ResCTC: Resilience through Cross-Technology Communication

(ResCTC: Resilience through Cross-Technology Communication)

Team

Telecommunication Networks (TKN), TU Berlin

  • Falko Dressler
    Falko Dressler is full professor and Chair for Telecommunication Networks at the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, TU Berlin. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Dept. of Computer Science, University of Erlangen in 1998 and 2003, respectively. Dr. Dressler is an IEEE Fellow as well as an ACM Distinguished Member. He is a member of the German National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech). He has been serving on the IEEE COMSOC Conference Council and the ACM SIGMOBILE Executive Committee. His research objectives include adaptive wireless networking (sub-6GHz, mmWave, visible light, molecular communication) and wireless-based sensing with applications in ad hoc and sensor networks, the Internet of Things, and Cyber-Physical Systems.

  • Anatolij Zubow
    Anatolij Zubow is a senior researcher at the Telecommunication Networks (TKN) group. His research interests are in architectures and protocols of wireless communication networks as well as in protocol engineering with impact on performance and QoS aspects. Recently he is focusing mainly on coexistence of heterogeneous wireless technologies in unlicensed spectrum, high-performance IEEE 802.11 networks, software-defined wireless networking and ultra-reliable low latency communication. He has strong interest in prototyping, experimental work and testbeds. In the past, he did research in the area of wireless ad-hoc mesh networks at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin where he received his PhD degree in 2009. Moreover, he had two research visits undertaken at the NEC Network Laboratories in Heidelberg, where he was working on future mobile networks.

  • Sascha Rösler
    PhD student

FU Berlin

  • Gerhard Wunder
    Gerhard Wunder studied electrical engineering and received his graduate degree in electrical engineering (Dipl.-Ing.) from TU Berlin with highest honors in 1999. He received the PhD degree (Dr.-Ing.) with distinction (summa cum laude) in 2003 from TU Berlin and became a research group leader at the Fraunhofer Heinrich-Hertz-Institut in Berlin. In 2007, he also received the habilitation degree (venia legendi) and became a Privatdozent (Associate Professor). In this period, he was a visiting professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Prof. Jayant) in Atlanta (USA, GA), and the Stanford University (Prof. Paulraj) in Palo Alto/USA (CA). In 2009 he was a consultant at Alcatel-Lucent Bell Labs (USA, NJ), both in Murray Hill (Prof. Stolyar) and Crawford Hill (Dr. Valenzuela). In 2015, he has become Heisenberg Fellow, granted for the first time to a communication engineer, and extraordinary professor heading the Heisenberg Communications and Information Theory (Heisenberg CIT Group) at the FU Berlin. Since 2021 he is a professor for Cybersecurity and AI at FU (Stiftungsprofessur Bundesdruckerei GmbH). Very recently, he has been nominated together with Dr. Müller (BOSCH Stuttgart) and Prof. Paar (Ruhr University Bochum) for the Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2017 on behalf of the PROPHYLAXE project.

  • Shuchan Wang
    PhD student

Abstract

[EN] In recent years, there has been an explosive increase of broadband wireless access and proliferation of wireless Internet of Things (IoT) technologies in the unlicensed radio spectrum, e.g., in the ISM/UNII bands. As a result these bands have become massively crowded by numerous wireless devices making use of diverse technologies including WiFi, LTE-U/LAA, ZigBee, 2.4,GHz LoRa, and Bluetooth. While such heterogeneous wireless networks (HetNets) have spurred the deployment of new services and applications, it comes at the cost of resilience. HetNets not only suffer from node failures and severe cross-technology interference in the shared spectrum but, due to their open nature, they are also highly prone to selective jamming. A possible way to make HetNets more resilient is cross-technology communication (CTC). CTC is an intriguing new paradigm that allows direct over-the-air communication and data exchange between seemingly incompatible wireless technologies without requiring any changes to the wireless protocols, e.g., between WiFi and ZigBee, WiFi and LoRa, ZigBee and Bluetooth, or LTE-U/LAA and WiFi. The ambition of the ResCTC project is to leverage CTC for resilient networks and critical security applications in HetNets operating in unlicensed shared radio spectrum. Based on recent prior work by both partners on CTC and wireless security, ResCTC shall address network resilience through CTC in a common joint effort and devise comprehensive solutions that are routed both in fundamental theory (information theory and signal processing) as well as practical software implementations and proof-of-concept demonstration.

[DE] In den letzten Jahren hat der drahtlose Breitbandzugang und die Verbreitung drahtloser Internet of Things (IoT)-Technologien im unlizenzierten Funkspektrum, z.B. in den ISM/UNII-Bändern, explosionsartig zugenommen. Infolgedessen wurden diese Bänder von zahlreichen drahtlosen Geräten, die verschiedene Technologien wie WiFi, LTE-U/LAA, ZigBee, LoRa und Bluetooth verwenden, massiv genutzt. Obwohl solche heterogenen drahtlosen Netze (HetNets) die Bereitstellung neuer Dienste und Anwendungen vorangetrieben haben, geht dies auf Kosten der Ausfallsicherheit. HetNets leiden nicht nur unter Knotenausfällen und starker technologieübergreifender Interferenz im gemeinsam geteilten Spektrum, sondern sind aufgrund ihrer Offenheit auch sehr anfällig für selektives Jamming. Ein möglicher Weg, HetNets resilienter zu machen, ist die Nutzung von technologieübergreifender Kommunikation (cross-technology-communication, CTC). CTC ist ein faszinierendes neues Paradigma, das eine direkte Funkkommunikation und damit einen Datenaustausch zwischen scheinbar inkompatiblen Funktechnologien ermöglicht, ohne dass Änderungen an den Funkprotokollen erforderlich sind, z.B. zwischen WiFi und ZigBee, WiFi und LoRa, ZigBee und Bluetooth oder LTE- U/LAA und WiFi. Das Ziel des ResCTC-Projekts ist es, CTC für resiliente Netze und kritische Sicherheitsanwendungen in HetNets zu nutzen, die im unlizenzierten Radiospektrum betrieben werden. Basierend auf den jüngsten Arbeiten beider Partner zu CTC und drahtloser Sicherheit wird ResCTC in einem gemeinsamen Projekt die Resilienz von Netzen durch Nutzung von CTC angehen und umfassende Lösungen entwickeln, die sowohl in der Grundlagentheorie (Informationstheorie und Signalverarbeitung) als auch in der praktischen Umsetzung ausgerichtet sind und dies anhand eines Proof of Concept präsentieren.