Proximity Based Authentication in IoT

IoT consists of essentially thousands of tiny sensor nodes interconnected to the internet, each one of which executes the programmed functions under memory and power limita- tions. The sensor nodes are distributed mainly for gathering data in various situations. IoT envisions the future technologies such as e-health, smart city, auto-mobiles automa- tion, construction sites automation, and smart home. Secure communication of data under memory and energy constraints is major challenge in IoT. Authentication is the first and important phase of secure communication. This study presents a protocol to authenticate resource constraint devices in physical proximity by solely using the shared wireless communication interfaces. This model of authentication only relies on the abundance of ambient radio signals to authenticate in less than a second. To evaluate the designed protocol, SkyMotes are emulated in a network environment simulated by Contiki/COOJA. Results presented during this study proves that this approach is immune against passive and active attacks. An adversary located as near as two meters can be identified in less than a second with minimal expense of energy. Since, only radio device is used as required hardware for the authentication, this technique is scalable and interoperable to heterogeneous nature of IoT.

Modelling of changes in electricity end-use and their impacts on electricity distribution

The electricity distribution sector will face significant changes in the future. Increasing reliability demands will call for major network investments. At the same time, electricity end-use is undergoing profound changes. The changes include future energy technologies and other advances in the field. New technologies such as microgeneration and electric vehicles will have different kinds of impacts on electricity distribution network loads. In addition, smart metering provides more accurate electricity consumption data and opportunities to develop sophisticated load modelling and forecasting approaches. Thus, there are both demands and opportunities to develop a new type of long-term forecasting methodology for electricity distribution. The work concentrates on the technical and economic perspectives of electricity distribution. The doctoral dissertation proposes a methodology to forecast electricity consumption in the distribution networks. The forecasting process consists of a spatial analysis, clustering, end-use modelling, scenarios and simulation methods, and the load forecasts are based on the application of automatic meter reading (AMR) data. The developed long-term forecasting process produces power-based load forecasts. By applying these results, it is possible to forecast the impacts of changes on electrical energy in the network, and further, on the distribution system operator’s revenue. These results are applicable to distribution network and business planning. This doctoral dissertation includes a case study, which tests the forecasting process in practice. For the case study, the most prominent future energy technologies are chosen, and their impacts on the electrical energy and power on the network are analysed. The most relevant topics related to changes in the operating environment, namely energy efficiency, microgeneration, electric vehicles, energy storages and demand response, are discussed in more detail. The study shows that changes in electricity end-use may have radical impacts both on electrical energy and power in the distribution networks and on the distribution revenue. These changes will probably pose challenges for distribution system operators. The study suggests solutions for the distribution system operators on how they can prepare for the changing conditions. It is concluded that a new type of load forecasting methodology is needed, because the previous methods are no longer able to produce adequate forecasts.

A Study of Multicast Performance in IEEE 802.11 Wireless Local Area Networks

Langattomat lähiverkot ovat yleistyneet ja monin paikoin niillä pyritään täysin korvaamaan perinteiset kaapeloidut verkot. Samalla verkoissa välitettävät palvelut monipuolistuvat. Etenkin interaktiivisten sisältöjen ja viiveriippuvaisten palvelujen välittämisessä korostuvat verkolle asettavat vaatimukset suorituskyvystä ja palveluntasosta. Radiotaajuuksilla tapahtuva tiedonsiirto on ongelmallista siirtomedian jaetun luonteen vuoksi. Käytettäessä ympärisäteileviä antenneja jokainen kantomatkan päässä oleva asema kuulee lähetyksen, vaikkei se olisi sille suunnattu. Tämä luo turvallisuusongelman, mutta lisäksi heikentää tehokkuutta, koska nykyisellä antenniteknologialla vain yksi asema kerrallaan voi lähettää häiriöttä kantoalueellaan. Täsmälähetykset yhden lähteen ja useiden kohteiden välillä luovat erillisiä siirtolinkkejä. Olisi luontevampaa luoda yksi lähetysvirta, johon useat vastaanottajat voivat kytkeytyä. Kaistan säästön vastapainona on tarve luoda ja ylläpitää näitä yhteyksiä. Käyttäjien liikkuvuuden ja siirtotien vaihtelevien ominaisuuksien vuoksi langattoman verkon rakenne ja rajat ovat epäselviä. Näihin haasteisiin on vastattava sekä protokolla- että sovellustasolla. Tässä tutkielmassa käydään ensin läpi IEEE 802.11 -standardin mukaisen langattoman verkon perusteet ja sen ominaisuuksiin liittyvät tyypilliset ongelmakohdat. Yleis- ja ryhmälähetyksiä tarkastellaan ensin perinteisessä IEEE 802.3 standardin mukaisessa langallisessa lähiverkossa ja selvitetään, miten vastaavat ominaisuudet toteutuvat IEEE 802.11 standardien mukaisissa langattomissa verkoissa. Käyttötapaustutkimuksissa keskitytään rajatussa ympäristössä tapahtuviin ryhmälähetyksiin. Erityisesti tutkitaan langattomien ryhmälähetysten käyttökelpoisuutta sekä langattoman ympäristön asettamia erityisvaatimuksia.

Co-creating Value For Smart Phone Operating Systems Via Virtual Discussion Forums

In the traditional way, value is created by manufacturer or producer of a product without engaging the customers. So, traditionally value creation is a monopoly in the part of a manufacturer. After gathering all the raw materials the manufacturers are inserting value to a product. And the inserted value is recognized in the time of consuming the product. In the modern time though there is traditional way of value creation but with the increase of more educated, smart, and technically sound customers the idea of value creation has changed. Now, customers are also contributing in value creation as value co-creator even before the product is consumed. This scenario has been encountered in the thesis with the main purpose of how value is cocreated in smart phone operating systems. The purpose is further divided into the following supobjectives: o What is value co-creation in smart phone operating systems? o Who participates in value co-creation in smart phone operating systems? o What are the procedures that are involved in value co-creation in smart phone operating systems? The research was conducted as a qualitative desk study by observing two of the leading smart phone operating system providers. Data has been collected from the official discussion forum of both the operating system providers. Other general concepts relating to the purpose of the study has been encountered through literature review. The research findings reveal that customers and companies both together co-create value of anticipated level when they communicate and interact with each other. However, most of the time customer to customer interactions, dialogues and discussions that come out in the core conversation help the value co-creation. The value co-creation framework sets up the customer at the main focus of value creation theory. By nullifying the inherited notion that companies only create value within its boundary and provide it to their customers in exchange of currencies. Rationally, it has been commenced that the firms are merely compromising value propositions to its customers. But the value has been co-created in a point where offerings are combined and interacted with customers’ capabilities, knowledge, resources and perceptions. This new perspective has radically altered the prospect of firms towards its customers. Typically customers are now taking part in value cocreation as a crucial member.

Distribution of Smart Solutions for External Lighting in Switzerland - Case C2 Smartlight Ltd.

Establishing of export operations is the key to the competitiveness for all producing companies in high-tech industry. Distribution partnerships between exporting producer and local distributors of relevant foreign market are utilized by SMEs to gain cost-efficiency of operation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the Swiss market of outdoor lighting solutions and propose distribution channels for the case of company C2 SmartLight Ltd. The literature framework consists of three main parts: description of distribution channels for business products, the selection process of the distributor and management of the distributors. The empirical part of this study composed of the observation of Swiss lighting market, highlighting key customers, trends of energy efficiency and key industry players of the lighting market. The aim was to identify potential distribution channels, which reach the target customer groups and identify the market opportunity. Secondly, the data was collected through semi-structured phone interviews. The company, which operates in outdoor lighting business and has an established distributor in Switzerland, was interviewed and used as a benchmark. As a result of this research the market opportunity for distribution of C2 SmartLight products was identified based on potential customers and market need. C2 SmartLight Ltd. should establish a connection with wholesalers that distribute easy to handle and store electrical equipment. The results of this study can be used by other SME companies, operating in a similar field of economy, for selection of distributors.

Smart girls : a deconstructive discourse analysis of smartness

This project is a deconstructive discourse analysis of smart girlhood. From a feminist post structural framework, with a focus on discourse and performative identity, I scrutinize three dominant discourses of smartness that are prevalent and academic and popular press. These constructions frame smart girls as being either Losers, Have-It-All Girls, or Imposters. By conducting semi-structured group interviews with six self-identified smart girls, I explore the question of how smart girls perform their smart girl identities in their current sociocultural context. After analyzing the data from the group interviews, I outline five themes that seem to be prevalent in the stories told by the smart girls in this thesis. Finally, I discuss how the performative identities of the smart girls in my thesis appear to be much more complex, multiple and rhizomatic than the discourses under review allow.

Wireless privacy and personalized location-based services: the challenge of translating the legal framework into business practices

L'avancement des communications sans-fil permet l'obtention de nouveaux services bases sur l'habileté des fournisseurs de services sans-fil à déterminer avec précision, et avec l'utilisation de technologies de pistage, la localisation et position géographiquement d'appareils sans-fil Cette habileté permet d'offrir aux utilisateurs de sans-fil de nouveaux services bases sur la localisation et la position géographique de leur appareil. Le développement des services basés sur la localisation des utilisateurs de sans-fil soulevé certains problèmes relatifs à la protection de la vie privée qui doivent être considérés. En effet, l'appareil sans-fil qui suit et enregistre les mouvements de I 'utilisateur permet un système qui enregistre et entrepose tous les mouvements et activités d'un tel utilisateur ou encore qui permet l'envoi de messages non anticipes à ce dernier. Pour ce motif et afin de protéger la vie privée des utilisateurs de sans-fil, une compagnie désirant développer ou déployer une technologie permettant d'offrir ce genre de services personnalisés devra analyser l'encadrement légal touchant la protection des données personnelles--lequel est dans certains cas vague et non approprié à ce nouveau contexte--ainsi que la position de l'industrie dans ce domaine, et ce, afin d'être en mesure de traduire cet encadrement en pratiques commerciales. Cette analyse permettra d'éclairer le fournisseur de ces services sur la façon d'établir son modèle d'affaires et sur le type de technologie à développer afin d'être en mesure de remédier aux nouveaux problèmes touchant la vie privée tout en offrant ces nouveaux services aux utilisateurs de sans-fil.

Exploring the neural entrainment to musical rhythms and meter : a steady-state evoked potential approach

Thèse de doctorat réalisé en cotutelle avec l'Université catholique de Louvain, Belgique (Faculté de médecine, Institut de Neuroscience)

A compact very-high-permittivity dielectric-eye resonator antenna for multiband wireless applications

very-high-permittivity (e, = 100) multiband dielectrice> e resonator antenna is presented. The compact antenna, excited by a m:'crostrip line, resonates at two frequencies centered around the 1.9- GHz and 2.4-GHz bands with identical polarization . The behavior of the antenna at different positions along the feed line is studied and optimized. Multiple resonances with the same polarization and broad radioticn patterns suggest the suitability of the antenna for multiband wireless application

Design Techniques for Sigmadelta based ADC for Wireless Applications

Analog-to digital Converters (ADC) have an important impact on the overall performance of signal processing system. This research is to explore efficient techniques for the design of sigma-delta ADC,specially for multi-standard wireless tranceivers. In particular, the aim is to develop novel models and algorithms to address this problem and to implement software tools which are avle to assist the designer's decisions in the system-level exploration phase. To this end, this thesis presents a framework of techniques to design sigma-delta analog to digital converters.A2-2-2 reconfigurable sigma-delta modulator is proposed which can meet the design specifications of the three wireless communication standards namely GSM,WCDMA and WLAN. A sigma-delta modulator design tool is developed using the Graphical User Interface Development Environment (GUIDE) In MATLAB.Genetic Algorithm(GA) based search method is introduced to find the optimum value of the scaling coefficients and to maximize the dynamic range in a sigma-delta modulator.

Fabrication and characterisation of polymer optical fibers for smart sensing and optical amplification

The thesis presented the fabrication and characterisation of polymer optical fibers in their applications as optical amplifier and smart sensors.Optical polymers such as PMMA are found to be a very good host material due to their ability to incorporate very high concentration of optical gain media like fluorescent dyes and rare earth compounds. High power and high gain optical amplification in organic dye-doped polymer optical fibers is possible due to extremely large emission cross sections of oyes. Dye doped (Rhodamine 6G) optical fibers were fabricated by using indigenously developed polymer optical fiber drawing tower. Loss characterization of drawn dye doped fibers was carried out using side illumination technique. The advantage of the above technique is that it is a nondestructive method and can also be used for studying the uniformity in fiber diameter and doping. Sensitivity of the undoped polymer fibers to temperature and microbending were also studied in its application in smart sensors.Optical amplification studies using the dye doped polymer optical fibers were carried out and found that an amplification of l8dB could be achieved using a very short fiber of length lOcm. Studies were carried out in fibers with different dye concentrations and diameter and it was observed that gain stability was achieved at relatively high dye concentrations irrespective of the fiber diameter.Due to their large diameter, large numerical aperture, flexibility and geometrical versatility of polymer optical fibers it has a wide range of applications in the field of optical sensing. Just as in the case of conventional silica based fiber optic sensors, sensing techniques like evanescent wave, grating and other intensity modulation schemes can also be efficiently utilized in the case of POF based sensors. Since polymer optical fibers have very low Young's modulus when compared to glass fibers, it can be utilized for sensing mechanical stress and strain efficiently in comparison with its counterpart. Fiber optic sensors have proved themselves as efficient and reliable devices to sense various parameters like aging, crack formation, weathering in civil structures. A similar type of study was carried out to find the setting characteristics of cement paste used for constructing civil structures. It was found that the measurements made by using fiber optic sensors are far more superior than that carried out by conventional methods. More over,POF based sensors were found to have more sensitivity as well.

A fiber optic smart sensor for studying the setting characteristics of various grades of cement

A simple, effective and inexpensive fiber optic sensor for investigating the setting characteristics of various grades of cement is described. A finite length of unsheathed multimode optical fiber laid inside the cement mix, is subjected to stress during the setting process. The microbends created on the fiber due to this stress directly influence the intensity of light propagating through the fiber. Continuous monitoring of such variations in the light output transmitted through the fiber gives a clear measure of the setting characteristics of the cement mix, thus providing a simple and elegant technique of great practical importance in the field of civil engineering. The smart fiber optic sensor described above can be incorporated into a building during the construction process itself so that continuous monitoring of the deterioration process for the entire life time of the building can be carried out.

Efficient Transmitter/Receiver Architectures for High Performance Wireless Applications

The thesis focuses on efficient design methods and reconfiguration architectures suitable for higher performance wireless communication .The work presented in this thesis describes the development of compact,inexpensive and low power communication devices that are robust,testable and capable of handling multiple communication standards.A new multistandard Decimation Filter Design Toolbox is developed in MATLAB GUIDE environment.RNS based dual-mode decimation filters reconfigurable for WCDMA/WiMAX and WCDMA/WLANa standards are designed and implemented.It offers high speed operation with lesser area requirement and lower dynamic power dissipation.A novel sigma-delta based direct analog-to-residue converter that reduces the complexity of RNS conversion circuitry is presented.The performance of an OFDM communication system with a new RRNS-convolutional concatenated coding is analysed and improved BER performance is obtained under different channel conditions. Easily testable MAC units for filters are presented using Reed-Muller logic for realization.

Hexagonal dielectric resonator antenna - A novel DR antenna for wireless communication

In this thesis, the author proposes a new geometry DR antenna-the Hexagonal Dielectric Resonator Antenna(HDRA)-capable of multiple frequency operation on a single feed of excitation.This avoids the conventional use of miniaturizes the structure.The properties of the HDRA on microstrip as well as coaxial feeding have been studied.The analysis of radiation characteristics indicates a gain comparable with other shapes.The antenna is capable of providing efficiency around 98%.The simulation using HFSS also yields results in conformity with the experimental results.Mode analysis is carried out and the modes are identified.The determination of the reflection characteristics through theoretical analysis using FDTD validates the multifrequency operation of the antenna,The antenna finds application in DCT,PCS and WLAN bands.