Internet growth has generated new types of services where the use of sensors and actuators is especially remarkable. These services compose what is known as the Internet of Things (IoT). One of the biggest current challenges is obtaining a safe and easy access control scheme for the data managed in these services. We propose integrating IoT devices in an access control system designed for Web-based services by modelling certain IoT communication elements as resources. This would allow us to obtain a unified access control scheme between heterogeneous devices (IoT devices, Internet-based services, etc.). To achieve this, we have analysed the most relevant communication protocols for these kinds of environments and then we have proposed a methodology which allows the modelling of communication actions as resources. Then, we can protect these resources using access control mechanisms. The validation of our proposal has been carried out by selecting a communication protocol based on message exchange, specifically Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT). As an access control scheme, we have selected User-Managed Access (UMA), an existing Open Authorization (OAuth) 2.0 profile originally developed for the protection of Internet services. We have performed tests focused on validating the proposed solution in terms of the correctness of the access control system. Finally, we have evaluated the energy consumption overhead when using our proposal.
Automated negotiation protocols represent a potentially powerful tool for problem solving in decision support systems involving participants with conflicting interests. However, the effectiveness of negotiation approaches depends greatly on the negotiation problem under consideration. Since there is no one negotiation protocol that clearly outperforms all others in all scenarios, we need to be able to decide which protocol is most suited for each particular problem. The goal of our work is to meet this challenge by defining a ''negotiation handbook'', that is, a collection of design rules which allow us, given a particular negotiation problem, to choose the most appropriate protocol to address it. This paper describes our progress towards this goal, including a tool for generating a wide range of negotiation scenarios, a set of high-level metrics for characterizing how negotiation scenarios differ, a testbed environment for evaluating protocol performance with different scenarios, and a community repository which allows us to systematically record and analyze protocol performance data.
Intelligent transportation systems are a set of technological solutions used to improve the performance and safety of road transportation. A crucial element for the success of these systems is the exchange of information, not only between vehicles, but also among other components in the road infrastructure through different applications. One of the most important information sources in this kind of systems is sensors. Sensors can be within vehicles or as part of the infrastructure, such as bridges, roads or traffic signs. Sensors can provide information related to weather conditions and traffic situation, which is useful to improve the driving process. To facilitate the exchange of information between the different applications that use sensor data, a common framework of knowledge is needed to allow interoperability. In this paper an ontology-driven architecture to improve the driving environment through a traffic sensor network is proposed. The system performs different tasks automatically to increase driver safety and comfort using the information provided by the sensors.
One of the biggest challenges in modern societies is to solve vehicular traffic problems. Sensor networks in traffic environments have contributed to improving the decision-making process of Intelligent Transportation Systems. However, one of the limiting factors for the effectiveness of these systems is in the deployment of sensors to provide accurate information about the traffic. Our proposal is using the centrality measurement of a graph as a base to locate the best locations for sensor installation in a traffic network. After integrating these sensors in a simulation scenario, we define a Multi-Agent Systems composed of three types of agents: traffic light management agents, traffic jam detection agents, and agents that control the traffic lights at an intersection. The ultimate goal of these Multi-Agent Systems is to improve the trip duration for vehicles in the network. To validate our solution, we have developed the needed elements for modelling the sensors and agents in the simulation environment. We have carried out experiments using the Simulation of Urban MObility (SUMO) traffic simulator and the Travel and Activity PAtterns Simulation (TAPAS) Cologne traffic scenario. The obtained results show that our proposal allows to reduce the sensor network while still obtaining relevant information to have a global view of the environment. Finally, regarding the Multi-Agent Systems, we have carried out experiments that show that our proposal is able to improve other existing solutions such as conventional traffic light management systems (static or dynamic) in terms of reduction of vehicle trip duration and reduction of the message exchange overhead in the sensor network.