Security and key management in IoT‐based wireless sensor networks: An authentication protocol using symmetric key

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) consist of hundreds of miniature sensor nodes to sense various events in the surrounding environment and report back to the base station. Sensor networks are at the base of internet of things (IoT) and smart computing applications where a function is performed as a result of sensed event or information. However, in resource‐limited WSN authenticating a remote user is a vital security concern. Recently, researchers put forth various authentication protocols to address different security issues. Gope et al presented a protocol claiming resistance against known attacks. A thorough analysis of their protocol shows that it is vulnerable to user traceability, stolen verifier, and denial of service (DoS) attacks. In this article, an enhanced symmetric key‐based authentication protocol for IoT‐based WSN has been presented. The proposed protocol has the ability to counter user traceability, stolen verifier, and DoS attacks. Furthermore, the proposed protocol has been simulated and verified using Proverif and BAN logic. The proposed protocol has the same communication cost as the baseline protocol; however, in computation cost, it has 52.63% efficiency as compared with the baseline protocol.     

Enhanced Terahertz Receiver Using a Distributed Bragg Reflector Coupled to a Photoconductive Antenna

We report the use of a terahertz (THz) receiver fabricated using a photoconductive antenna mounted upon a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR). It is shown that the relative performance of the device is in accordance with the reflectivity curves of the DBR. At maximum reflectivity the device improved upon the reference THz signal by up to 30%. In addition, we characterize the saturation of the device with laser pump power and it is shown that the device exhibits an improved optical efficiency when compared to the reference receiver.     

SOLVENT EXTRACTION OF PAKISTANI COALS (ii): EXTRACTION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF METHANOL-BENZENE EXTRACTS

Structural characterization of the solvent extracts from four different Pakistani lignitic coals has been carried out by their proximate, elemental analysis and FT-Infrared and ¹H n.m.r. spectra. The yield of each extracts was greater with 1:1 benzene-methanol mixture in comparison to the total yield obtained by separate extractions with benzene and methanol. The extracts contained significantly less amount of ash and fixed carbon along with an increase in the percentage of volatile matter. The FTIR and ¹H n.m.r. spectra indicated that basically all the extracts contained less condensed aromatic rings in comparison to the coal. The FTIR spectra showed sharp well resolved peaks which have been assigned to various functional groups.

The ¹H n.m.r. spectra were used to obtain average structural parameters for all the extracts. A detailed analysis of the FTIR and n.m.r. spectra of the coal and their extracts provided an important in-sight into the differences between various extracts and also between various coals and their corresponding extracts.     

Bandwidth requirements for accurate detection of direct path in multipath environment

The accurate detection of the direct path in a dense multipath environment is critical in time-based and angle-of-arrival-based location estimation techniques. It is generally assumed that an infinitely large bandwidth is helpful in the accurate detection of the direct path and high-range resolution. It is experimentally demonstrated that, for a wideband system, a bandwidth of up to 4 GHz, centred on 12.5 GHz, is sufficient for accurate detection of direct path in a typical indoor scattering environment. Additionally, the bandwidth gain, incremental range accuracy with bandwidth, is an effective indicator of the bandwidth requirements for accurate detection of the direct path.     

AC analysis of nanoscale GME-TRC MOSFET for microwave and RF applications

In this paper, the RF performance for Gate Material Engineered-Trapezoidal Recessed Channel (GME-TRC) MOSFET has been investigated and the results so obtained are compared with Trapezoidal Recessed Channel (TRC) MOSFET and Rectangle Recessed Channel (RRC) MOSFET, using device simulators; ATLAS and DEVEDIT. Further, the impact of technology parameter variations in terms of negative junction depth (NJD), gate metal workfunction difference, substrate doping (N_A) and corner angle, on GME-TRC MOSFET has also been evaluated. The simulation study shows the increase in transconductance and decrease in parasitic capacitance, which further contributes towards a significant improvement in cut-off frequency (f_t) in GME-TRC MOSFET as compared to conventional TRC and RRC MOSFETs. Moreover, the significant enhancement in maximum available power gain (Gma), maximum transducer power gain (G_MT), maximum unilateral power gain (MUG), maximum frequency of oscillation (f_MAX) and stern stability factor (K) have also been observed for GME-TRC MOSFET due to reduced short channel effects (SCEs) and enhanced current driving capabilities. Further, the experimental data for grooved gate MOSFET has also been verified with the simulated data and a good agreement between their results is obtained.     

Analysis of Handover Performance in LTE Femtocells Network

Handover management is one of the main factors representing the effectiveness of every wireless network technology. Due to the special characteristics of a femtocell, unnecessary handover occurs more frequently. This issue has attracted interest in developing a new handover algorithm in femtocell network. The standard handover algorithm relies on Reference Signal Received Power or Reference Signal Received Quality (RSRQ) level. However, this technique causes an unnecessary handover and reduces the user throughput. Mobility prediction is one of a popular technique to be implemented in handover algorithm. This paper analyzes the handover performance in femtocell network by using two types of handover algorithm which are standard A2-A4-RSRQ handover algorithm and proposed prediction handover algorithm. The analysis is performed in terms of the number of handover, the number of unnecessary handover, and the user throughput. The root cause of user throughput degradation is also analyzed. The results show that the prediction handover algorithm provides better performance than the A2-A4-RSRQ handover algorithm in terms of the number of handover and user throughput.     

A Retargetable Compilation Methodology for Embedded Digital Signal Processors Using a Machine-Dependent Code Optimization Library

We address the problem of code generation for embedded DSP systems. Such systems devote a limited quantity of silicon to program memory, so the embedded software must be sufficiently dense. Additionally, this software must be written so as to meet various high-performance constraints. Unfortunately, current compiler technology is unable to generate dense, high-performance code for DSPs, due to the fact that it does not provide adequate support for the specialized architectural features of DSPs via machine-dependent code optimizations. Thus, designers often program the embedded software in assembly, a very time-consuming task. In order to increase productivity, compilers must be developed that are capable of generating high-quality code for DSPs. The compilation process must also be made retargetable, so that a variety of DSPs may be efficiently evaluated for potential use in an embedded system. We present a retargetable compilation methodology that enables high-quality code to be generated for a wide range of DSPs. Previous work in retargetable DSP compilation has focused on complete automation, and this desire for automation has limited the number of machine-dependent optimizations that can be supported. In our efforts, we have given code quality higher priority over complete automation. We demonstrate how by using a library of machine-dependent optimization routines accessible via a programming interface, it is possible to support a wide range of machine-dependent optimizations, albeit at some cost to automation. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our methodology, which has been used to build good-quality compilers for three fixed-point DSPs. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Joint physical and link layer error control analysis for nanonetworks in the Terahertz band

Nanonetworks consist of nano-sized communicating devices which are able to perform simple tasks at the nanoscale. The limited capabilities of individual nanomachines and the Terahertz (THz) band channel behavior lead to error-prone wireless links. In this paper, a cross-layer analysis of error-control strategies for nanonetworks in the THz band is presented. A mathematical framework is developed and used to analyze the tradeoffs between Bit Error Rate, Packet Error Rate, energy consumption and latency, for five different error-control strategies, namely, Automatic Repeat reQuest (ARQ), Forward Error Correction (FEC), two types of Error Prevention Codes (EPC) and a hybrid EPC. The cross-layer effects between the physical and the link layers as well as the impact of the nanomachine capabilities in both layers are taken into account. At the physical layer, nanomachines are considered to communicate by following a time-spread on-off keying modulation based on the transmission of femtosecond-long pulses. At the link layer, nanomachines are considered to access the channel in an uncoordinated fashion, by leveraging the possibility to interleave pulse-based transmissions from different nodes. Throughout the analysis, accurate path loss, noise and multi-user interference models, validated by means of electromagnetic simulation, are utilized. In addition, the energy consumption and latency introduced by a hardware implementation of each error control technique, as well as, the additional constraints imposed by the use of energy-harvesting mechanisms to power the nanomachines, are taken into account. The results show that, despite their simplicity, EPCs outperform traditional ARQ and FEC schemes, in terms of error correcting capabilities, which results in further energy savings and reduced latency.     

Modeling operation and microarchitecture concurrency for communication architectures with application to retargetable simulation

In multiprocessor-based system-on-chips (SOCs), optimizing the communication architecture is often as important as, if not more than, optimizing the computation architecture. While there are mature platforms and techniques for the modeling and evaluation of computation architectures, the same is not true for the communication architectures. A major challenge in modeling the communication architecture is managing the concurrency at multiple levels: at the operation level, multiple communication operations may be active at any time; at the microarchitecture level, several microarchitectural components may be operating in parallel. Further, it is important to be able to clearly specify how the operation-level concurrency maps to the microarchitectural-level concurrency. This paper presents a modeling methodology and a retargetable simulation framework which fill this gap. This framework seeks to facilitate the design space exploration of the communication subsystem through a rigorous modeling approach based on a formal concurrency model, the operation state machine (OSM). Our OSM-based modeling methodology enables the entire system including both the computation and communication architectures to be modeled in a single OSM framework. This allows us to develop a tool set that can synthesize cycle-accurate system simulators for multiprocessing-element SOC prototypes. We show that, by simulation, critical system information such as timing and communication patterns can be obtained and evaluated. Consequently, system-level design choices regarding the communication architecture can be made with high confidence in early stages of design.