The Internet of Things (IoT) is believed to bring new unprecedented development to our society and will impact and enable new, more powerful applications in many areas. When considering Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), there is potential to enhance applications in emergency response situations, smart cities, industry and others. UAVs are expected to provide and consume services as one of the things in the IoT environment. However, the intrinsic IoT heterogeneity regarding devices, platforms, and communication protocols makes the task of service provision and management much harder to be done in the application layer. In previous work, we have presented how HAMSTER can enable secure service provision using the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol with enhanced security. In this paper, we show how HAMSTER deals with service management and exchange with minimum effort from the application. We introduce the Service Exchange Operator (SEO) in HAMSTER and present preliminary results. Keywords - Drone, UAV, IoT, Services, HAMSTER.

The growing demand for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) has the potential to increase productivity and economy in the industry, due to its use in various fields, such as health, security, aerial photography, surveillance, military missions, agriculture, etc. The production and use of the UAV have increased lately, and there is a demand for the improvement of decision-making, security, safety, and knowledge about relevant technologies. Thus, these vehicles must continually adapt to complex missions where they face unpredictable issues. In this context, the aim of this paper is to advance the state of the art through the definition and development of a resilient architecture for UAV that dynamically manages the network, even when subjected to an attack during a mission, integrating security methods and safety. The architecture will be composed by three modules: (1) decision-making module, (2) diagnosis module, and (3) resilient module. This work also investigates the incorporation of safety and security as a unified concept in the development of UAV.

Unmanned Vehicles can benefit from contextual information to improve their operation and security. In fact, a node in any network might assume different levels of criticality depending on several factors, such as their inner components’ states, data relevance, provided services, and contextual infor-mation. Being aware of a criticality level for an individual node helps determining more consistent approaches to communication and security/safety implementations. In this paper, the integration of security contextual information in a UV communication architecture is demonstrated, in order to increase its safety, overall security and survivability.

Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) are being employed in many different applications, and with the increased usage security concerns become more accentuated. Communication links are core components of a UAS, and providing a secure communication channel is a necessity in which Authentication strategies play a major role. However, resource-constrained devices cannot adopt off-the-shelf security strategies that were not developed taking into account those devices' constraints. Because of that, new security strategies, including authentication, were purposed for these applications. In this paper, we analyze and compare two authentication protocols developed for WSNs and modified for UAV usage. Tests were performed analyzing time execution and CPU usage on security-specific operation such as hash tables and elliptic curve operations.

Cognitive Radio (CR) is considered a key enabler technology for applications that require high connectivity (e.g., Smart Cities and Internet of Things), mainly because of its spectrum sensing function. In this way, CRs can sense the spectrum environment to select the best available channel for communication and they can, potentially, use licensed spectrum bands as a Secondary User (SU). However, CR has to vacate the licensed spectrum band as soon as a Primary User (PU) intends to use the channel. In this way, one of the most challenging topics in CR is the PU arrival prediction. Therefore, this paper presents a real-data study case of PUs arrivals prediction using the Hidden Markov Model (HMM) in CR. Herein, the Energy Detector (ED) is used to detect the presence of PUs. Our results show that the traditional method of combining the ED with the HMM may not be suitable in CR networks.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are aircraft without a human aboard that can fly autonomously or be remotely piloted. Several configurations of UAVs have been developed to fulfill the requirements of different applications. Between them, it is possible to highlight the tailsitter, a hybrid design with the advantages of fixed-wing and Vertical TakeOff and Landing (VTOL) aircraft. A tailsitter UAV with simplicity as its main characteristic is AVALON (Autonomous VerticAL takeOff and laNding), which also has the disadvantage of a complex operation due to its multiple flight stages. To enable its autonomous procedure, AVALON requires a control system capable of stabilising the flight during its entire operation. Therefore, this paper reports the validation of control structures based on proportional-derivative controllers for AVALON's flight stages with software-in-the-loop experiments in the flight simulator X-Plane. The results show small errors for most of the flight stages, with the exception of landing. Despite of being able to land vertically, it still presented large errors and a yaw variation during this last stage.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are aircraft that can be autonomously operated and doesn't need a pilot aboard. Consequently, the autopilot is one of the main parts of an UAV, being responsible for stabilising the aircraft during the flight, executing navigation tasks and sensing the environment. Several path-following simulations for loiter paths are described in the literature, but most of them only consider the kinematics model of an aircraft. Therefore, this paper compares path-following algorithms for loiter paths in a more realistic scenario, using Software-in-the-Loop simulations and considering the dynamic model of the aircraft in the flight simulator X-Plane. The algorithms compared are: Carrot-Chasing, Pure Pursuit and Line-of-Sight (PLOS) and Non-Linear Guidance Law (NLGL). Lastly, a new algorithm (NLGL+) is proposed with a modification from the original algorithm and its results show smaller errors and less effort than all path-following algorithms.

Cognitive Radio technique has been recognized as one of the most promising solutions for the increasingly growing problem of spectrum scarcity in wireless networks, specially with the emerging of the Internet of Things. In cognitive radio networks, secondary users are allowed to intelligently access licensed bands of primary users, thus enhancing the spectrum utilization. In this context, for investigating the advantages of cognitive radio, Machine Learning techniques have been widely applied to predict primary users arrivals. However, the available simulators are usually complex and highly time consuming. Therefore, in this work, we propose a simple and intuitive primary user arrivals data generator, MARIO, that can produce random arrival data for multiple channels by employing Poisson process. This generator is validated by using the generated data to predict new sequences according to a Hidden Markov Model. Our results show that the data generator can be used to simulate various traffic patterns over different channels.

Energy efficiency is a topic with increasing relevance in the computing field. The Green Computing paradigm is a global concept that aims at energy efficiency, lowering greenhouse gas emissions, using less harmful materials, and encouraging reuse and recycling. For battery-powered embedded systems like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), energy efficiency increases their autonomy, resulting in tasks being realized with less power. With less power being consumed during each mission, the battery will require fewer recharges, thereby increasing its lifetime and reducing the waste. Even though some effort has been done in energy efficiency for UAVs, most published papers focus on finding alternative energy sources for those vehicles. In this paper, we present the Navigation Phases (NP) platform, which provides a very well-defined way of controlling the behaviour of UAV's internal components during a mission. The main concepts of NP are provided, as well as the results of an initial prototype for controlling the component's behaviour through different mission stages.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are an example of critical embedded system, since it uses specific hardware and software to control the vehicle through its operation. One of the main parts of the system is the autopilot, which is responsible for stabilising the aircraft during the flight, executing navigation tasks and sensing the environment. The path-following is an important capability of a UAV, allowing it to follow a desired path defined by waypoints. Several solutions of the path-following for loiter paths are described in the literature, but most of them only deals with the 2D scenario. Therefore, this paper presents an extension process to determine path-following algorithms based on Carrot-Chasing, Non-Linear Guidance Law (NLGL), Pure Pursuit and Line-of-Sight (PLOS) and Vector Field. It also demonstrates a comparison between these new algorithms using a simulation with wind disturbances, which shows that NLGL produces smaller errors and Carrot-Chasing and PLOS requires less effort.

Unmanned aircraft systems are a specific type of critical embedded system that has been focus of research in recent years. In these systems, when fault of any kind occur, high value assets are placed at risk, and in some cases even human lives. Due to their high criticality, the development of improvements to these systems in order to increase the safety becomes an important topic in the area. However, it is always important to focus on efforts towards energy savings, which naturally pose new challenges to research, since it can significantly impact the performance and safety of these vehicles. This paper aims to study the possibility to disable internal modules of an aircraft (unmanned aerial vehicle) in order to save energy without sacrificing performance, vehicle safety or information security. A study of Fuzzy Logic applied to such scenario is presented in this paper.

For intelligent vehicles to become a reality, further research and development must be performed, addressing the needs of multidisciplinary approaches like integrated control systems, communication and network, security algorithms, artificial intelligence, verification and validation, neural networks, safety assets and other technological concerns. The goal of this workshop is to explore the challenges and innovative solutions regarding intelligent vehicles, considering the implications of security and real-time issues on safety and certification, which emerge when introducing networked, autonomous and cooperative functionalities. It aims at joining together in an active debate, researchers and practitioners from several communities, namely dependability and security, realtime and embedded systems, intelligent transportation and mobile robot systems. This workshop is aimed at exploring the challenges and innovative solutions related to the security and safety of intelligent vehicles.

Virtualization tools, useful softwares that enables tests and evaluation of functionalities, have been used in computer network classes to provide an environment for practice experiments. Although some papers describe these tools and their technical benefits, they do not provide quantitative information about its effectiveness. This paper presents a proposal for systematic use of this category of tools in computer classes and a evaluation of the Netkit tool use in computer network classes. It will be shown how tutorial sections have been developed to these courses, the receptivity from the students through surveys and a statistical analysis of how much students grades can be improved by applying such tutorials. Finally, it will be possible to conclude that, in fact, the use of such tools is strongly advised.

Safety critical systems (e.g., an avionics control system for safe flight) are often required to achieve certification under pre-established standards (e.g., DO-178B for software considerations in airborne systems and equipment certification). We have been working with our industrial partner for the last three years to develop product line assets for their avionics software product line (SPL) and, recently, we encountered two major challenges regarding certification. Firstly, an individual product must be certified, but each may require a different certification level: there might be variations in the certification requirements according to specific system usage contexts. Secondly, certification involves not only product but also process, as standards such as DO-178B also assess the quality of the development process. In this paper, we propose to include a certification view during feature modelling to provide a better understanding of the relationships between features and a certification level required for each product. The experience of introducing certification into the design model of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) SPL is presented to illustrate some key ideas. We also describe the lessons we have learned from this experience.

This paper presents the technical details of Tiriba, which is a small autonomous electrical airplane used into pre-defined missions and applications such as agricultural and environmental monitoring. This class of aircrafts has taken advantage of the miniaturization of electronic components and modules such as GPS receivers, digital cameras, wireless communication equipment, and other sensors. One of the main components of Tiriba is the autopilot module, which is capable to control the aircraft and keep it in a predefined route. This paper addresses the use of model driven development of the system and its multiprocessor platform to support the four components that compose the UAV control software architecture.

This paper proposes an evaluation and comparison of guidelines and techniques that allow the creation of secure Web services to determine whether the application has the desired characteristics related to performance and security. In this sense it is crucial evaluate the cryptographic algorithms and the key length used. The results obtained allow to determine, based on specified objectives, the impact of security mechanisms used in application performance.