This paper delves into the fusion of quantum computing and robotics, focusing on motion planning in cluttered environments. Traditional algorithms struggle with complex problems where many constraints need to be satisfied. Hence, optimization-based approaches such as Constrained Quadratic Models (CQM) have become increasingly popular. Our work presents a 3D tracking algorithm based on CQM uniquely adapted for quantum computers to address computational challenges. With their parallel processing capabilities, Quantum computers offer a groundbreaking approach to optimizing complex problems. We formulate the CQM problem for efficient resolution on the D-Wave quantum computer, showcasing its superiority over classical counterparts. Our application centers on real-time planning in a target-chaser tracking scenario, highlighting the quantum advantage in handling the computation complexity of constrained problems. This paper bridges the quantum-robotics gap and sets the stage for future research in quantum-enhanced robotic motion planning.

This paper introduces a novel approach to enhance the stability and efficiency of R-STDP in the context of federated learning. The primary objective is to stabilize the unbounded growth of R-STDP and make it more responsive to real-time changes. The methodology involves integrating R-STDP with Spiking Neural Networks and employing the norm of the neural network model for adjusting weighted aggregation in federated learning systems. The proposed method incorporates a mechanism where weights decay over time, depending on the duration since the agent last published its model. Additionally, the sampling time is dynamically adjusted based on the Euclidean norm, which measures the distance between the weight matrices of the agents and the server. The results demonstrate that the proposed event-triggered federated learning method significantly enhances learning speed and performance. At the same time, the dynamic aggregation interval efficiently reduces communication between the agents and the central server, especially after model convergence. This research presents a significant advancement in federated learning and offers a more stable, responsive, and efficient learning process.

Abstract A novel quantum-safe key encapsulation algorithm, called Multivariate Polynomial Public Key (MPPK), was recently proposed by Kuang, Perepechaenko, and Barbeau. Security of the MPPK key encapsulation mechanism does not rely on the prime factorization or discrete logarithm problems. It builds upon the NP-completeness of the modular Diophantine equation problem, for which there are no known efficient classical or quantum algorithms. Hence, it is resistant to known quantum computing attacks. The private key of MPPK comprises a pair of multivariate polynomials. In a companion paper, we analyzed the performance of MPPK when these polynomials are quadratic. The analysis highlighted the MPPK high decapsulation time. We found that, while maintaining the security strength, the polynomials can be linear. Considerable performance gains are obtained for the decapsulation process. In this article, we benchmark the linear case and compare the results with the previous quadratic case.

Pursuit-Evasion (PE) games are regarded as a major platform for game theory. In this kind of game, an agent called an evader tries to escape from another agent called a pursuer. Active Target Defense (ATD) is a derivative of PE games, attracting attention recently. In an ATD game, the evader, often called an invader, strives to capture a moving target. The pursuer, called a defender, tries to intercept the invader. This paper implements the Spike-Timing-Dependent Plasticity (STDP) algorithm to train two Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs) to find a suitable solution for the ATD problem in decentralized situations. One of the SNNs is used to control the invader, while the other controls the defender. The performance is compared with the analytical solution for the pedestrian model. The results showed that an SNN can learn the optimal capture point only using relative velocities and line of sight.

Quantum data communications and networking involve classical hardware and software. Quantum storage is sensitive to environmental disturbances that may have malicious origins. Teleportation and entanglement swapping, two building blocks for the future quantum Internet, rely on secure classical bit communications. When lack of authenticity, integrity, and replay protection may have a high impact, quantum data communications are at risk and need to be protected. Building upon quantum cryptography and random generation of quantum operators, we propose a solution to protect the authenticity, integrity, and replay of quantum data communications. Our solution includes a classical data interface to quantum data cryptography. We describe how classical keying material can be mapped to quantum operators. This enables classical key management techniques for secure quantum data communications.

An important piece of information that anti-drone systems seek is whether a drone is autonomous or being operated by a human. In this work, we develop a reverse Turing test to find the answer. A reverse Turing test is when the roles of human and computer are reversed, with respect to the original Turing test. We develop a model using a neural network and features extracted from flights executed by an autonomous drone or controlled by a human operator. Every flight path taken requires the drone to avoid an obstacle that manifests certain attributes. Features from the flight are extracted to distinguish between an autonomous drone and a human operator. Our method achieves 97.8% accuracy, 91% precision and 72% recall, on an imbalanced data used for training and testing the model.

We focus on resilience towards covert attacks on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). We define the new k-steerability and l-monitorability control-theoretic concepts. k-steerability reflects the ability to act on every individual plant state variable with at least k different groups of functionally diverse input signals. l-monitorability indicates the ability to monitor every individual plant state variable with £ different groups of functionally diverse output signals. A CPS with k-steerability and l-monitorability is said to be (k, l)-resilient. k and l, when both greater than one, provide the capability to mitigate the impact of covert attacks when some signals, but not all, are compromised. We analyze the influence of k and l on the resilience of a system and the ability to recover its state when attacks are perpetrated. We argue that the values of k and l can be augmented by combining redundancy and diversity in hardware and software techniques that apply the moving target paradigm.

Underwater networking is a research area of growing importance. It finds applications in the exploitation of subsurface natural resources and monitoring of coastal waters for environmental and marine life protection purposes. Such networks usually rely on acoustic waves for underwater communications. It is a mechanical phenomenon affected by specific impairments, which have been the subjects of numerous theoretical studies. In this paper, a practical aspect of underwater communications is investigated. We report on a three-week long sea trial conducted using four commercial-of-the-shelf underwater acoustic modems operated in a broadcast mode in Bedford Basin (N.S., Canada). First, environmental conditions are presented. Then, underwater acoustic broadcasts results are discussed, modeled, and compared to theoretical predictions. Results are worst than theory, but comparable to other experiments. A higher signal-to-noise ratio seems beneficial for reducing bit-error-rate.

Under use of the regulated radio spectrum is being addressed using a cognitive radio network approach termed dynamic spectrum access. Primary users have priority over the regulated radio spectrum. Secondary users may use the residual air time. We focus on the problem of meeting on a common channel by a group of secondary users. Under the asymmetric model, the secondary users have different sets of available channels. If the sets are not disjoint, they can eventually make rendezvous. The goal is to make the secondary users rendezvous on a common channel in a minimum amount of time. The jump-stay rendezvous algorithm has been created by Lin et al. to solve this problem. We develop a new analysis for the two-user expected time to rendezvous in the jump-stay rendezvous algorithm, under the asymmetric model, that better reflects its performance.

We study the problem of establishing rendezvous between two secondary users. We assume that each user has two radios that can be used concurrently. We present the bidirectional algorithm that exploits the two radios. Assuming the availability of m channels, rendezvous between two start-asynchronous users is guaranteed within a delay of m time slots. The expected time-to-rendezvous is m/3 time slots. Assuming users are start-synchronous, rendezvous is made in at most (m+1)/2 time slots. The expected time-to-rendezvous is m/4 + 1 - 1/4m time slots.

The Vehicular Ad Hoc Network (VANET) holds promises for on-road security applications. In this paper, we utilize the VANET for surveillance purpose, tracking a noncooperative mobile target. We explore the possibilities of engaging Onboard Units (OBUs) and Roadside Units (RSUs) in a metropolitan VANET for tracking a vehicle that is on the run. The uncertainty associated with the unplanned locomotion of a vehicle in the metropolitan road network, that exhibits dynamic characteristics, such as different speed limits and time varying traffic congestion, makes vehicle tracking challenging. We present a tracking system composed of three operational modules: localization, tracking data collection and prediction of future locations of a target. Tracking messages are communicated among the OBUs and RSUs and are triggered on in probable areas where the target may be present. Therefore, another imperative element of the addressed problem is to scope the search to limit the number of OBUs and RSUs involved in the tracking operation. Our proposal does not presume any motion model for the target. A novel movement modeling technique utilizes OBU observations to classify the target's movement pattern. We propose a Dirichlet-multinomial model under the Bayesian estimation framework. The movement estimation is then exploited for predicting future locations of the target. The proposed method is analogous to chasing an on the run vehicle using police squad cars. We believe this approach holds potentials as an alternative to high-speed pursuits.

In a wireless network comprising some receivers and a truth-teller transmitter, an attacker adds a malicious evil-twin transmitter to the network such that the evil-twin lies about its true identity and transmits like the truth-teller transmitter in the network. The truth-teller transmitter may be a malicious transmitter as well, but it is honest in that it doesn't lie about its identity. The evil-twin uses the identity of the truth teller and transmits at the same time as the truth-teller. The receivers are bound to get confused about the location of the honest transmitter. We describe an algorithm to detect such a wireless evil-twin attack, and locate the truth-teller and the evil-twin transmitter. Four-square antennas are used by the receivers to detect an attack. RSS values measured at the receivers are used by Hyperbolic Position Bounding (HPB) to locate the transmitters in the wireless network with a degree of confidence. The performance of the algorithm is tested using a simulation of a wireless network.

The core of the Optimized Link State Routing (OLSR) protocol is the selection of Multipoint Relays (MPRs) as a flooding mechanism for distributing control traffic messages. A node in an OLSR network, selects its MPR set such that all two-hop neighbors are reachable through, at least, one MPR. However, if an MPR misbehaves during the execution of the protocol, the connectivity of the network is compromised. Additional coverage in the selection of the MPRs helps to mitigate the effect of control traffic attacks. RFC3626 defines the selection of MPRs with additional coverage. Nevertheless, the overhead of the network increases due to the added number of control traffic messages. In this paper, we propose an improved MPR selection with additional coverage. Every node selects, if it is possible, k + 1 disjoint MPR sets. The union of those sets, is a k-robust-MPR set. Thus, given a node, alternative paths are created to reach any destination two-hops away. We test both approaches against two kinds of adversaries misbehaving during the execution of the protocol. Our proposed MPR selection with additional coverage mitigates the effect of control traffic attacks by offering equivalent protection compared to the MPR selection with extra coverage presented in RFC3626, but reducing the overhead generated by redundant control information.

The ubiquity of wireless communications, in the home and office environment, introduces information security risks specific to WLANs and handheld devices. It is crucial to continuously monitor their evolution but every threat must be examined in terms of potential impact and likelihood. Only when both conditions are present, it does need to be mitigated. This paper shows how the problem can be addressed in a methodological manner. By conducting a proper risk assessment we can identify the threats, to the security of wireless communications, that are real and the ones that are inoffensive. Examples related to the protection of confidential information, in the wireless home and office environment, are used to illustrate the point.

In WiMAX/IEEE 802.16 with mobility support, scanning for an available channel by a mobile station, especially during a handover, must be done promptly in order to reduce delays in network access. We have shown previously that mobile stations can reduce scanning times by maintaining a most probable list of frequencies in use. In this paper, we extend this idea to further capture the mobility patterns of users. By using time-of-day and location-based mobility profiles a mobile station improves scanning performance during handovers. We show this improvement by modeling and simulating an area of WiMAX coverage with various mobility patterns and real-world mobility traces.

In ad hoc networks and wireless sensor networks, several routing algorithms rely on the knowledge by the network nodes of their own geographic location and those of others. For cases where a node doesn't have its own positioning device (e.g., GPS), Alfaro et al. propose several algorithms that a node can run to determine its geographic position using position reports from neighbors. In this paper, we first present the evil ring attack, an attack on the geographic location algorithms of Alfaro et al. that misleads nodes about the true position of their neighbors. An attacker sends false reports with a position that sits on a circle centered at the victim's location and of a radius equal to the distance between the victim and attacker. The attack succeeds because the calculation of the distance between the victim and attacker is not affected despite this fake position. We then present and analyze an evil ring attack detection algorithm in which a position-unaware sensor node crosschecks the consistency of the information it collects from its neighbors with the information collected by other trusted neighbors. This algorithm detects the existence of neighbors running the evil ring attack. We propose a general distributed algorithm for a) localizing sensors in a wireless sensor network in the presence of some malfunctioning ones, and b) detecting such malfunctioning sensors.

Hyperbolic position bounding (HPB) provides a mechanism to probabilistically delimit the location of a wireless network malicious insider to a candidate area. A large scale path loss model is used to construct a probable distance difference range between a rogue transmitter and a pair of trusted receivers. Hyperbolas are constructed at the minimum and maximum bounds of this range to delineate the position of a rogue with a given confidence level. We describe an outdoor experiment with a WiFi/802.11 network. Measured received signal strength (RSS) values, as well as path loss parameters obtained from signal propagation losses, are used by HPB to bound the location of a mobile transmitter within the WiFi/802.11 network with a degree of confidence. Experimental results are compared against prior simulation results and found to be consistent.

Abstract A rogue insider, in a wireless network, is an authenticated member that exploits possession of a valid identity in order to launch an attack. A typical example is the transmission of a verifiable message containing false or incomplete information. An important step, in enabling the network authorities to attribute an attack message to its originator, involves locating the physical source of the transmission. We propose a probabilistic scheme to determine the location of a transmitting rogue, with a degree of confidence, using the relative signal strength received by neighboring devices, even if the effective isotropic radiated power (EIRP) employed by the rogue is unknown. The relative received signal strength (RSS) between pairs of trusted receivers are combined with a range of possible EIRP values to construct an area in Euclidian space bounded by minimum and maximum distance hyperbolas. The area contained within the intersection of multiple hyperbola pairs pinpoints the location of the rogue transmitter with a specific level of confidence. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Vehicular networks face a typical quandary in their requirement for communications that are at once secure and private. While the messages broadcast between vehicles and between vehicles and the supporting infrastructure must be authentic and non repudiable, they must also ensure the vehicle driver's anonymity. The Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) framework's Wireless Access in Vehicular Environments (WAVE) application development architecture mandates the use of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) mechanisms for securing messages, consequently compromising the driver's expectation of privacy. In this paper, we propose a WAVE-based protocol for the secure and anonymous propagation of vehicle safety broadcast messages. A hybrid key infrastructure approach is put forth which combines the use of a shared network authorization key for devices that require anonymity and PKI for devices that do not.

Identity concealment is viewed as a standard identity privacy feature. UMTS provides partial concealment. This work extends the UMTS mutual authentication protocol such that the true identity of a mobile equipment cannot be discovered by an attacker eavesdropping over the radio access link interface. Three different solutions using aliases are proposed. Each of them provides perfect identity concealment to mobile equipment over the radio access link part of an UMTS connection.

On the one hand, the challenge of meeting various security requirements in the mobile and wireless environment is difficult, compared to the fixed and wired environment, because of the very nature of radio communications. On the other hand, wireless networks such as GSM, PCS and CDMA, which are predominantly circuit-switched voice networks, have been shielded from the vulnerabilities that exist in the Internet. With the introduction of the IP multimedia subsystems (IMS) solutions, data, voice and video is accessible using UMTS and CDMA2000 networks via the Internet. The current mobile equipment has the capability to work with multiple radio interfaces using heterogeneous radio access networks. Mobile subscribers have also become truly mobile since they are not constrained by mobile equipment, networks and applications. However, information between individuals has to be protected. Therefore, there exist always the notion of private and public communications. In the mobile and wireless environment, the challenge is private communications between peers over non private domains. This paper describes schemes offering secure communications between mobile nodes using virtual private networking technologies based on IP security (IPSec). In addition, mobility management is done using mobile IP along with route-optimization techniques. This paper also describes how latencies suffered by real-time traffic when traversing IPSec and mobile IP tunnels can be reduced so that real-time delay constraints can be meet.

For the purpose of anomaly-based intrusion detection in mobile networks, the utilization of profiles, based on hardware signatures, calling patterns, service usage, and mobility patterns, have been explored by various research teams and commercial systems, namely the fraud management system by Hewlett-Packard and Compaq. This paper examines the feasibility of using profiles, which are based on the mobility patterns of mobile users, who make use of public transportation, e.g. bus. More specifically, a novel framework, which makes use of an instance based learning technique, for classification purposes, is presented. In addition, an empirical analysis is conducted in order to assess the impact of two key parameters, the sequence length and precision level, on the false alarm and detection rates. Moreover, a strategy for enhancing the characterization of users is also proposed. Based on simulation results, it is feasible to use mobility profiles for anomaly-based intrusion detection in mobile wireless networks.

Several formal methods model reactive systems as discrete-event systems (DES). This makes mathematical reasoning about their properties easier and controller synthesis possible. We investigate the forbidden state control problem in which a DES is represented as a colored Petri net with a symmetry specification. More specifically, we provide an efficient formal method for synthesizing a controller which, when combined with the original system, will avoid reaching forbidden states. This problem is decidable if the colored Petri net has finite color sets and bounded places. Unlike conventional methods that explore the entire reachable set of states, our method avoids an exhaustive search of the state space by exploiting a symmetry specification. Furthermore, this abstraction technique allows a compact representation for the controller. Therefore, our method performs particularly well when applied to large but structured processes with similar components.

We develop a method for specifying the behavior of network management agents for the Internet framework using SDL-92 which is object-oriented. The starting point is the definition of a management information base (MIB) in ASN.1 with macros as well as the description of the simple network management protocol version 2 (SNMPv2 protocol). The behavior of an agent is defined in an SDL-92 process which dynamically creates processes for the rows of the tables of the MIB and in several procedures that process variable bindings in protocol data units (PDUs) and carry out specific operations on conceptual rows such as creation, retrieval, and bulk retrieval. Some reusable, MIB-independent process types and procedures are identified. For large MIBs, we first obtain a class diagram representation of the MIB. From the class diagram, the classes with behavior are mapped to process types representing conceptual rows of specific tabular objects. SNMPv2 protocol operations on these tabular objects can be easily specified with the help of MIB-independent procedures. Next, considered is the generation of test cases. MIB test cases can be generated from the SDL-92 specification using specification analysis and behavior inversion techniques. Many test cases for an example single-table MIB are designed and specified in tree and tabular combined notation (TTCN) based on the specification in SDL-92.

An experience with formal specification, analysis, and testing of an application layer protocol is presented. The ISO file, transfer, access, and management (FTAM) protocol is chosen due to its potential for widespread use. The specification language used was the ISO standard Estelle. This tool generates control and dataflow graphs of the specification and derives unparameterized test sequences for each function identified by the user. The authors describe formal specification of application layer protocols in Estelle and translation of ASN.1 data definitions into Estelle data types. The test design tool is used to obtain functional decomposition of the control and dataflow graphs. This way unparameterized test sequences are obtained. These sequences lead to a complete test suite obtained by parameterization which must be the next step. Analysis of the control and dataflow graphs leads to the derivation of several properties that most of the application layer protocols must possess. The identified properties are shown to simplify the test design process.>

An experience is presented with an automated test design tool for functional analysis and test derivation of distributed systems formally specified using Estelle, a description technique based on an extended finite-state machine model. The tool accepts a formal specification of the system and generates control, data flow graphs, and unparameterised test sequences. The tool has been used, on an experimental basis, for conformance test design of ISO File, Transfer, access and Management protocols.>

A computer-aided design tool is presented for designing test for protocols. CAD-PT accepts a formal specification in Estelle of the protocol and generates control and dataflow graphs on a graphic workstation. The tool is explained component-by-component, using a simplified ISO Class 2 transport protocol as an example.>