We propose an autonomous blockchain-based federated learning (BFL) design for privacy-aware and efficient vehicular communication networking, where local on-vehicle machine learning (oVML) model updates are exchanged and verified in a distributed fashion. BFL enables oVML without any centralized training data or coordination by utilizing the consensus mechanism of the blockchain. Relying on a renewal reward approach, we develop a mathematical framework that features the controllable network and BFL parameters (e.g., the retransmission limit, block size, block arrival rate, and the frame sizes) so as to capture their impact on the system-level performance. More importantly, our rigorous analysis of oVML system dynamics quantifies the end-to-end delay with BFL, which provides important insights into deriving optimal block arrival rate by considering communication and consensus delays. We present a variety of numerical and simulation results highlighting various non-trivial findings and insights for adaptive BFL design. In particular, based on analytical results, we minimize the system delay by exploiting the channel dynamics and demonstrate that the proposed idea of tuning the block arrival rate is provably online and capable of driving the system dynamics to the desired operating point. It also identifies the improved dependency on other blockchain parameters for a given set of channel conditions, retransmission limits, and frame sizes.An early version of this work has been accepted for presentation in IEEE WCNC Wksps 2020 shiva2020blockchained. However, a number of challenges (gaps in knowledge) need to be resolved in order to realise these changes. In particular, we identify key bottleneck challenges requiring further investigations, and provide potential future reserach directions.

Cognitive computing, a revolutionary AI concept emulating human brain's reasoning process, is progressively flourishing in the industry 4.0 automation. With the advancement of various AI and machine learning technologies the evolution towards improved decision-making as well as data-driven intelligent manufacturing has already been evident. However, several emerging issues, including the poisoning attacks, performance, and inadequate data resources, etc., have to be resolved. Recent studied the problems lightly, which often leads to unreliable performance, inefficiency and privacy leakage. In this paper, we developed a decentralised paradigm for big data-driven cognitive computing (D2C), using federated learning and blockchain jointly. Federated learning can solve the problem of “data island” with privacy protection and efficient processing while blockchain provides incentive mechanism, fully decentralized fashion, and robust against poisoning attacks. Using blockchain-enabled federated learning help quick convergence with advanced verifications and member selections.

Massive machine-type communication (mMTC) and ultra-reliable and low-latency communication (URLLC) are two key service types in the fifth-generation (5G) communication systems, pursuing scalability and reliability with low-latency, respectively. These two extreme services are envisaged to agglomerate together into critical mMTC shortly with emerging use cases (e.g., wide-area disaster monitoring, wireless factory automation), creating new challenges to designing wireless systems beyond 5G. While conventional network slicing is effective in supporting a simple mixture of mMTC and URLLC, it is difficult to simultaneously guarantee the reliability, latency, and scalability requirements of critical mMTC (e.g., < 4ms latency, 106 devices/km2 for factory automation) with limited radio resources. Furthermore, recently proposed solutions to scalable URLLC (e.g., machine learning aided URLLC for driverless vehicles) are ill-suited to critical mMTC whose machine type users have minimal energy budget and computing capability that should be (tightly) optimized for given tasks. To this end, our paper aims to characterize promising use cases of critical mMTC and search for their possible solutions. To this end, we first review the state-of-the-art (SOTA) technologies for separate mMTC and URLLC services and then identify key challenges from conflicting SOTA requirements, followed by potential approaches to prospective critical mMTC solutions at different layers.

We propose a novel communication efficient and privacy preserving federated learning framework for enhancing the performance of Internet of Vehicles (IoV), wherein on-vehicle learning models are trained by exchanging inputs, outputs and their learning parameters locally. Moreover, we use analytic modeling as a tool for reasoning and developing the required IoV scenario and stabilize their data flow dynamics by considering TCP CUBIC streams over WiFi networks to prove our idea.

A Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) is of paramount importance in facilitating smart Agricultural Internet of Things (Agri-IoT). It connects numerous sensor nodes or devices to develop a robust framework for efficient and seamless communication with improved throughput for intelligent networking. Such enhancement has to be facilitated by an adequate and smart machine learning-based resource allocation approach. With the ensuing surge in the volume of devices being deployed from the smart Agri-IoT, applications such as intelligent irrigation, smart crop monitoring and smart fishery would be largely benefited. However, the existing resource allocation techniques would be inefficient for such anticipated energy-efficient networking. To this end, we develop a distributed artificial intelligence approach that applies efficient multi-agent learning over the WSN scenario for intelligent resource allocation. The approach is based on dynamic clustering which coupled tightly with the Back-Propagation Neural Network and empowered by the Particle Swarm Optimization (BPNN-PSO). We implement the overall framework using a Bayesian Neural Network, where the outputs from BPNN-PSO are supplied as weights to the underlying neuron layer. We observe that the cost function and energy consumption demonstrate a substantial improvement in terms of cooperative networking and efficient resource allocation. The approach is validated with simulations under realistic assumptions.

Enabling ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) with stringent requirements for transmitting data packets (e.g., 99.999% reliability and 1 millisecond latency) presents considerable uplink transmission challenges. For each packet transmission over dynamically allocated network radio resources, the conventional random access protocols are based on a request-grant scheme. This induces excessive latency and necessitates reliable control signalling, resulting in overhead. To address these problems, grant-free (GF) solutions are proposed in the fifth-generation (5G) new radio (NR). In this paper, an overview and vision of the state-of-the-art in enabling GF URLLC are presented. In particular, we first provide a comprehensive review of NR specifications and techniques for URLLC, discuss underlying principles, and highlight impeding issues of enabling GF URLLC. Furthermore, we briefly explain two key phenomena of massive multiple-input multiple-output (mMIMO) (i.e., channel hardening and favorable propagation) and build several deep insights into how celebrated mMIMO features can be exploited to address the issues and enhance the performance of GF URLLC. Moving further ahead, we examine the potential of cell-free (CF) mMIMO and analyze its distinctive features and benefits over mMIMO to resolve GF URLLC issues. Finally, we identify future research directions and challenges in enabling GF URLLC with CF mMIMO.