Little White Lies: How Fake Information can Lead to a Better Managed IoT Network.

The Internet of Things is fostering more and more mission critical applications on top of the wireless infrastructure. An example of this is the control of drones, which requires ultra-reliable communication with ultra low latency guarantees and the ability to switch from one technology to the other. Current IoT networks are currently not suited for providing such guarantees as (i) each technology works independently of each other, (ii) applications sometimes have limited control over the devices that are part of the network and (iii) existing high performing management solutions (e.g., Software Defined Networking) only work with resource rich devices. In this project, I propose a way to reach the same level of flexibility in the management of IoT networks as these high performing management solutions offer, without losing the support for resource constrained nodes and third party devices. We do this through WHISPER, an approach that generates "small lies" (fabricated messages) about the network state with the goal of improving the overall network management and providing guarantees on the application delivery. These messages are used to fool the existing IoT MAC, network and transport protocols in such a way that WHISPER will take control over the full network. This includes routing, link and end-to-end communication. As such, WHISPER can be used to manage a multi-technology IoT environment, where mission-critical applications such as drones can be hosted.

Keywords:WIRELESS NETWORKS, AD HOC NETWORKS, MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM, WIRELESS TECHNOLOGIES

Disciplines:Applied mathematics in specific fields