Daniel Giusto’s research while affiliated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other places

The chapter deals with the QoS Management in a relief communication network able to manage the different wireless access technologies that the rescuers utilize. A QoS DiffServ-based architecture is proposed, which not only provides seamless QoS support over different access wireless technologies, but also exhibits a scalability property against the entry of any new access technology, since the new entry can be managed just adding a new specific QoS management module without requiring the upgrading of the ones already present in the system. A testbed for the performance evaluation of the proposed architecture has also been designed and the first results show the effectiveness of the proposal.

In this chapter, we concentrate on performance characterization of passive ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) tags. Energy harvesting properties of the tag and the significance of the backscattered signal strength and radar cross-section (RCS) of the tag are analyzed with two characterization examples. The presented examples are an analysis of the effects of dipole antenna width and an analysis of the impedance matching properties of a bow-tie tag antenna.

RFID technology for use in real-time object identification is being rapidly adopted in several fields such as logistic, automotive, surveillance, automation systems, etc. [1]. A radiofrequency identification (RFID) system consists of readers and tags applied to objects. The reader interrogates the tags via a wireless link to obtain the data stored on them. The cheapest RFID tags with the largest commercial potential are passive or semi-passive, and the energy necessary for tag–reader communication is harvested from the reader’s signal. Passive RFID tags are usually based on backscatter modulation, where the antenna reflection properties are changed according to information data [2].

Efficient data dissemination in MANETs presents a significant challenge. Epidemic dissemination is introduced as a method to reliably spread information (context) across a network in which no direct path from source to destination can be secured. We propose a probabilistic broadcast scheme instead of the flooding technique, thus, reducing significantly the volume of message transmissions seen throughout the network. Simulation results prove the efficiency of such a scheme, which achieves full coverage of the network with disseminated context.

The HYDRA project develops middleware for networked embedded systems that allow developers to create ambient intelligence (AmI) applications based on wireless devices and sensors. Through its unique combination of Service-oriented Architecture (SoA) and a semantic-based Model-Driven Architecture, HYDRA will enable the development of generic services based on open standards.

Emerging media overlay networks for wireless applications aim at delivering Variable-Bit-Rate (VBR) encoded media contents to nomadic end-users by exploiting the (fading-impaired and time-varying) access capacity offered by the “last-hop” wireless channel. In this application scenario, a still open question concerns the design of control policies maximizing the average throughput over the wireless last-hop, under constraints on the maximum connection bandwidth allowed at the Application (APP) layer, the queue-capacity available at the Data-Link (DL) layer, and the average and peak transmit energies sustained by the Physical (PHY) layer. The main feature of the approach we follow relies on the maximization (on a per-slot basis) of the throughput averaged over the fading statistics and conditioned on the queue-state. The resulting optimal controller is rate-based and operates in a cross-layer fashion that involves the APP, DL, and PHY layers of the underlying protocol stack. This means that the proposed controller dynamically allocates connection bandwidth at the APP layer, throughput at the DL layer, and transmit-energy at the PHY layer by basing on both current queue and channel-states. The carried out numerical tests give insights about the connection bandwidth-vs.-queue-delay tradeoff attained by the optimal controller.

In an emergency scenario, the presence of a reliable communication infrastructure is fundamental. In response to massive catastrophes, such as earthquakes, floods, fires, etc., public authorities are expected to undertake actions to control and limit damages for people and for buildings. To this end, security agents are dispatched to the emergency area and they need to communicate to the people from a remote centre and they are responsible for emergency management. In this context, the use of IEEE 802.15.4 wireless personal area networks (WPANs) to allow communications among security agents seems particularly appropriate, thanks to their characteristics of self-configurability, adaptability, scalability, and low cost. Moreover, this kind of network can be used, if necessary, in a pervasive mode for data collection in the emergency area. In this work, we present an algorithm to self-configure an IEEE 802.15.4 WPAN by electing, in a distributed manner, a suitable node for the WPAN coordination. Our approach achieves a reduction of the network depth and a better distribution of nodes at different levels of the network.

Due to the wide spread of mobile devices, such as smartphones, nowadays new applications and appealing services are emerging for wireless networks. Some interesting novel architectures for communication inspired by principles of cooperation have been introduced in the last years. To evaluate the performance of new proposed architectures, it is often necessary to measure throughput and delay in the communication, and the power consumption of the devices. In many measurement campaigns, mobile devices are placed in fixed positions without moving around, and consequently the results differ from reality, where the topology of the network is constantly changing due to mobility of the users. Another approach is to make simulations where the topology of the network can be modified during the measurements, but in some cases they can only offer a good approximation of the real environment. In this chapter, we present a mobile platform we have designed to optimize measurements for wireless networks with dynamic topologies by using real devices.

This contribution is concerned with business value of large amounts of data generated by RFID data collection infrastructures. We present the case example of a department store that implemented RFID in its menswear department to seamlessly track thousands of items on their way from the distribution center to the point of sale. The recorded trace data allow for a number of quantitative analyses, which provide novel insights into in-store logistics and customer behavior on the sales floor. We provide an overview of the structure of the underlying raw data and the necessary analysis procedures for generating business-relevant information. Our case study findings indicate that RFID poses an untapped opportunity for retail companies to improve category management, store layout design, inventory control, and process execution.

At the core of the Internet/Web of Things lays the issue of large-scale interoperability of heterogeneous Things/Objects networks. Going beyond limited-scale interoperability, middleware requires dealing with a number of issues targeting, among others, the Web-wide Object addressability and Objects capabilities orchestration for the development of different applications. Such a goal requires not only addressing “internetworking things” at a communication level but also “interdataworking of things” i.e., providing interoperability among Objects smart data. Indeed, the smarter and the most interoperable are the data, the easier will be sharing, linking, and processing between distributed IoT applications. This chapter discusses the architectural requirements of the InterDataNet (IDN) framework. IDN approach provides scalable integration, management, and reuse of large numbers of Objects networks in the Web of Data, thus enabling Web of Things applications. The core of the IDN is provided through three main views: the IDN-Information Model, the IDN-Service Architecture, and the IDN-Applications.