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We propose a new paradigm and
a new technology of opportunistic networks (class 2) or oppnets to enable
an integration of the diverse communication, computation, sensing, storage
and other resources that surround us more and more. We not only find
ourselves in their midst but depend on them increasingly as necessities
rather than luxuries. Few would deny that communications and computing are
more and more pervasive.
The term
“opportunistic” is used for other networks. Their “class
1 opportunism” is quite restricted, e.g., limited to opportunistic
communication when devices are within each other’s range. In
contrast, our “class 2 opportunism” relies on an opportunistic
growth and opportunistic use of resources gained by this growth.
The goal for oppnets is to leverage the wealth of pervasive resources and
capabilities that are within our reach. This is often a treasure that
remains useless due to “linguistic” barriers. Different devices and systems
are either unable speak to each other, or do not even try to communicate.
They remain on different wavelengths—sometimes literally, always at least
metaphorically.
This occurs despite devices and systems gaining ground in autonomous
behavior, self-organization abilities, adaptability to changing
environments, or even self-healing when faced with component failures or
malicious attacks. It might look somewhat ironic to a person unaware of
interoperability challenges that such ever more powerful and intelligent
entities are not making equally great strides in talking to each other.
With oppnets, we chart a new direction within the area of computer
networks. To the best of our knowledge it is a direction not explored in
this way by others. One of us invented opportunistic _sensor_ networks
[BLWR04]. The idea was later generalized to opportunistic networks. We are
now the first to scrutinize oppnets and their inherent challenges.
The oppnets and their salient features can be characterized as follows.
Typically, the nodes of a single network are all deployed together, with
the size of the network and locations of its nodes pre-designed (either in
a fully “deterministic” fashion, or with a certain degree of randomness, as
is the case with ad hoc or mobile networks). In contrast, the size of an
oppnet and locations of all but the initial set of its nodes -—known as the
seed nodes—- can not be even approximately predicted. The initial seed
oppnet grows into an expanded oppnet by integrating foreign nodes that
become its helpers in realization of the oppnet’s goals. Helpers perform
certain tasks they have been invited (or ordered) to participate in.
The oppnet goals can be realized by alleviating first of all the
communication problems—including bottlenecks and gaps—that are often the
root causes of resource shortages (similarly as transportation inadequacies—not
a lack of food in the world—are the root causes of famines).
If the researchers, developers, and manufacturers succeed in building
oppnets, the payoff will be swift and substantial. Armies of helpers,
mobilized by oppnets, will be capable of contributing towards their
objectives at a very low or no cost, especially in emergency situations.
The potential of oppnets in all kinds of emergency situations—including
man-made and natural disasters—is especially noteworthy. In the past few
years we have seen great disasters, such as 9/11 terrorist attack, tsunami
in the Southeast Asia and Hurricane Katrina. The
casualties and damages are too often compounded by problems faced by the
first responders and relief agency workers. There is a common thread to all
these problems: lack of adequate communication facilities in the disaster
areas and beyond. Therefore, providing means of dependable communication in
emergencies must be viewed as a fundamental challenge to communication and
information technologies.
The following scenario illustrates a possible use of an oppnet deployed
after an earthquake. Helper 1, a surveillance system, “looks” at a public
area scene with many objects. The image is passed to Helper 2 that analyzes
it, and recognizes one of the objects as an overturned car. Helper 3
decides that the license plate number of the car should be obtained, and
Helper 4 capable of image analysis provides this information. The plate
number is used by Helper 5 to check in a vehicle database whether the car
is equipped with the OnStar™ communication system. If it is, the
appropriate OnStar center facility is contacted by Helper 6, it becomes
Helper 7, and obtains a connection with the OnStar device in the car. The
OnStar device in the car becomes Helper 8 and is asked to contact BANs
(body area networks) on and within bodies of three car occupants. Each BAN
available in the car becomes a helper (Helpers 9-11) and reports on the
vital signs of its owner. The reports from BANs are analyzed by the prioritizing
Helper 12 that schedule the responder teams to ensure that people in the
most serious condition are rescued sooner than others. With the exception
of the BAN link that is just a bit futuristic (its widespread availability
could be measured in years not in decades), all other helper capabilities
are already quite common.
With so many helper capabilities available, we need “only” to integrate
them in a clever way. We believe that our paradigm provides a very useful
framework -—including a conceptual frame of thought—- for such integration.
In our opinion, oppnets as an epitome of pervasive computing. The most
critical problems inherent to pervasive computing were very aptly expressed
as follows [P. Thibodeau, “Pervasive computing has pervasive problems,”
ComputerWorld, Vol.36(41), Oct. 7,
2002]: "Pervasive computing has pervasive problems, not
the least of which are interoperability, security and privacy."
Oppnets confront all three enumerated problems head on. Therefore, work on
oppnets will be agood (and yet another) test case for attacking the
pervasive computing problems.
For more details about oppnets and our work please see the following
sources:
Selected Publications:
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Z. H. Kamal, A. Gupta, L. Lilien, and Z. Yang, "The MicroOppnet Tool
for Collaborative Computing Experiments with Class 2 Opportunistic
Networks," Proc. The 3rd International Conference on Collaborative
Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing (CollaborateCom 2007), White
Plains, New York, November 12-15, 2007
L. Lilien, “A
Taxonomy of Specialized Ad Hoc Networks and Systems for Emergency
Applications,” Proc. The First International Workshop on Mobile and
Ubiquitous Context Aware Systems and Applications (MUBICA 2007),
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, August 2007, CD-ROM, 8 pages
L. Lilien, A. Gupta, and Z. Yang, "Opportunistic Networks for
Emergency Applications and Their Standard Implementation Framework,"
Proc. The First International Workshop on Next Generation Networks for
First Responders and Critical Infrastructure (NetCri07), New Orleans,
Louisiana, April 11-13, 2007
L. Lilien, Z. H. Kamal, V. Bhuse, and A. Gupta, "The Concept of
Opportunistic Networks and Their Research Challenges in Privacy and
Security," book chapter in: "Mobile and Wireless Network Security
and Privacy," ed. by K. Makki et al., Springer Science+Business Media,
Norwell, Massachusetts, 2007 (extended version of the WSPWN 2006 paper; to
appear)
L. Lilien, Z. H. Kamal and A. Gupta, "Opportunistic Networks: Research
Challenges in Specializing the P2P Paradigm," Proc. 3rd International
Workshop on P2P Data Management, Security and Trust (PDMST'06), Kraków,
Poland, September 4-8, 2006, pp. 722-726. PDF
L. Lilien, Z. H. Kamal, V. Bhuse and A. Gupta, "Opportunistic
Networks: The Concept and Research Challenges in Privacy and
Security," Proc. International Workshop on Research Challenges in
Security and Privacy for Mobile and Wireless Networks (WSPWN 2006), Miami,
Florida, March 2006, pp. 134-147. PDF
B. Bhargava, L. Lilien, A. Rosenthal and M. Winslett, "Pervasive
Trust," IEEE Intelligent Systems, vol. 19(5), Sep./Oct.2004, pp. 74-77
(just the first brief mention of the oppnet idea, in the form of malevolent
opportunistic sensor networks). LINK
Selected Presentations:
-----------------------
L. Lilien, "Opportunistic Networks: Research Challenges in
Specializing the P2P Paradigm," 3rd International Workshop on P2P Data
Management, Security and Trust (PDMST'06), Kraków, Poland, September 4-8,
2006
L. Lilien, "Opportunistic Networks: Specialized Ad Hoc Networks for
Emergency Response Applications," presented for Distributed Systems
Research Group, Department of Computer Science, AGH University of Science
and Technology, Krakow, Poland, May 22, 2006, PPT
L. Lilien, "Opportunistic Networks: Specialized Ad Hoc Networks for
Emergency Response Applications," presented for Section of Information
Technology, Institute of Telecomputing, Cracow University of Technology,
Kraków, Poland, May 23, 2006 [PPT - same as above]
L. Lilien, "Developing Specialized Ad Hoc Networks: The Case of
Opportunistic Networks," Workshop on Distributed Systems and Networks
(in conjunction with WWIC’06), Bern, Switzerland, May 9, 2006
L. Lilien, "Opportunistic Networks: The Concept and Research
Challenges in Privacy and Security," International Workshop on
Research Challenges in Security and Privacy for Mobile and Wireless
Networks (WSPWN 2006), Miami, Florida, March 15-16, 2006
L. Lilien, Z.H. Kamal and A. Gupta (in cooperation with V. Bhuse and Z
Yang), "Opportunistic Networks: The Concept and Research
Challenges," Department of Computer Science, Western Michigan
University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, February 9, 2006, PPT
Selected Posters:
-----------------
L. Lilien and B. Bhargava (in collaboration with A. Gupta, I. Woungang, and
Z. Yang), “Opportunistic Networks: Finding and Using Helpers Dynamically,”
NSF NeTS Wireless Networks PI Meeting, Illinois Institute of Technology,
Chicago, July 12, 2007.
Z.H. Kamal (with advisors:
A. Gupta and L. Lilien), “MicroOppnet: Small-Scale Testbed for Class
2 Opportunistic Networks,” Research Day, The Graduate College,
Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, April 20, 2007.
Z.H. Kamal, A. Gupta, and
L. Lilien, “MicroOppnet—Small-Scale Testbed for Class 2
Opportunistic Networks,” The 6th Annual WMU IT Forum, Western
Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan, March 30, 2007.
Leszek Lilien, Zille Huma
Kamal, A. Gupta, V. Bhuse and Z. Yang, "Opportunistic Networks,"
3rd International Conference on Networked Sensing Systems, Chicago, IL,
June 1, 2006. Abstract Poster
Leszek Lilien, Zille Huma
Kamal, Vijay Bhuse and Ajay Gupta, "Opportunistic Networks and Their
Privacy and Security Challenges," The Seventh Annual CERIAS
Information Security Symposium - "Negotiating Trust: Security,
Privacy, Risk," CERIAS, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, March
21, 2006. Abstract
Poster
Leszek Lilien and Ajay Gupta, "Opportunistic Networks for Emergency
Preparedness and Response," 4th Annual e-Enterprise Conference,
PHSI/RCHE, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, March 20, 2006. Abstract
Poster
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