Advanced Spectrum Functionalities for Future Radio Networks

The IST WINNER (WINNER is part of the European Union research programme within the Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) of the European Information Society Technology (IST) programme. Accepted for the Wireless World Research Forum (WWRF) 2006 Industrial Forum (Kermoal, J.-P. et al. (2006). Spectrum deployment scenarios and advanced functionalities development in WINNER.) project is a major European research activity to develop a flexible and scalable radio access system for 4G, which is addressing the challenging requirements for future systems such as those of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in terms of overall performance, flexibility, scalability and optimized spectrum usage. In this article, the Radio Resource Management (RRM) spectrum functionalities are defined and subsequently analyzed. The proposed RRM spectrum architecture developed will result in reducing the time required to tailor new services to network operators. Furthermore, the flexible spectrum access and usage leads to more capable and faster services with high Quality-of-Service (QoS) giving more user satisfaction than conventional networks. The inherent centralization and decentralization degree for the functionalities is outlined and discussed since flexible spectrum techniques on both fast and slow basis will lead to a better utilization of spectrum.

Collaborative and Cognitive Network Platforms: Vision and Research Challenges

In this paper, we present a visionary concept referred to as Collaborative and Cognitive Network Platforms (CCNPs) as a future-proof solution for creating a dependable, self-organizing and self-managing communication substrate for effective ICT solutions to societal problems. CCNP creates a cooperative communication platform to support critical services across a range of business sectors. CCNP is based on the personal network (PN) technology which is an inherently cooperative environment prototyped in the Dutch Freeband PNP2008 and the European Union IST MAGNET projects. In CCNP, the cognitive control plane strives to exploit the resources to better satisfy the requirements of networked applications. CCNP facilitates collaboration inherently. Through cognition in the cognitive control plane, CCNP becomes a self-managed substrate. The self-managed substrate, in this paper, is defined as cognitive and collaborative middleware on which future applications run without user intervention. Endemic sensor networks may be incorporated into the CCNP concept to feed its cognitive control plane. In this paper, we present the CCNP concept and discuss the research challenges related to collaboration and cognition.     

The Diffuse project - single sourcing IT standards information

The European Commission's Information Society Technologies (IST) programme created the Diffuse project to provide a single value-added entry point to up-to-date reference and guidance information on available and emerging standards and specifications. This neutral reporting on standards and specifications aims to facilitate the electronic exchange of information. Diffuse supports the IST's Key Action II (New Methods of Work and Electronic Commerce) and Key Action III (Multimedia Content and Tools), which are two of the European Commission's main work areas for its IST programme. While emphasizing the needs of research and technology development communities, the project has a broader perspective of serving the information requirements of the whole of industry, and of the public sector in general. Diffuse builds on the accomplishments of the European Commission's Open Information Interchange initiative, which concluded in December 1999. The Finnish Information Technology Development Centre (TIEKE) leads the project. The other partners, IC Focus (electronic commerce specialists) and The SGML Centre (structured information management specialists), are both based in the UK     

Editorial: Knowledge-based digital media processing

This Special Section presents work on integrative research aimed at low-level analysis, classification and semantic-based structuring of digital media. Most of the work presented in this section has originated in two large international cooperative projects funded by the European Commission under the sixth framework programme of the Information Society Technology: aceMedia and COST292. The mandate and scope of these two projects is very generic, embracing several applications that rely on technology for bridging the gap.     

Reconfigurable terminals: an overview of architectural solutions

Key technical aspects concerning the realization of a reconfigurable user terminal based on software-defined radio technology are discussed. These include functionalities such as mode monitoring, mode switching, adaptive baseband processing, and software download. The implications of these functionalities and the need for related entities within the network are also discussed. The concepts presented here form part of the 5th Framework IST European Research project Transparent Reconfigurable Ubiquitous Terminal (TRUST). It is the intention of this article to present the technical achievements of the TRUST project together with an overview of the potential complexity in the realization of a reconfigurable user terminal     

Expanding the wireless universe: EU research on the move

This article provides an overview of the activities currently carried out under the IST research program of the European Commission, in the area of mobile and wireless communications and satellite systems. The research orientations specific to wireless communications are described in detail, with reference to the projects active in each area, defining a possible roadmap for the evolution of mobile communications systems beyond UMTS.     

Terminal-centric view of software. reconfigurable system architecture and enabling components and technologies

Reconfigurable radio in Europe is rapidly gaining momentum and becoming a key enabler for realizing the vision of being optimally connected anywhere, anytime. At the center of this exciting technology is the reconfigurable terminal that will move across different radio access networks, adapting at every instant to an optimum mode of operation. This will require coordinated reconfiguration management support from both the terminal and the network, but the terminal will inherit a significant part of this intelligence. This article focuses on a novel reconfigurable terminal architecture that advances the state of the art and encompasses the overall protocol stack from the physical to application layer in IP-based radio access networks. The proposed architecture is composed of a terminal reconfiguration management part and enabling middleware technologies like the complementary Distributed Processing Environment and agent platforms, flexible protocol stacks that can flexibly be interchanged to support different wireless technologies and associated mechanisms, and finally, object-oriented reconfigurable RF and baseband components. The work presented in this article is conducted in the context of the IST projects SCOUT (www.ist-scout.org) and TRUST (www4.in.tum.de/-scout/trust webpage/spl I.bar/src/ trust frameset.html) of the European 5th Framework Program.     

A secure active network environment architecture: realization inSwitchWare

An active network is a network infrastructure which is programmable on a per-user or even per-packet basis. Increasing the flexibility of such network infrastructures invites new security risks. Coping with these security risks represents the most fundamental contribution of active network research. The security concerns can be divided into those which affect the network as a whole and those which affect individual elements. It is clear that the element problems must be solved first, since the integrity of network-level solutions will be based on trust in the network elements. In this article we describe the architecture and implementation of a secure active network environment (SANE), which we believe provides a basis for implementing secure network-level solutions. We guarantee that a node begins operation in a trusted state with the AEGIS secure bootstrap architecture. We guarantee that the system remains in a trusted state by applying dynamic integrity checks in the network element's runtime system, using a novel naming system, and applying node-to-node authentication when needed. The construction of an extended LAN is discussed     

Supporting the rollout of broadband in Europe: optical network research in the IST program

The introduction of affordable broadband services and applications will drive the next phase of deployment of optical networks. Research on optical networks and related photonics technologies, which has been a key element of the European Union's Research Programs over the past 15 years, has evolved in line with industry and market developments, and will continue, with a strong focus on broadband, in the Information Society Technologies (IST) priority of the new Framework Six Program. The infrastructure to deliver "broadband for all" is seen as the key future direction for optical networking, and the key growth market for industry.     

Future Networks and User Requirements – A Techno-Economic Analysis

ICT based networks and especially wireless networks are experiencing an unprecedented development – and not least expected future development. The realization and specific development is, however, determined in a complicated interplay between technology, market/regulation and user requirements. The interplay is complicated also because the trends are of a very different character and they are interrelated. It is the aim of this paper to contribute to the understanding of these driving forces in the development of future networks by presenting a framework for discussing trends in the three areas and their interplay.Part of the article is based on the ideas developed during work on the Infodev toolkits “New technologies and their impacts on regulation” Knud Erik Skouby is professor and founding of the center for Information and Comunication Technologies (CICT) – a center providing a focal point for multi-disciplinary research and training in applications of ICT at the Danish Technical university. His main area of research interest includes the techno-economics and regulation of the telecom sector and of new telecom applications and services. He has participated as a project manager and partner in a number of international, European and Danish research projects. He has served on a number of public committies within the area of telecom, IT and broadcasting; as a member of board of professional socities; as a member of organizing boards, evaluation comities and as invited speaker on international conferences; published a number of Danish and international articles, books and conference proceedings in the areas of telecommunications regulation, technology assessment (information technology and telecommunications), demand forecasting and political economy. Reza Tadayoni is Associate Professor at the center for Information Communications Technologies. Reza Tadayoni's research field is media convergence. He has been involved in a number of research projects and has published a number of Scientific papers in journals and conference proceedings. He has further contributed to a number of consultancy reports and studies for the Danish telecom and broadcast administration, EU and the world bank. He has been actively involved in European COST networks, including COST A20 on `The impact of the Internet on the mass media in Europe' and COST A16 on `ICT and transnational communities'.     

Resource management of IP-enabled DVB-T networks in the context of wireless B3G systems

The wireless beyond 3G systems or the so called Composite Radio Environments (CRE) (or even 4G systems), consist of multiple type radio access technologies, collaborating with each other, providing both diverse access alternatives and QoS improvement, especially as far as concerns protection against traffic congestion and loss of radio coverage situations. The merits deriving from beyond 3G systems interest not only network and service providers but also the mobile users. Additionally, the need of broadband wireless access is directly associated with the intense demand for IP multimedia services (e.g. video streaming or high speed web browsing), mainly inside hot-spot areas. Taking into consideration the above described tendency in the area of wireless network systems, the IP-enabled DVB-T (the terrestrial specification of the Digital Video Broadcasting family) systems appear as an attractive alternative network access in the CRE context. Along this direction, this paper presents the most important aspects of a CRE network management system (NMS), focusing on the component responsible for the DVB-T resource management (RM). Finally, we implement and investigate through simulation a greedy algorithm suitable for DVB-T networks that performs fast resource management and configuration. We also provide some indicative results which prove that the algorithm demonstrates a close to optimal performance at the RM functionality. This work is partially funded by the Commission of the European Communities, under the Fifth Framework Program, within the IST project CREDO (Composite Radio for Enhanced Service Delivery during the Olympics). Dimitris Kouis is currently a research associate at the Electrical Engineers School of the National Technical University of Athens, in Greece. He received his diploma from the Computer Engineering and Informatics department of the Polytechnic School of the University of Patras and a Ph.D. degree in Telecommunications and Computing from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in 1999 and 2005 respectively. He has worked in research projects in the context of the IST framework. His research interests include mobile and wireless networking, wireless network resources optimization techniques and large-scale software platforms. He is a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece since 1999. Panagiotis Demestichas received the Diploma and the Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). From September 2002 he is an Assistant Professor at the University of Piraeus, in the department of Technology Education and Digital Systems. From 1993 until August 2002 he has been a senior research engineer with the Telecommunications Laboratory in NTUA. From February 2001 until August 2002 he was a lecturer at NTUA, in the department of Applied Mathematics and Physics, teaching courses on programming languages, data structures, data bases, telecommunications. From September 2000 until August 2002 he taught telecommunication courses, in the department of Electronics of the Technological Education Institute of Piraeus. Most of his current activities focus on the FP6/IST project E2R (End-to-End Reconfigurability). He is also the chairman of Working Group 6 (WG6), titled Reconfigurability, of the Wireless Word Research Forum (WWRF). At the international level he has actively participated in the projects IST MONASIDRE Management of Networks and Services in a Diversified Radio Environment), where he was the project manager, as well as other EU projects under the IST, ACTS, RACE II, EURET, BRITE/EURAM frameworks. His research interests include the design, management and performance evaluation of mobile and broadband networks, service and software engineering, algorithms and complexity theory, and queueing theory. He has authored over 100 publications in these areas in international journals and refereed conferences. He is a member of the IEEE, ACM and the Technical Chamber of Greece. George Koundourakis was born in Alex/polis, Greece, in 1979. He received the degree of Electrical and Computer Engineer from the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), Greece, in July 2001. He is a Research Associate and PhD candidate at the Telecommunications Laboratory of the Division of Communication, Electronic and Information Engineering at NTUA. He has worked in research projects in the context of the IST framework. He is the author of several scientific papers in the areas of mobile communications. He is a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece. Michael E. Theologou received the degree in Electrical Engineering from Patras University and his Ph.D. degree from the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). Currently he is a Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science of NTUA. His research interests are in the field of Mobile and Personal communications. He has many publications in the above areas. Dr Theologou is a member of IEEE and the Technical Chamber of Greece.     

Die Österreichische Wasserstoff- und Brennstoffzelleninitiative im europäischen und globalen technologiepolitischen Kontext

Alternative propulsion systems and fuels are increasingly important for the automotive industry. In order to secure the competitiveness of Austria’s supply industry the Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology has launched the Austrian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Initiative with three instruments: 1.) A3-Programme “Austrian Advanced Automotive Technology”, funding cooperative and interdisciplinary R&;D-projects; 2.) Lighthouse projects as large demonstration projects; 3.) Austrian Alternative Propulsion Systems Council providing beyond financial contributions additional support activities like providing information, analyzing technological trends, pursuing trans-national cooperation, optimizing legal framework conditions, eliminating barriers for innovation.     

The seventh deal

The Seventh Framework is the largest and toughest of the EU's research programmes. But the European Commission is keen to get smaller companies working on its research projects     

(UWB)<Superscript>2</Superscript>: Uncoordinated,Wireless, Baseborn Medium Access for UWB Communication Networks

A MAC protocol for Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio networks named (UWB)² is proposed. The algorithm exploits typical features of impulse radio such as large processing gain, and is conceived in conjunction with a synchronization strategy which foresees the presence of a synchronization sequence in each transmitted packet. (UWB)² adopts a pure Aloha approach; Performance analysis of the synchronization tracking mechanism showed in fact that under the preliminary simplistic hypothesis of an AWGN channel, and for a sufficient number of pulses in the synchronization sequence, a fairly high probability of successful synchronization can be achieved, even in the presence of several users and Multi User Interference (MUI). The multiple access scheme is based on the combination of a common control channel provided by a common Time Hopping (TH) code with dedicated data channels associated to transmitter specific TH codes.Results obtained by simulation indicate that (UWB)² can be successfully applied when the number of users spans from a few tens to about one hundred, for data rates ranging from a few thousands to a few hundreds of bits per second. Network throughput was above 99.8% in all considered simulation settings. Such achievement confirms that (UWB)² is a suitable and straightforward solution for large networks of terminals using impulse radio for transmission at low bit rates.On leave from the Institut für Elektro- und Informationstechnik, College of Engineering, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany.Maria-Gabriella Di Benedetto obtained her Ph.D. in Telecommunications in 1987 from the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy. In 1991, she joined the Faculty of Engineering of University of Rome La Sapienza, where currently she is a Full Professor of Telecommunications at the Infocom Department. She has held visiting positions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Paris XI, France. In 1994, she received the Mac Kay Professorship award from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include speech analysis and synthesis, and digital communication systems. From 1995 to 2000, she directed four European projects for the design of UMTS. Since 2000 she has been active in fostering the development of Ultra Wide Band (UWB) radio communications in Europe. Within the 5th framework, she directs for the Infocom Dept. two European projects (whyless.com and UCAN) aimed at the design and implementation of UWB ad-hoc networks. Within the 6th EU Framework her “Networking with UWB” research group participates in the PULSERS Integrated Project which will integrate UWB research and development in Europe for the next years, and in the LIAISON Integrated Project as regards the application of UWB to location-based services. She currently also participates in the HYCON network of excellence. Dr. Di Benedetto is co-editor for the IEEE JSAC Special Issue on UWB Radio in Multi-Access Wireless Communications (December 2002)and for the Journal of Communications and Networks Special Issue on Ultra-Wideband Communications (December 2003). Dr. Di Benedetto recently co-authored with Guerino Giancola a book on Ultra Wide Band from radio to the network, titled “Understanding Ultra Wide Band Radio Fundamentals” and published by Prentice Hall in May 2004.Luca De Nardis received his “Laurea” degree in telecommunications engineering from the University of Rome La Sapienza in 2001 with a thesis on wireless network topologies in the framework of the European project whyless.com. He is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Information and Communication Theory in the INFOCOM Department of the University of Rome. Since 2002, he has been participating in the European IST project UCAN, dealing with application of UWB radio to ad-hoc networking. Currently, he is involved in the 6th Framework European projects PULSERS and LIAISON. His research focuses on UWB technology, ad-hoc communication networks organization, Medium Access Control and routing protocols for wireless networks.Matthias Junk was born in Oberhausen, Germany, in 1978. From 1997 to 2004 he studied electrical engineering with main subject communications at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. In 2004 he received his diploma. During his diploma thesis at the University “La Sapienza” in Rome, Italy, he focused on synchronization problems in Ultrawideband Communication Networks.Guerino Giancola received the Laurea degree (magna cum laude) in Telecommunications Engineering from the University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy, 2001, with a thesis on the analysis and the modelling of electromagnetic propagation in outdoor urban scenarios for mobile radio communications systems. Currently, he is working toward the Ph.D. degree in Information and Communication Theory in the INFOCOM Department of the University of Rome La Sapienza. His research interests include Ultra Wide Band radio technology, multi-carrier transmission techniques, and Medium Access Control protocols. From 2001 to 2002, he participated in a national research project financed by the Italian Ministry for University and Scientific-Technological Research (MURST), project PRIN2000: “OFDM Systems for Applications in the Wireless LANs.” Since 2002, he participates in two European Union research projects within the International Society Technologies program (IST): project No. IST-2001-32710: “Ultra-wideband Concepts for Ad-hoc Networks (UCAN)”, and project No. IST-2000-25197: “Whyless.com-The Open Mobile Access Networks.” From 2003, he also participates in the national research project financed by the Italian Ministry for University and Research (MIUR), project FIRB: VICOM-Virtual Immersive COMmunications.     

Future information and communication technologies

In past issues of this column there have been articles about European public co-funded research programs, funded by the European Commission (EC) and/or national governments [1-3]. Of all these programs, the one with the most relevance and impact, and the largest budget is EC Framework Programme 7 - Information and Communication Technologies (FP7-ICT). In this article we provide an overview of the main research trends in this program for the coming years.     

Threshold cryptography in mobile ad hoc networks under minimal topology and setup assumptions

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANET), due to their lack of physical infrastructures or centralized online authorities, pose a number of security challenges to a protocol designer. In particular, several typical application scenarios demand the design of protocols that cannot base their security on the existence of trusted parties or setup information, but rather need to leverage uniquely on assumptions limiting the corrupting power of the adversaries. This naturally defines security design and analysis paradigms similar to those of the threshold cryptography area, where it is typically assumed that an adversary can corrupt up to a limited amount of entities or resources. Therefore a secure realization of primitives from threshold cryptography in MANET promises to be applicable to several MANET protocols. However, directly applying known threshold cryptography solutions for wired network into MANETs faces serious challenges. In particular, we noted a major design difficulty due to the lack of full network connectivity that significantly constrained the network topology assumptions under which a MANET threshold signature scheme can be proved secure. In this paper we formalize, investigate and present a new MANET threshold signature scheme that is secure under significantly improved topology and setup assumptions. Surprisingly, we break through an apparent barrier due to well-known results from the distributed computing area.     

From OPIMA to MPEG IPMP-X: A standard''s history across R&D projects

This paper describes the work performed by a number of companies and universities who have been working as a consortium under the umbrella of the European Union Framework Programme 5 (FP5), Information Society Technologies (IST) research program, in order to provide a set of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies and architectures, aiming at helping to reduce the copyright circumvention risks, that have been threatening the music and film industries in their transition from the “analogue” to “digital” age. The paper starts by addressing some of the earlier standardization efforts in the DRM arena, namely, Open Platform Initiative for Multimedia Access (OPIMA). One of the described FP5 IST projects, Open Components for Controlled Access to Multimedia Material (OCCAMM), has developed the OPIMA vision. The paper addresses also the Motion Pictures Expert Group—MPEG DRM work, starting from the MPEG Intellectual Propriety Management and Protection—IPMP “Hooks”, towards the MPEG IPMP Extensions, which has originated the first DRM-related standard (MPEG-4 Part 13, called IPMP Extensions or IPMP-X) ever released by ISO up to the present days.² The paper clarifies how the FP5 IST project MPEG Open Security for Embedded Systems (MOSES), has extended the OPIMA interfaces and architecture to achieve compliance with the MPEG IPMP-X standard, and how it has contributed to the achievement of “consensus” and to the specification, implementation (Reference Software) and validation (Conformance Testing) of the MPEG IPMP-X standard.     

Dependable embedded systems research at TU Vienna

This article provides an overview of the various new research activities of the “Institut für Technische Informatik” at TU Vienna in the field of dependable embedded systems, in particular, the EC FP6 Network of Excellence ARTIST2 and the Integrated Projects ASSERT and DECOS. Those projects continue our long history of successful participation in EC projects and secure that TU Vienna will play a leading role in the new Dependable Embedded Systems Center, which shall further improve Austria’s excellent position in the international R & D.     

基于USB KEY和BIOS的TPM故障解决方案

目前的可信计算研究方案,比较多地强调应用TPM模块,但对TPM模块自身的可靠性和稳定性等考虑的较少,若TPM发生故障,则整个系统就无法正常工作,同时用户的一些重要信息也不能恢复。文中提出了一种基于USB KEY和BIOS的安全解决方案,当TPM故障时,调用禁用TPM模块,使TPM进入功能禁用状态,不进行度量操作,计算机进入非可信工作模式;在启动过程中,利用USB KEY和访问控制模块,实现在BIOS层的身份认证;利用保存在USB KEY里的相关密钥,恢复用户的一些重要信息。