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ARNET

ARNET

Airborne Relaying Networks for Reliable and Secure Mobile Communications
POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029074 PTDC/EEI-COM/29074/2017
47 months (Jul 2018 to Jun 2022)
Summary:ARNET aims to design wireless communication protocols to enhance network reliability and security in Airborne Relaying NETworks (ARNET) for Long-Term Evolution (LTE) users on the ground. In particular, the UAV carries computation power, a lightweight LTE base station, and a onboard data processor. The UAVs are autonomously interconnected to each other and are building a multi-hop wireless network. Moreover, the UAVs are essentially mobile access points that provide network coverage and bring high data rates to challenging locations where cellular network layout may be underprovisioned. At a high level, the project will perform cutting-edge research across the following streams: i) Develop an understanding of the wireless characteristics of multi-hop communication links (UAV-to-UAV and UAVto-ground LTE users) with heterogeneous data, e.g., text, image, voice, and video. ii) Develop novel communication protocols for hierarchically organised cooperative UAVs to enhance airborne relaying network reliability with guaranteed network connectivity. iii) Develop practical and secure approaches for the airborne relaying network to evade targeted wireless communication attacks, e.g., jamming and spoofing. iv) Build an airborne relaying network testbed to operationally validate reliability and security with the proposed protocols. The final outcome will be a reliable and secure airborne relaying network, which enables real-time data relay for LTE users on the ground. The proposed protocols will be comprehensively evaluated on the testbed in a real-world environment. It will integrate advanced multi-hop wireless communication for relaying heterogeneous data of LTE users while ensuring service area coverage. Consequently, this project is a significant step towards realising the vision of an airborne relaying network.
Funding:Global: 233KEUR, CISTER: 233KEUR
Sponsors:COMPETE2020
Portugal 2020
FEDER
FCT
Partners:CISTER/ISEP
Contact Person at CISTER:Kai Li
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
Project News
17, Jun, 2022

Best Paper Award at IWCMC 2022

28, Oct, 2020

CISTER project enhances reliability and security in UAV data networks for IoT devices

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Journal Papers
Integration and Applications of Fog Computing and Cloud Computing Based on the Internet of Things for Provision of Healthcare Services at Home CISTER-TR-210705 
Muhammad Ijaz, Gang Li, Ling Lin, Omar Cheikhrouhou, Habib Hamam, Alam Noor
ABSTRACTPDFPDF
Electronics (Electronics), Article No 9, MDPI. 2, May, 2021, Volume 10, pp 1-12.
Online Velocity Control and Data Capture of Drones for the Internet-of-Things: An Onboard Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach CISTER-TR-201106 
Kai Li, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar, Abbas Jamalipour
ABSTRACT
IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine, IEEE. Mar 2021, Volume 16, Issue 1, pp 49-56.
Continuous Maneuver Control and Data Capture Scheduling of Autonomous Drone in Wireless Sensor Networks CISTER-TR-210101 
Kai Li, Wei Ni, Falko Dressler
ABSTRACTPDFPDF
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (TMC), IEEE. 5, Jan, 2021.Early Access
Onboard Deep Deterministic Policy Gradients for Online Flight Resource Allocation of UAVs CISTER-TR-200602 
Kai Li, Yousef Emami, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar, Zhu Han
ABSTRACT
IEEE Networking Letters, IEEE. 1, Sep, 2020, Volume 2, Issue 3, pp 106-110.
Joint Flight Cruise Control and Data Collection in UAV-aided Internet of Things: An Onboard Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach CISTER-TR-200901 
Kai Li, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar, Mohsen Guizani
ABSTRACT
IEEE Internet of Things Journal, IEEE. 24, Aug, 2020.Early Access Article
Onboard Double Q-learning for Airborne Data Capture in Wireless Powered IoT Networks CISTER-TR-200402 
Kai Li, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar
ABSTRACT
IEEE Networking Letters, IEEE. 21, Apr, 2020, Volume 2, Issue 2, pp 71-75.
Energy Efficient Legitimate Wireless Surveillance of UAV Communications CISTER-TR-190103 
Kai Li, Razvan Christian Voicu, Salil S. Kanhere, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar
ABSTRACT
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology (TVT), IEEE. 4, Jan, 2019, Volume 68, Issue 3, pp 2283-2293.
On-board Deep Q-Network for UAV-assisted Online Power Transfer and Data Collection CISTER-TR-191003 
Kai Li, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar, Abbas Jamalipour
ABSTRACT
IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, IEEE. 2019, Volume 68, Issue 12, pp 12215-12226.
Conference or Workshop Papers/Talks
An Experimental Study of Two-way Ranging Optimization in UWB-based Simultaneous Localization and Wall-Mapping Systems CISTER-TR-220302 
Kai Li, Wei Ni, Bo Wei, Mohsen Guizani
ABSTRACTPDFPDF
IEEE International Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC) (IWCMC). 30, May to 3, Jun, 2022, IoT & Wireless Sensors. Dubrovnik, Croatia.
Deep Reinforcement Learning for Persistent Cruise Control in UAV-aided Data Collection CISTER-TR-211008 
Harrison Kurunathan, Kai Li, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar, Falko Dressler
ABSTRACTPDFPDF
The IEEE Local Computer Networks conference (LCN). 4, Oct, 2021. Edmonton, Canada.
Federated Learning for Energy-balanced Client Selection in Mobile Edge Computing CISTER-TR-210305 
Jingjing Zheng, Kai Li, Eduardo Tovar, Mohsen Guizani
ABSTRACT
17th International Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC 2021). 28, Jun to 2, Jul, 2021. Harbin, China.Jingjing Zheng, Kai Li, Eduardo Tovar, Mohsen Guizani
Deep Reinforcement Learning for Real-Time Trajectory Planning in UAV Networks CISTER-TR-200401 
Kai Li, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar, Mohsen Guizani
ABSTRACT
16th International Conference on Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing (IWCMC 2020). 15 to 19, Jun, 2020, pp 958-963. Online.
Deep Q-Learning based Resource Management in UAV-assisted Wireless Powered IoT Networks CISTER-TR-200201 
Kai Li, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar, Abbas Jamalipour
ABSTRACT
IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC 2020). 7 to 11, Jun, 2020, pp 1-6. Online.
Buffer-Aware Scheduling for UAV Relay Networks with Energy Fairness CISTER-TR-200202 
Yousef Emami, Kai Li, Eduardo Tovar
ABSTRACT
91st IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC2020-Spring). 25 to 28, May, 2020, pp 1-5. Online.
CAP: Context-Aware Programming for Cyber Physical Systems CISTER-TR-190623 
Shashank Gaur, Luís Almeida, Eduardo Tovar, Radha Reddy
ABSTRACTPDFPDF
24th IEEE Conference on Emerging Technologies and Factory Automation (ETFA 2019). 10 to 13, Sep, 2019, pp 1009-1016. Zaragoza, Spain.
Proactive Eavesdropping via Jamming for Trajectory Tracking of UAVs CISTER-TR-190404 
Kai Li, Salil S. Kanhere, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar, Mohsen Guizani
ABSTRACT
15th International Wireless Communications & Mobile Computing Conference (IWCMC 2019). 24 to 28, Jun, 2019, Vehicular Communications Symposium, pp 477-482. Tangier, Morocco.
AdaptC: Programming Adaptation Policies for WSN Applications CISTER-TR-181132 
Shashank Gaur, Luís Almeida, Eduardo Tovar
ABSTRACTPDFPDF
34th ACM/SIGAPP Symposium On Applied Computing (SAC 2019). 8 to 12, Apr, 2019, Cyber Physical Systems, pp 229-235. Limassol, Cyprus.
Conference or Workshop Posters/Demos
An Experimental Localization Testbed based on UWB Channel Impulse Response Measurements CISTER-TR-220204 
Kai Li, Wei Ni, Pei Zhang
ABSTRACTPDFPDF
Poster presented in The International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN) (IPSN). 4 to 6, May, 2022, Poster session. MILAN, Italy.
Multi-Drone Assisted Internet of Things Testbed Based on Bluetooth 5 Communications CISTER-TR-200205 
Kai Li, Ning Lu, Pei Zhang, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar
ABSTRACT
Poster presented in 19th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN 2020). 21 to 24, Apr, 2020. Online.
Technical Reports
On-board Deep Q-Network for UAV-assisted Online Power Transfer and Data Collection CISTER-TR-190601 
Kai Li, Wei Ni, Eduardo Tovar
ABSTRACT
2, Jun, 2019.