AbstractCyber‐Physical Systems (CPSs) are becoming more automated and aimed to be as efficient as possible by enabling integration between their operations and Information Technology (IT) resources. In combination with production automation, these systems need to identify their assets and the correlation between them; any potential threats or failures alert the relevant user/department and suggest the appropriate remediation plan. Moreover, identifying critical assets in these systems is essential. With numerous research and technologies available, assessing IT assets nowadays can be straightforward to implement. However, there is one significant issue of evaluating operational technology critical assets since they have different characteristics, and traditional solutions cannot work efficiently. This study presents the necessary background to attain the appropriate approach for monitoring critical assets in CPSs' Situational Awareness (SA). Additionally, the study presents a broad survey supported by an in‐depth review of previous works in three important aspects. First, it reviews the applicability of possible techniques, tools and solutions that can be used to collect detailed information from such systems. Secondly, it covers studies that were implemented to evaluate the criticality of assets in CPSs, demonstrates requirements for critical asset identification, explores different risks and failure techniques utilised in these systems and delves into approaches to evaluate such methods in energy systems. Finally, this paper highlights and analyses SA gaps based on existing solutions, provides future directions and discusses open research issues.

Artificial intelligence and blockchain technology for secure smart grid and power distribution Automation: A State-of-the-Art Review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) integrated with Blockchain distributed ledger technology (BDLT) has become the most attractive research area in the domain of renewable energy and related power automations. However, the increased use of renewable energy-enabled devices raised various challenging problems, such as smart grid-based control management, power distribution, and automations. In this manner, the collaborative approach of blockchain, AI, and wireless sensor networks (WSN) provides a secure platform for control centers to estimate state, which helps to detect and analysis of bad data movement. There are various emerging issues in the field of Blockchain-AI in a renewable environment that poses a serious impact on the technological evaluation, for example, monitoring of contingency, optimal power flow, network reconfiguration, and the commitment of security-constrained units, and control auto-generation. So, in this paper, we perform a systematic review of the state-of-the-art integrated artificial intelligence and blockchain-enabled scheduling, management, optimization, privacy, and security of the smart grid and power distribution automation. One of the focusing aspects of this research is the real-time analysis of the physical layer of the smart grid. However, in this paper, we design a framework of a unified and abstracted state-space, in which the system analysis involves malicious attacks and maintain an effective generalized defense hierarchy in real-time. The current mechanism of analysis of smart grid-enabled physical layer-based malicious attacks is categorized into their associative and targeted components. Thus, we present three different pseudo-smart contracts and digital signatures with consensus policies; that provide an understanding of the new registry of renewable smart grids details, participating stakeholders and their roles, and an updated power distribution automation ledger. We then highlighted the list of emerging power distribution automation-related limitations along with the informational management approaches that present the existing state-of-the-art in this domain, including data-driven, target defense, computation, preservation, etc. Finally, we discuss open research issues and future directions of the smart grid and automation of power distribution security and privacy.

Low Earth Orbit Satellite Communications for Internet-of-Things Applications

Internet of Things (IoT) is a new direction for future internet, where anything embedded with sensors, software, and transceiver can access the Internet. The applications of IoT technology include home automation, smart city, smart grid, smart industry, E-health, environmental monitoring, and geologic disaster forecasting, to name a few. As the demand for high data rate increases due to the huge number of IoT devices, the so-called Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) have emerged. These LPWAN are designed to cover wide terrestrial areas. Nevertheless, in open areas such deserts, forests and coastal waters of seas, rivers and oceans, there are cost and practical limitation in constructing LPWAN. Therefore, to enable LPWAN in such remote areas, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications for IoT have recently attracted considerable interest from researchers. Among the open research issues are interference mitigation, Doppler spread estimation, LEO satellite constellation structure, efficient spectrum allocation, and access and routing protocols. In particular, as the satellite IoT system shares the same frequency band with the existing terrestrial IoT networks and other wireless systems, this results in multiple access interference issue. In addition, the high speed motion of LEO satellites induce a Doppler shift, resulting in inter-carrier interference problem.

Low Earth Orbit Satellite Communications for Internet-of-Things Applications

Internet of Things (IoT) is a new direction for future internet, where anything embedded with sensors, software, and transceiver can access the Internet. The applications of IoT technology include home automation, smart city, smart grid, smart industry, E-health, environmental monitoring, and geologic disaster forecasting, to name a few. As the demand for high data rate increases due to the huge number of IoT devices, the so-called Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) have emerged. These LPWAN are designed to cover wide terrestrial areas. Nevertheless, in open areas such deserts, forests and coastal waters of seas, rivers and oceans, there are cost and practical limitation in constructing LPWAN. Therefore, to enable LPWAN in such remote areas, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications for IoT have recently attracted considerable interest from researchers. Among the open research issues are interference mitigation, Doppler spread estimation, LEO satellite constellation structure, efficient spectrum allocation, and access and routing protocols. In particular, as the satellite IoT system shares the same frequency band with the existing terrestrial IoT networks and other wireless systems, this results in multiple access interference issue. In addition, the high speed motion of LEO satellites induce a Doppler shift, resulting in inter-carrier interference problem.

Low Earth Orbit Satellite Communications for Internet-of-Things Applications

Internet of Things (IoT) is a new direction for future internet, where anything embedded with sensors, software, and transceiver can access the Internet. The applications of IoT technology include home automation, smart city, smart grid, smart industry, E-health, environmental monitoring, and geologic disaster forecasting, to name a few. As the demand for high data rate increases due to the huge number of IoT devices, the so-called Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) have emerged. These LPWAN are designed to cover wide terrestrial areas. Nevertheless, in open areas such deserts, forests and coastal waters of seas, rivers and oceans, there are cost and practical limitation in constructing LPWAN. Therefore, to enable LPWAN in such remote areas, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications for IoT have recently attracted considerable interest from researchers. Among the open research issues are interference mitigation, Doppler spread estimation, LEO satellite constellation structure, efficient spectrum allocation, and access and routing protocols. In particular, as the satellite IoT system shares the same frequency band with the existing terrestrial IoT networks and other wireless systems, this results in multiple access interference issue. In addition, the high speed motion of LEO satellites induce a Doppler shift, resulting in inter-carrier interference problem.

Understanding and Addressing the Allocation of Microservices into Containers: A Review

Creating an infrastructure that satisfies current demands is increasingly becoming a determining element in the modern times. These challenging demands go from intelligent scheduling of containers, allocating microservices into containers, container orchestration, elasticity, and automated provisioning, among others. This paper reviews research works addressing the demands above from a software practitioner viewpoint. One hundred and one primary studies were valuable additions to the microservice and container integration research. As a result, we have identified and reported intelligent scheduling and allocation techniques, optimal deployment, and monitoring of containers. Furthermore, we examined those techniques’ essential benefits, drawbacks, and critical challenges and pinpointed open issues for future research.

Blackhole attacks in internet of things networks: a review

The internet of things (IoT) is one of data revolution area and is the following extraordinary mechanical jump after the internet. In terms of IoT, it is expected that electronic gadgets that are used on a regular basis would be connected to the current of the internet. IPv6 over low-power wireless personal area networks (6LoWPAN) is a one of IPv6 header pressure technology, and accordingly, it is vulnerable to attack. The IoT is a combination of devices with restricted resource assets like memory, battery power, and computational capability. To solve this, RPL or routing protocol for low power Lossy network is deploy by utilizing a distance vector scheme. One of denial of service (Dos) attack to RPL network is blackhole attack in which the assailant endeavors to become a parent by drawing in a critical volume of traffic to it and drop all packets. In this paper, we discuss research on numerous attacks and current protection methods, focusing on the blackhole attack. There is also discussion of challenge, open research issues and future perspectives in RPL security. Furthermore, research on blackhole attacks and specific detection technique proposed in the literature is also been presented.

RIS-Assisted Space-Air-Ground Integrated Networks: New Horizons for Flexible Access and Connectivity

Space-air-ground integrated network (SAGIN) has emerged as a paradigm shifting architecture that offers largescale, flexible wireless coverage and seamless, high-rate connectivity to complement terrestrial communications. Nonetheless, unlocking the potentials of SAGIN is subject to addressing nontrivial challenges associated with their inherent time-variability, self-organization, and heterogeneity. Meanwhile, the concept of reconfigurable intelligent surfaces (RISs) is recognized as a disruptive technology that supports an unprecedented control of electromagnetic waves propagation and potentially offers significant enhancements in spectral efficiency, coverage expansion, and security, all achieved in a low-cost and energy-efficient manner. We anticipate that the integration of RISs into SAGIN will not only play a fundamental role in improving the quality of interand intra- layer communications, but will also provide complex interactions among the three network segments, and hence, opens the horizons for a new breed of applications across all industries. In this article, we explore the underlying opportunities and challenges of integrating RIS-enabled communications into SAGIN, and present a forward-looking overview of the crosslayer operational elements supported by RISs. Finally, we outline major enabling technologies and present a look ahead toward addressing open research issues.

Wireless Multi-Interface Connectivity with Deep Learning-Enabled User Devices: An Energy Efficiency Perspective

Undoubtedly, future Beyond 5G (B5G) and 6G networks will be empowered by AI and Machine Learning (ML) technologies. However, current Deep Learning methods consume tremendous power, making them unsuitable to be deployed at edge Access Points (AP) or user devices. As energy efficiency will become one of the major Key Performance Indicators in 6G, there is an urge for realizing lowpower yet highly efficient Deep Learning at user devices, the most severely battery-limited entities. We analyze this issue through the problem of distributed user-to-multiple APs association optimization in B5G networks that integrate diverse wireless interfaces such as Sub-6GHz and mmWave bands. In the proposed Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) framework, each device is equipped by a light-weight Deep Q-Network (DQN), which enables it to self-optimize its APs and interfaces association to fulfill the stringent Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of its various applications. We analyze the energy consumption of the device DQN, and investigate key performance trade-offs in terms of sum-rate, user outage and energy efficiency, while disclosing the major power consuming elements of user DQN. Finally, crucial open research issues are identified for realizing energy-efficient AI at all network levels.

A REVIEW OF INTEGRATED RADIO FREQUENCY ENERGY HARVESTING AND COGNITIVE RADIO FOR THE INTERNET OF THINGS

In recent decades, there has been significant growth in interconnected communication devices, with the Internet of Things (IoT) being one of the most intensively developed wireless communication appliances. This concept can be implemented in several areas, including smart cities, transportation, telemedicine, agriculture, and wearable applications. However, this increase in connectivity demand can lead to spectrum shortages in the future. In addition, in the development of future green communications, it is crucial to incorporate self-powered systems using energy harvesting technologies. In this review, it is shown that the integration of cognitive radio and radio frequency energy harvesting into IoT development can address the spectrum shortages and energy issues mentioned earlier. The findings indicate that the operating model works based on the slotted approach and state consideration, and the system’s performance metric can be optimised by adjusting parameters such as harvesting time, sensing time, transmit time, transmission power, interference level, and others. This review provides a comparative summary of several focus domains, such as RF harvesting, spectrum sensing and utilisation, operating models, and some open research issues for further work.

A Comprehensive Analysis of Security-Based Schemes in Underwater Wireless Sensor Networks

Underwater wireless sensor networks (UWSNs) are comprised of sensor nodes that are deployed under the water having limited battery power and other limited resources. Applications of UWSNs include monitoring the quality of the water, mine detection, environment monitoring, military surveillance, disaster prediction, and underwater navigation. UWSNs are more vulnerable to security attacks as compared to their counterparts such as wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The possible attacks in UWSNs can abrupt the operation of entire network. This research work presents the analysis of relevant research done on security-based schemes in UWSNs. The security-based schemes are categorized into five sub-categories. Each technique in each category is analyzed in detail. The major contribution in each security-based scheme along with technique used, possible future research issues and implementation tool are discussed in detail. The open research issues and future trends identified and presented in this research can be further explored by the research community.

A Survey on Rerouting Techniques with P4 Programmable Data Plane Switches

Traditionally, the networking industry has been dominated by closed and proprietary hardware and software. Vendors have been controlling the network by hard-coding how packets should be processed and providing the network operators with a set of predefined protocols. Recently, the industry, operators, and the research community have started to pay special attention to data plane programmability, which allows the user to define the packet processing behavior. Allowing the network operators and programmers to define, deploy, and test new forwarding behaviors in a relatively short time paved the way for a significant wave of innovation and experimentation. With the emergence of programmable data planes, traffic rerouting has been used by the research community. Rerouting approaches are deployed to mitigate various network issues. Despite the considerable number of works that deploy innovative rerouting mechanisms using programmable switches, the literature lacks a comprehensive survey. To this end, this paper provides an in-depth overview, detailed analysis, and unique categorization of the recent programmable data plane-based rerouting approaches. The survey explains the need for rerouting by highlighting the promising results while dealing with link/node failures, load imbalance, and congestion. It then discusses the challenges and considerations and presents future perspectives and open research issues.

A comprehensive survey on image captioning: from handcrafted to deep learning-based techniques, a taxonomy and open research issues

A comprehensive survey on image captioning: from handcrafted to deep learning-based techniques, a taxonomy and open research issues

Injecting cognitive intelligence into beyond-5G networks: A MAC layer perspective

The rapid rise of heterogeneous data traffic exposes the shortcomings of fifth-generation (5G) technology, which was initially designed to form self-organizing and self-sustaining networks to facilitate the adoption of the Internet-of-Everything (IoE). This study presents the applications and service requirements of future communication networks. This study details flexible design agreements of the Medium Access Control (MAC) layer of Beyond-5G (B5G) from the current 3rd Generation Partnership (3GPP) study and highlights the current open research issues and challenges which are yet to be optimized. To ensure that the network is self-sustaining and self-organized for B5G paradigm, an intelligent network design is required. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing every aspect of life, therefore, this article provides an overview of how AI plays an important role in improving future-generation communication by solving MAC-related issues.

Serious Games for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Literature Review

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) prevalence rates are increasing and serious games have shown a valuable potential to aid the treatment of autistic individuals. Hence, a Systematic Literature Review was conducted aiming at categorizing serious games for ASD children regarding which skills they aim to develop, how their activities were operationalized, and which customization options they provide to users. Our results showed that a large number of serious games aimed at developing distinct skills in ASD children have been proposed, with their main focus being on social and socio-emotional skills. Nonetheless, for each skill we characterize the existing games according to their features, that is the platform they are developed for, I/O devices used, required users’ action, audiovisual elements, and number of players. We also identify strategies adopted in the games regarding specific features and skills that emerged from the analysis. Finally, our results highlight that offering broader customization options in the games could expand their applicability and utility to their users. This work provides a thorough examination of research on games for ASD children, contributing both to researchers interested in the topic, by identifying existing contributions and open issues for research, and to professionals interested in developing serious games for this public.

Leveraging ICN and SDN for Future Internet Architecture: A Survey

Information-Centric Networking (ICN) and Software-Defined Networking (SDN) are both new evolving network architectures that are receiving a lot of attention from researchers. ICN is a Future Internet architecture which tries to transform the current Internet architecture from location- and host-centric to content-centric, where obtaining requested data is achieved by the contents’ names regardless of the location of the data. From another angle, SDN is considered a new Internet architecture that moves the control plane management from network devices to a centralized controller. The SDN controller enhances network robustness and improves its scalability, reliability, and flexibility. The integration of ICN and SDN results in massive benefits, where SDN enhances ICN networks’ manageability, controllability, and functionality, and ICN reshapes the SDN design to make it compatible with ICN features and to enhance ICN in terms of network caching, routing, mobility, and security.. In this review paper, a comprehensive survey of the issues and challenges of integrating ICN and SDN is presented. Firstly, ICN’s main characteristics are summarized, and a short comparison between different ICN architectures is completed. Then, the key details of SDN are highlighted. Moreover, the motivation and benefits of merging ICN with SDN are summarized and the state-of-the-art work on merging ICN and SDN is reviewed and classified from several aspects. Finally, several open research issues are highlighted.

Trends and Open Research Issues in Intelligent Internet of Vehicles

Abstract The evolution of vehicles has always been continuous with respect to growth in technology.The concept of the Internet of Vehicles (IoV) is the process of allowing vehicles to interact with each other to provide real-time information. This paper introduces the various aspects of IoV and their components. Despite the fact that there are more and more vehicles connected to the IoV, there are still many unknown issues and potentials that needs to be identified to carry out research. In order to identify and classify the current difficulties in implementing and using IoV in urban cities, various research publications on the topic were analysed in this paper. The limitations of the Internet of Vehicular technology are also described. Additionally, a number of current and potential remedies that address the highlighted problems were briefly covered. The background information and reasons for evolving heterogeneous vehicular networks are thoroughly reviewed in this research. Also highlights the key technologies of IoV, network architecture and comparison of IoV architecture models with focus on different communication models The most modern IoV enabling technologies are also highlighted, along with environmental scope of intelligent internet of vehicles. Finally, the paper has reviewed the open research issues of Intelligent IoV such as Poor Connectivity of on road vehicles and Stability, Hard delay constraints, High reliability requirements, high scalability, Security and privacy, etc. and related solutions.

Intelligent Reflection Enabling Technologies for Integrated and Green Internet-of-Everything Beyond 5G: Communication, Sensing, and Security

Internet-of-Everything (IoE) has gradually been recognized as an integral part of future wireless networks. In IoE, there can be an ultra-massive number of smart devices of various types to be served, imposing multi-dimensional requirements on wireless communication, sensing, and security. In this article, we provide a tutorial overview of the promising intelligent reflection communication (IRC) technologies, including reconfigurable intelligent surface (RIS) and ambient backscatter communication (AmBC), to support the requirements of IoE applications beyond the fifth-generation (5G) wireless communication network. Specifically, we elaborate on the benefits of IRC-assisted IoE in the context of the space-air-ground integrated communications and green communications, which are regarded as key features of supporting future IoE application from society and industries. Furthermore, we envision that the IRC-assisted communication and sensing can mutually benefit each other and articulate multiple ways of enhancing the security in IoE by the IRC. Numerical results help illustrate the importance of the IRC in unfavorable secrecy environments. Finally, open research issues and challenges about the IRC-assisted IoE are presented.

A Review of Time-Based Solar Photovoltaic Tracking Systems

Solar energy is the cleanest and most abundant form of energy that can be obtained from the Sun. Solar panels convert this energy to generate solar power, which can be used for various electrical purposes, particularly in rural areas. Maximum solar power can be generated only when the Sun is perpendicular to the panel, which can be achieved only for a few hours when using a fixed solar panel system, hence the development of an automatic solar tracking system. Over the years, different solar tracking systems have been proposed and developed, and a few have been reviewed in the literature. However, the existing review works have not adequately provided a comprehensive survey and taxonomies of these solar tracking systems to show the trends and possible further research direction. This paper aims to bridge these gaps by extensively reviewing these time-based solar tracking systems based on axis rotation and drive types. Lessons learned from the comprehensive review have been highlighted and discussed. Finally, critical open research issues are identified and elaborated.