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UMOBILE: Universal, mobile-centric and opportunistic communications architecture (SITI)

2015-2018

COPELABS coordination: Paulo Mendes

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 645124.

Within the European project H2020 UMOBILE the research group SITI (Informatics Systems and Technologies) of the R&D lab COPELABS, University Lusófona,  is investigating the usage of NDN- Named Data Networking to extend data-centric communications into more dynamic wireless scenarios, such as emergency situations, or accessible communications.

With this propose, COPELABS is devising an NDN Android implementation for opportunistic networks, called NDN-OPP, and two applications: a content sharing application called Now@; a short messaging application, called Oi!.

Based on NDN-OPP, both Now@ and Oi! applications are able to exchange data and send short messages, respectively, directly between neighbor devices, via Wi-Fi direct, of via an access network, via Wi-Fi.

Still within the UMOBILE project, SITI/COPELABS is creating a local testbed, encompassing SAMSUNG smartphones, Wi-Fi access points and one NDN router, which provides access to the NDN Global test bed.

NDN-OPP: NDN Framework for Opportunistic Wireless Communications

The NDN framework for Opportunistic Networks (NDN-Opp) is an extension of the NDN Android implementation, aiming to support NDN communication in wireless networks by exploiting direct communication between wireless devices, as well as intermittent Wi-Fi connectivity to the Internet (NDN global testbed).

NDN-OPP aims to extend the functionality of the NDN Android implementation with:

  • A new face, OPPFace, which allows a mobile device to exploit any existing Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi direct communication opportunity.
  • A Push communication model, allowing data, related to specific name prefixes (e.g. emergency data), to be pushed to specific destinations.
  • A new forwarding scheme for data packets to overcome the limitations of using the breadcrumb strategy in dynamic wireless scenarios
  • A new routing/forwarding strategy for interest packets to reduce latency in dynamic wireless scenarios.

Now@: a Content-Sharing Application for NDN

Now@ is an Android app for content sharing (text, documents, photos) over intermittent internet access. It relies on Chronosync. Now@ can run on top of NDN-OPP which means that data is then shared via Wi-Fi Direct or Wi-Fi connections (D2D communication), or on top of the original NDN Forwarding Daemon (NFD) for Android.

The current release allows for the following:

  • exchange of data via Wi-Fi Direct
  • possibility to select categories of interests
  • data reception filtered by interests

Oi!: Short-Messaging over NDN

Oi! (which stands for "Hi!" in portuguese) is an instant messenger based on a push communication model, which is supported by NDN-Opp. Due to this, Oi! can be used in places where internet access is intermittent. The Oi! application is currently being exploited to allow users to communicate in emergency situations, based on a predefined name prefix.

Scientific Contributions

  • Seweryn Dynerowicz, Paulo Mendes, "Named-Data Networking in Opportunistic Networks", in ACM ICN, Berlin, Germany, September 2017.
  • Seweryn Dynerowicz, Omar Aponte, Paulo Mendes, "NDN Operation in Opportunistic Wireless Networks", in NDNcomm, Memphis, USA, March 2017.
  • Luis Amaral Lopes, Rute C. Sofia, Paulo Mendes, Waldir Moreira, "Oi! - Opportunistic Data Transmission Based on Wi-Fi Direct" in Proc. of IEEE INFOCOM, San Francisco, USA, April 2016.
  • Omar Aponte, Paulo Mendes, "Now@ - Content Sharing Application over NDN", in ACM ICN, Berlin, Germany, September 2017.

Software