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The low-latency property is becoming increasingly crucial in response to the demand for data processing in the Internet of Things (IoT) environment, especially in lightweight cryptography. A low-latency lightweight block cipher called LTLBC is proposed in this paper. In particular, we propose a hybrid approach of word-wise involutive mapping and a bit-wise permutation, with careful selection of the shift and permutation parameters. This scheme enables LTLBC to achieve better diffusion than Midori and MANTIS. Also, a 4 × 4 S-box which is constructed through a gate-level bottom-up circuit search has good security and latency characteristics. LTLBC mainly focuses on the hardware environment of fully unrolled architecture. LTLBC achieves a minimum latency of around 4.73 ns, with a total area of only 10007.6 μ m 2 based on NanGate 45nm technology. The comprehensive safety analysis shows LTLBC has sufficient redundancy rounds to resist attacks, such as differential cryptanalysis, linear cryptanalysis, impossible differential cryptanalysis, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the design and implementation of a PLC microprocessor adhering to the IEC-61131-3 standard, executed on a Cyclone V FPGA using a DE10-NANO development board. Our microprocessor optimizes the central processing unit by streamlining the data path, achieving a remarkable simulated response time of approximately 60 ns, equivalent to three clock cycles at a 50 MHz frequency for Boolean operations. To substantiate our approach, we conducted practical experiments utilizing a FESTO conveyor station, employing relays as actuators, and incorporating optical and inductive sensors. The results underscore the feasibility of our proposed approach and serve as practical validation of its efficacy. This work introduces a promising avenue for the development of cost-effective PLCs employing SoC FPGA variants. Additionally, a thorough comparison of execution times with other early reported architectures. Our microprocessor outperforms even well-established PLCs like the S7-312, with substantial reductions in execution times of 94.54% for floating-point operations, 71.42–93.33% for word operations, and up to 78.57% for bit operations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the introduction of 5 G technology, various communication services are becoming integrated into more sophisticated systems, such as Ultra-Reliable Low-Latency Communications (URLLC) and Massive Machine-Type Communications (mMTC). The goal is to facilitate seamless connectivity for many devices, ensuring minimal transmission delays. This advancement finds application in diverse fields like remote surgery and intelligent transportation systems. To achieve this, one approach involves the utilization of random access protocols. Implementing multi-power-level systems under Non-Orthogonal Multiple Access (NOMA) allows devices to efficiently share the same resource block (time and frequency) for transmission while varying their transmission power. This work delves into determining the optimal power distribution profiles in power domain NOMA-based random access networks. Specifically, it examines linear, quadratic, square-root, and exponential multi-power level profiles to identify the most efficient multi-power Q-learning random access strategy. Additionally, we investigate the optimal number of power levels for these profiles, considering factors such as latency and throughput. We analyze the impact of minimum SINR requirements on the overall system throughput. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present some new observations on the branch number and study concrete differential analysis of SPEEDY. It is a new low-latency block cipher proposed at TCHES 2021. It employs SPS-type round function and consists of only 5/6/7 rounds. Since the iteration rounds are rather small so as to achieve ultra low-latency in encryption speed, it will be crucially important to analyze its security margin accurately. In this paper, we first propose a new notation of partition branch number which can describe the minimum number of active S-boxes for 2-round SPEEDY more accurately. An efficient algorithm to compute the value of partition branch number is also given. Then by extending the notation to higher-order partition branch number, we can obtain more accurate results of the minimum number of active S-boxes for 3–7 rounds. As a result, the maximum expected differential probabilities are significantly higher than the results estimated by designers. Based on this, we search for optimal differential characteristics of SPEEDY while considering the difference distribution table of S-box. We present examples of differential characteristics for 2–7 rounds. Furthermore, by utilizing the simple bit-permutation key schedule of SPEEDY, we can extend the differential trail search method and construct an efficient 6-round related-key differential trail with probability 2 - 179.2 . Based on it, we can present related-key differential attack on full round SPEEDY-7-192 with data complexity of 2 186.2 chosen-plaintexts and time complexity of 2 160.13 encryptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New services with low-latency (LL) requirements are one of the major challenges for the envisioned Internet. Many optimizations targeting the latency reduction have been proposed, and among them, jointly re-architecting congestion control and active queue management (AQM) has been particularly considered. In this effort, the Low Latency, Low Loss and Scalable Throughput (L4S) proposal aims at allowing both Classic and LL traffic to cohabit within a single node architecture. Although this architecture sounds promising for latency improvement, it can be exploited by an attacker to perform malicious actions whose purposes are to defeat its LL feature and consequently make their supported applications unusable. In this paper, we exploit different vulnerabilities of L4S which are the root of possible attacks and we show that application-layer protocols such as QUIC can easily be hacked in order to exploit the over-sensitivity of those new services to network variations. By implementing such undesirable flows in a real testbed and characterizing how they impact the proper delivery of LL flows, we demonstrate their reality and give insights for research directions on their detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Virtual reality (VR) applications on rehabilitation a home-base exercise experiences have boomed in the last decade. This is mainly because their entertainment capacity creates a sense of immersion in the users, which enhances adherence to their use. In addition, offering body-related visual feedback is a proven approach to the physical training towards a goal. Recent literature showed the exercise of pedalling has the potential to provide a high number of flexion and extension repetitions of the lower limb in reasonable therapeutic time periods to improve muscle activity, strength and balance in elders, but also motor improvements in patients with neurological injuries. The objective of this work is to present a low-cost wireless application in virtual reality (VR) for pedalling exercises. The platform developed consists of a VR headset and an inertial measurement unit (IMU). The VR headset processes the kinematic information of the IMU to estimate the cadence of the pedalling, while the IMU sensor tracks the angle of hip flexion/extension movement of the user. In order to confirm the suitability of this cadence estimation system, our approach is confronted with a cycling platform developed and validated in a previous study. In the present study, we carried out two repeated sessions with 13 subjects at 3 set speeds: slow (30 rpm), medium (60 rpm) and fast (90 rpm). The Spearman's correlation (PC) between both systems for the 3 speeds and sessions shows high correlation values for low and medium speeds and moderate correlation for high speed. The SEM results for each system show low measurement error (about 1 cycle) for both systems at every target speed, except for the virtual cycling platform at the highest speed (SEM of VCP at 90 rpm = 3.24 cycles). The repeatability analysis based on ICC (3, 1) absolute agreement shows consistency in all measurements for both systems at high speed and also reflects the irregularity in measurements at low and medium speeds, where participants were less stable during testing due to entertainment from the VR system. All in all, it is concluded the validity of the cadence estimation system for pedalling exercises with low intensity. This development allows us to control the virtual environment by adapting the visual stimulus to cycling cadence. The proposed system can generate sensitive inputs to influence the user's pedalling cadence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH) is the crucial factor in the rapid penetration of over-the-top (OTT) service providers for on-demand video streaming. It can also be used for live video streaming by the OTT providers. The recent advancements of the HTTP chunked transfer, and the Common Media Application Format (CMAF) echo this tendency, which introduces the possibility to deliver a video segment by small chunks before the full segment is generated. It can deliver live latency of three seconds or less on a conventional DASH player with a small buffer capacity less than the target live latency. However, legacy bitrate adaptation mechanisms inaccurately measure the available bandwidth due to idle times between the chunks at the encoder side. To resolve this problem, we utilize the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm that directly provides the network statistics with the available bandwidth. We, then, propose an SDN-assisted bitrate adaptation mechanism for live streaming with HTTP 1.1 Chunked Transfer of CMAF packages while keeping the coexistence with the legacy DASH clients. Our SDN-based central framework asynchronously sends the video bitrate levels by continuously monitoring the background traffic flows and the available capacity for DASH clients on the same shared bottleneck link. Results show that our proposed mechanism achieves a lower video freeze rate and provides a better quality-of-experience while reducing the live latency down to about three seconds in the existence of varying background traffic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Novel applications will require extending traditional cloud computing infrastructure with compute resources deployed close to the end user. Edge and fog computing tightly integrated with carrier networks can fulfill this demand. The emphasis is on integration: the rigorous delay constraints, ensuring reliability on the distributed, remote compute nodes, and the sheer scale of the system altogether call for a powerful resource provisioning platform that offers the applications the best of the underlying infrastructure. We therefore propose Kubernetes-edge-scheduler that provides high reliability for applications in the edge, while provisioning less than 10% of resources for this purpose, and at the same time, it guarantees compliance with the latency requirements that end users expect. We present a novel topology clustering method that considers application latency requirements, and enables scheduling applications even on a worldwide scale of edge clusters. We demonstrate that in a potential use case, a distributed stream analytics application, our orchestration system can reduce the job completion time to 40% of the baseline provided by the default Kubernetes scheduler. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fifth-generation (5G) cellular mobile networks are expected to support mission-critical low latency applications in addition to mobile broadband services, where fourth-generation (4G) cellular networks are unable to support Ultra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC). However, it might be interesting to understand which latency requirements can be met with both 4G and 5G networks. In this paper, we discuss (1) the components contributing to the latency of cellular networks and (2) evaluate control-plane and user-plane latencies for current-generation narrowband cellular networks and point out the potential improvements to reduce the latency of these networks, (3) present, implement and evaluate latency reduction techniques for latency-critical applications. The two elements we detected, namely the short transmission time interval and the semi-persistent scheduling are very promising as they allow to shorten the delay to processing received information both into the control and data planes. We then analyze the potential of latency reduction techniques for URLLC applications. To this end, we develop these techniques into the long term evolution (LTE) module of ns-3 simulator and then evaluate the performance of the proposed techniques into two different application fields: industrial automation and intelligent transportation systems. Our detailed evaluation results from simulations indicate that LTE can satisfy the low-latency requirements for a large choice of use cases in each field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to recent improvements in virtual reality (VR) technology, the number of novel applications for entertainment, education, and rehabilitation has increased. The primary goal of these applications is to enhance the sense of belief that the user is "present" in the virtual environment. By tracking the user's skeleton in real-time, it is possible to synchronize the avatar's motions with the user's motions. Although current common devices implement body tracking to a certain degree, most approaches are limited by either high latency or insufficient accuracy. Due to the lack of positional and rotation data, the current VR applications typically do not represent the user's motions. In this paper, we present an accurate, low-latency body tracking approach for VR-based applications using Vive Trackers. Using a HTC Vive headset and Vive Trackers, we have been able to create an immersive VR experience, by animating the motions of the avatar as smoothly, rapidly and as accurately as possible. An evaluation showed our solution is capable of tracking both joint rotation and position with reasonable accuracy and a very low end-to-latency of 6.71 ± 0.80 ms . Due to this merely imperceptible delay and precise tracking, our solution can show the movements of the user in real-time in order to create deeper immersion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Device-to-device (D2D) communications allow direct connections among devices to lower transmission latency and network loads of the existing cellular mobile networks. To fully exploit the benefits of D2D communications, relay access is one of the critical challenges upon employing the optimal cooperative relay user equipments (UEs) for data forwarding. The existed relay access approaches usually neglect the inherent motivation that whether the relay is reluctant to forward the information of other UEs based on its status, such as limited battery, service cost and social ties. In this paper, we jointly investigate both the transmission delay and the reliability performance for designing a relay access scheme combined with the impacts of the physical layer and the social layer. Meanwhile, considering the user mobility and status, a dynamic relay access model is constructed with the utility function of the weighted average of latency and social trust level under the long-term constraints. To solve this problem, Lyapunov framework is proposed for converting it into a renewal-reward system towards infinite time horizon, and numerical results show the benefits of the proposed scheme compared with other schemes under dynamic scenarios, as it can lower the latency while guaranteeing the reliability of relay access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present error-resilient Internet video transmission using path diversity and rate-distortion optimized reference picture selection. Under this scheme, the optimal packet dependency is determined adapting to network characteristics and video content, to achieve a better trade-off between coding efficiency and forming independent streams to increase error-resilience. The optimization is achieved within a rate-distortion framework, so that the expected end-to-end distortion is minimized under the given rate constraint. The expected distortion is calculated based on an accurate binary tree modeling with the effects of channel loss and error concealment taken into account. With the aid of active probing, packets are sent across multiple available paths according to a transmission policy which takes advantage of path diversity and seeks to minimize the loss rate. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed scheme provides significant diversity gain, as well as gains over video redundancy coding and the NACK mode of conventional reference picture selection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the existing ad hoc on demand multipath distance vector (AOMDV) routing scheme for vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) is extended to a reliable low-latency multipath routing (RLLMR) scheme based on multipath link reliability, capable of determining the reliable routes preemptively. Here, the link reliability refers to the probability that a direct transmission link among any two vehicles remains constantly available for a specific period of time, which can be computed based on the position, route, and velocity of the vehicles to facilitate the reliable routing process in VANETs. In the proposed RLLMR scheme, the mathematical distribution of vehicles movements and link breakages is also considered to increase the reliability of the vehicular networks. The simulation results show that proposed RLLMR scheme performs better compared to existing schemes in terms of latency, reliability, throughput, and energy consumption at the cost of marginally increased routing overhead. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]