ARIGATONI ON WHEELS

Color INRIA Sophia Antipolis

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RESULTS IN A NUTSHELL
ARIWHEELS is being proposed as a public & subscribe protocol in the vehicular platform under development in the VICSUM project led by Politecnico di Torino and involving the Centro Ricerche Fiat (CRF.) The main goals of VICSUM are the definition of mobile ad hoc network (MANET) architectures and protocols, enabling Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and a Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication, as well as the definition of application scenarios for V2V and V2I infrastructures. (NEW)
KICKOFF MEETING: 26/27 Feb 2007 GET-IT!
MEETINGS LOG: GET-IT!     (NEW)
SHAPSHOTS OF THE SWARIWHEELS SIMULATOR GET-IT!     (NEW)

ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS WRITTEN (SUBMITTED/DRAFT) GET-IT!     (NEW)
   

ORIGINAL PROJET PROPOSALS

1. Project goal capsule

The goal of the project is the definition of an info-mobility system capable of proposing new development paradigms that focus on the maximization of communication efficiency and information exchange in Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication. Such goals can be pursued without devising new communication technologies, but, rather, by aiming at a drastic technological upgrading of existing infrastructures and at devising a lightweight overlay network called Arigatoni, designed at INRIA Sophia Antipolis in Mascotte Project Team and mathematically investigated in Maestro Project Team. The “Arigatoni-On-Wheels” project will therefore specify and investigate models, algorithms and protocols that can promote an efficient interactivity among all the elements of traffic systems (vehicles, roadside infrastructures and service centres).

 

 

2. Involved Teams

  1. Mascotte INRIA project team, Sophia Antipolis
    1. Luigi Liquori (CR INRIA)
    2. Michel Cosnard (CEO INRIA)
    3. Olivier Dalle (M.d.C. UNSA)
    4. Philippe Mussi (CR INRIA)
  2. Maestro INRIA project team, Sophia Antipolis
    1. Philippe Nain (DR INRIA)
  3. Telecommunication Network Group, Politecnico di Torino, Piemonte, Italia

(http://www.telematica.polito.it/people.html)

    1. Claudio Casetti (Assistant Professor)
    2. Carla-Fabiana Chiasserini (Associate Professor)
    3. Marco Ajmone Marsan (Full Professor)
    4. Paolo Giaccone (Assistant Professor)
    5. Diego Borsetti (Ph.D.) NEW!
  1. Information and Communication Systems Research Group, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

(moved to IBM Zuruch, then to Faculty of Informatics University of Lugano)

    1. Cesare Pautasso (assistant professor)
  1. CSP – INLAB (Integrated Network LABoratory), Torino, Piemonte, Italia

(http://www.inlab.csp.it/)

    1. Andrea Ghittino
    2. Stefano Annese

 

 

2. Project duration: 1 Year

 

 

3. Scientific description

3.1. General description

The project proposal aims a widespread promotion of high-speed, wireless technologies. The range of new network services envisioned through such technologies is appealing. Among these services, user interest is focusing on those that provide seamless connectivity while users are on the move, either on their own vehicle or on public transportation. In such a scenario, commercial services and access to public information are available to vehicles transiting in specific areas where such information is broadcast by roadside wireless gateways or by other vehicles. Data retrieved can be stored on the on-board vehicle computer; then, they can be used and rebroadcasted at a later time without the need of persistent connectivity.

Achieving this efficiently and transparently is a major challenge that can be overcome by introducing an intermediate layer, with overlay functionalities. The goal of this project is to investigate the principles and to develop the algorithmic methods for building such an overlay network for vehicular communications that enables this efficient and transparent access to the resources of on-board and roadside nodes. In particular, the objectives of this project are:

  1. The definition of mobile ad hoc network (MANET) architectures and protocols, enabling Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I) communication;
  2. The identification of the important overlay functionalities that can be provided as tools to the programmer, and to develop, to rigorously analyze, and to experimentally validate algorithmic methods that can make these functionalities efficient, scalable, fault-tolerant, and transparent to heterogeneity;
  3. The implementation of a set of functionalities, their integration under a common software platform in order to provide the basic primitives of an overlay vehicular node, as well as the definition of services on this overlay computer, thus providing a proof-of-concept for our theoretical results;
  4. The design and implementation of a lightweight overlay network, called Arigatoni on Wheels, based on the existing Arigatoni overlay network model, that is suitable to be deployed on V2V and V2I networks;
  5. The definition of application scenarios for V2V and V2I communication that can be tested and evaluated through simulation and implementation.

The integration of such innovative communication mechanisms and technologies with existing in-vehicle Telematic platforms – although not part of the project – will enhance the device capabilities and will set the basis for an evolution of the overall platform. We envision that these new features will offer innovative functions and services, such as:

 

3.2. Detailed description

The system architecture can be divided into two macro-layers:

  1. A physical macro-layer, that encompasses both vehicles and roadside infrastructures (intelligent traffic lights, scrolling-text displays...) and the actual information propagation mechanism;
  2. A logical macro-layer, that includes information gateways and servers for the management of information collected and distributed across the coverage area, and which supports the information retrieval and exchange.

 

The physical macro-layer.

Within the physical macro-layer, three types of links are envisioned:

 

In addition, the physical macro-layer requires the development of a set of protocols and algorithms for effectively supporting V2V and V2I communications. Solutions will be proposed, analyzed and engineered specifically accounting for the peculiarities of vehicular networks, including the frequent, highly-variable mobility and typical node density for vehicles in urban and suburban areas, and for the characteristics of the applications that could be provided to vehicular users.

 

The logical  macro-layer

The logical layer addresses communications among different user "communities", each community being representative of different classes of users, (public transportation fleets, ambulances, etc.). Each member of the community is supposed to collect relevant information and exchange it with roadside gateways or with other vehicles when no roadside gateway is within transmission range. Furthermore, community gateways exchange information with application servers that manage more "traditional" infrastructure elements such as traffic lights, variable message signs, etc.

 

The infrastructure overlay network: Arigatoni

Capsule.

Arigatoni is a structured multi-layer overlay computer providing various services with variable guarantees, and promoting an intermittent participation to the virtual organization where peers can appear, disappear and organize themselves dynamically. Arigatoni mainly concerns itself with how resources are declared and discovered in the overlay, allowing global computers to make a secure (using standard PKI mechanisms) use of global aggregated computational power, storage, information resources, etc. Arigatoni provides fully decentralized, asynchronous and scalable resource discovery, and provides mechanisms for dealing with dynamic virtual organizations. Simulations show that resource discovery in Arigatoni is efficient and scalable.

 

The explosive growth of the Internet gives rise to the possibility of designing large overlay networks (a.k.a. virtual organizations) consisting of Internet connected global computers (GC), able to provide a rich functionality of services that makes use of its aggregated computational power, storage, information resources, etc. The virtual organization is hierarchically structured in colonies, governed by global brokers (GB). A GB (un)registers GCs, receives service queries from clients GCs, contacts potential servants GCs, trusts clients and servers and allows the clients GC and the servants GCs to communicate. Registrations and requests are performed via a simple query language à la SQL and a simple orchestration language à la JOPERA. Communication intra-colony is initiated via only one GB, while communication inter-colony is initiated through a chain of GB-2-GB message exchanges.

Once the resource offered by a global computer has been found in the overlay network, the real resource exchange is performed out of the overlay itself, in a peer-to-peer fashion. The main challenges in Arigatoni lie in the management of an overlay network with a dynamic topology, the routing of queries and the discovery of resources in the overlay. In particular, resource discovery is a non trivial problem for large distributed systems featuring a discontinuous amount of mobile resources offered by global computers and an intermittent participation in the overlay.

Thus, Arigatoni features two protocols: the virtual intermittence protocols, VIP, and the resource discovery protocol RDP. The VIP protocol deals with the dynamic topology of the overlay, by allowing individuals to login/logout to/from a colony. This implies that the process of routing may lead to some failures, because some individuals have logged out, or are temporarily unavailable, or because they have been manu militari logged out by the broker because of their poor performance or avidity.

As an example, in a V2I scenario the role of global computer is played by the vehicles while the global broker is handled by the infrastructure (e.g. the “bus-stop station” equipped with network and computational features). 

Similarly, in a V2V scenario, the role of the global broker is taken by public transportation vehicles, such as buses or cabs.

 

3.3. Scientific goals to be expected

Few main targets are identified.

  1. The investigation of some fundamental characteristics of the network such as connectivity and the possibility to effectively implement hybrid networks based on both V2V and V2I communications;
  2. The development of routing protocols that can cope and exploit the complexity of vehicular networks and, at the same time, can effectively support the applications of interest for the vehicular environment;
  3. The cross-layer optimization of solutions for the radio access and routing based on the joint knowledge of information at the physical, link and network layers;
  4. Design of a stochastic mathematical model of the Arigatoni overlay (customized to the V2V or V2I scenarios) in order to establish some performance results;
  5. The evaluation of the suitability of a service orchestration languages for processing distributed event and data sources.
  6. The implementation of some simulation scenarios of the overlay, using e.g. the open source simulator OMNETPP (http://www.omnetpp.org)

 

 

4. Impact of the project and immediate application

The impact can be classified through the following envisioned application scenarios:

  1. Critical traffic information exchange;
  2. Public transportation information retrieval;
  3. Traffic light prioritization;
  4. Support for navigation aid devices.

In other words, the possibility to distribute a higher number of relevant data and useful information among vehicles and between vehicles and the roadside infrastructure – offered by the innovative communication model addressed within the project – will enable the implementation of new Telematic services. Such services will be able to improve safety and mobility of road users, when driving in urban areas.

 

Hence, the outcome of the project will bring benefits for:

 

 

5. Fund request to INRIA

Essentially we ask funding to meet together in small medium meetings and buy (small) equipment to put Arigatoni “on board”.

 

Specifically, visits will be essentially centralized in INRIA Sophia, although we do not exclude other sites (Politecnico di Torino). If we count a 4 days visit at Sophia with 400EUR plus 100EUR Train (Turin-Sophia or vice-versa), we ask for around 30 4-days slots, which gives 15KEUR.

 

The funding we ask for the equipment refers 1 PDA, 2 laptops and 2 linux boxes equipped with programmable WIFI boards and external antennas. They will essentially be used for test measurements in a MANET and to implement prototype versions of routing and higher-layer protocols. We estimate expenses in the order of 10KEUR.

 

Infine, our request will be of 25KEUR.

 

We would be very happy to answer to all questions concerning the detail of our proposition.

 

 

6. References

  1. A. Al-Hanbali, A. A. Khenari, R. Groenevelt, P. Nain and E. Altman. Impact of Mobility on the Performance of Message Relaying in Ad hoc Network. Proc of IEEE INFOCOM 2006, Barcelona, Spain, April 23-29, 2006.
  2. D. Benza, M. Cosnard, L. Liquori, M. Vesin. Arigatoni: A Simple Programmable Overlay Network. In Proc. of JVA, John Vincent Atanasoff, International Symposium on Modern Computing, Sofia, Bulgaria, pages 82-91, IEEE Computer Society, 2006.
  3. M. Bottigliengo, C. Casetti, C.-F. Chiasserini, M. Meo. Enhancing Fairness for Short-lived TCP Flows in 802.11b WLANs. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technologies, 2006.
  4. G. Carofiglio, R. Gaeta, M. Garetto, P. Giaccone, E. Leonardi, M. Sereno. A Fluid-Diffusive Approach for Modelling P2P Systems. Recipient of the Best Paper Award at Mascots, Monterey, CA (USA), September 2006.
  5. C. Casetti, C.-F. Chiasserini, R. Fracchia, M. Meo. AISLE: Autonomic Interface SeLEction for Wireless Users. IEEE WoWMoM 2006, Niagara-Falls, Buffalo, NY, 26-29 June 2006.
  6. R. Chand, M. Cosnard, L. Liquori. Improving Resource Discovery in the Arigatoni Overlay Network. In Proc. of ARCS: 20th International Conference on Architecture of Computing Systems System Aspects in Pervasive and Organic Computing, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 20 pages, to appear, Springer-Verlag, 2007.
  7. R. Chand, M. Cosnard, L. Liquori. Resource Discovery in the Arigatoni Overlay Network. In Proc. of I2CS, International Workshop on Innovative Internet Community Systems, Neuchatel, Switzerland. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 13 pages, to appear, Springer Verlag, 2007.
  8. M. Cosnard, L. Liquori, R. Chand. Virtual Organizations in Arigatoni. In Proc. of DCM06, 3rd International Workshop on Developments in Computational Models, Venice, Italy. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Compu-ter Science, 22 pages, to appear, Elsevier, 2007.
  9. A. De Mauro, C. Casetti, D. Schonfeld. A Peer-to-peer Overlay Network for Real Time Video Communication using Multiple Paths. IEEE ICME 2006, Toronto, Canada, July 2006.
  10. M. Fiore, A. Leonardi, A. Matera, C. Casetti, C.-F. Chiasserini, S. Palazzo. Information Delivery with Geographical Forwarding in Vehicular Wireless Networks. NEWCOM-ACoRN Joint Workshop, Vienna, Austria, September 2006.
  11. M. Fiore, C. Casetti, C.-F. Chiasserini. On-demand Content Delivery in Vehicular Wireless Networks. IEEE/ACM MSWIM 2005, Montreal, Canada, October 2005.
  12. M. Fiore, C. Casetti, C.-F. Chiasserini, M. Garetto. Analysis and Simulation of a Content Delivery Application for Vehicular Wireless Networks. Performance Evaluation (accepted for publication), 2007.
  13. M. Fiore, C. Casetti, C.-F. Chiasserini. Efficient Retrieval of User Contents in MANETs. IEEE INFOCOM 2007, Anchorage, AK, May 6-12 2007.
  14. R. Fracchia, C. Casetti, C.-F. Chiasserini, M. Meo. WiSE: Best-path Selection in Wireless Multihoming Environments. IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing (accepted for pubblication).
  15. M. Garetto, P. Giaccone, E. Leonardi. On the Capacity  of Ad Hoc Wireless Networks Under General Node Mobility. http://www.telematica.polito.it/giaccone/papers/info07-techrep-dtn.pdf. Technical report, September 2006.
  16. P. Nain, D. Towsley, B. Liu and Z. Liu. Properties of Random Direction Models. Proc. of the IEEE INFOCOM 2005 Conference, Miami, FL, March 13-17, 2005.
  17. C. Pautasso, G. Alonso The JOpera Visual Composition Language Journal of Visual Languages and Computing (JVLC), 16(1-2):119-152, 2005.
  18. C. Pautasso, T. Heinis, G. Alonso Autonomic Resource Provisioning for Software Business Processes, Information and Software Technology, 49(1): 65-80, January 2007.
  19. D. Rossi, C. Casetti, C.-F. Chiasserini. Some Study on Communication Performances. In N. P. Mahalik (Editor), Sensor Network and Configuration: Fundamentals, Techniques, Platforms, and Experiments, Springer-Verlag, Germany, October 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luigi Liquori

Luigi.Liquori@sophia.inria.fr

MASCOTTE PROJECT TEAM

INRIA Sophia Antipolis