Over the past decade, huge progress has been made in the development of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), also known as self-driving or driverless cars. But it is still too early to sit back and nap - you can take your hands off the wheel but you still need to have your eyes on the road. The AVs currently out on the roads are only partially automated, meaning they require human oversight to work safely.  
As most of the communication on AV networks take place through wireless communication links, there is an inherent risk of the technology being hacked for malicious purposes. This is why securing the network is key for AVs to deliver on their promise of being safer than traditional cars. Compromised security can cause casualties which may have fatal outcomes. Ali Hussain Khan, Dr Naveed Ul Hassan and Dr Zartash Afzal Uzmi from the Department of Electrical Engineering at LUMS, and Dr Chuadhry Mujeeb Ahmed from University of Strathclyde have published a research article to address the security issues associated with this vulnerable technology. The research proposes and tests an authentication framework based on blockchain technology, termed Proof-of-Communication-Capability (PoCC), which acts as a defence mechanism in wireless networks against malicious actors pretending to be valid communication devices. This type of hacking attack is also known as communication capability spoofing. 
Blockchain, a technology popularized for crypto-currencies, can be utilized effectively for wireless communication between AVs. Blockchain works by replicating the data at multiple computer nodes, thereby making a network more secure and less prone to failures. However, blockchain’s strength can also be its weakness. Blockchain inherently relies on consensus – informally speaking, consensus can be defined as an agreement between a set of computers which communicate over a network. If this consensus is subverted or delayed, nodes in a blockchain slow down which can be catastrophic for AVs. Hussain Khan and his fellow researchers identified four different types of attacks that are capable of downgrading the system.

These nodes can either (1) falsely report superior communication capabilities; (2) turn malicious after joining the network and start reporting upgraded wireless communication; (3) report downgraded wireless communication capabilities while joining the network; or (4) turn malicious after joining the network and start reporting degraded wireless communication capabilities. 

PoCC authentication framework helps detect these malicious nodes by providing a set of consensus rules, a form of test to ensure that only non-malicious nodes join the network. For instance, the claimed capabilities of nodes can be tested through physical features like location and propagation time (the time it takes to transmit data) before joining the network to prevent type (1) malicious nodes to enter. PoCC authentication framework comprises of consensus rules that have been developed in relation to every possible malicious node to prevent them from sabotaging the blockchain. After testing the framework in different scenarios where nodes turn malicious, the researchers concluded that the PoCC authentication framework is not only capable of detecting malicious nodes, but the physical attributes of the consensus rules make it difficult to trick the system. Implementation of the proposed framework in AVs could contribute in avoiding causalities on the road without human intervention and thereby push AVs one step closer to widespread adoption. 

Dependency can lead to complacency. The craving to extract oil is partly derived from its incessant need in our industrial sector. Most of the moving parts involved post industrial revolution need some form of fuel, extracted from oil. The cries of scientists from the 1980s fell on partly deaf ears, when they warned of oil scarcity, but the short-term economic benefit of ‘black gold’ was to decapitate our vision for the long term.

Many years later, the question remains still: what will be the alternate when the world runs out of oil? Fortunately, scientists who foresaw this predicament began to work on solutions that may help steer our direction to a more sustainable, renewable resource. One of the products of this enterprise were the birth of electric vehicles (EVs). These machines with futuristic, cyber-punk aesthetics come in all sizes and shapes and appeal to a wide variety of the demography. Some claim them to be a game-changer for the transport industry. Today, electric cars and their charging ports can be seen more frequently in big cities like Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad. However, like all emerging technologies, electric vehicles come with their own challenges.

Needless to say, that an electric vehicle run on batteries that store charge. With developments in battery technology, efforts have borne fruit to make them more power and cost effective. Still, the high costs of EVs make it a less attractive competitor to traditional gasoline-run cars. Moreover, the lifespan of the batteries installed in EVs are limited, which adds to the already high cost of producing (and owning!) one. Additionally, the reliability of these installed batteries needs to be improved to make charging efficient. Afterall, they compete with a most environmentally unfriendly entity - oil! It is at this junction of reliability on battery technology, and the efforts to understand their health deterioration, that we meet science superheroes from within SBASSE.

Mr. Huzaifa Rauf from the Department of Electrical Engineering, along with Dr. Naveed Arshad from the Department of Computer Science, at SBASSE, are utilizing machine learning to understand and possibly help reduce these problems around EV batteries. The team’s research is focused on lithium-ion batteries, since they are the most advanced and much-sought batteries used in EVs. Mr. Rauf’s team has used multiple machine learning methods to model parameters to understand how a battery degrades. State-of-health and remaining-useful-life are the most important parameters determining a battery’s reliability and lifespan. The team’s primary research objective is determining which machine learning method best models the battery degradation model of lithium-ion batteries. Hence, they presented battery degradation model in several machine learning methods and algorithms. The results of these models were presented to compare their accuracy, and ability to handle the complex data.

These models can also reduce the strain on laboratory-based methods for understanding battery health degradation and produce results faster. This research presented by Mr. Rauf’s team is still at its early stages. However, such tools are elemental to understand battery health and reliability, which will enable the vast use of electric vehicles.

Their most recent paper highlighting this work was published in the journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, a 15.0 impact factor journal. We congratulate them on such a tremendous achievement and wish them best of fortune in their future work.

Reference

Huzaifa Rauf, Muhammad Khalid, Naveed Arshad, Machine learning in state of health and remaining useful life estimation: Theoretical and technological development in battery degradation modelling, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Volume 156, 2022, 111903, ISSN 1364-0321, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2021.111903.

Communication has been at the heart of our survival. We itch to be heard, and to be understood. In modern times, the need to communicate has seen a reincarnation in that it is not only still part of our biological construct but also our civic and technological design altogether. Couple the fact that we can beam electronic signals through waves of energy and that the Earth is round, making it impossible for a beam of precious signals that inherently moves in a straight line, to follow the curves path of our world’s contours. We needed something better – we needed satellites!

In this work, Dr. Naveed ul Hassan and his co-authors worked out the energy efficiency of a satellite network coupled with ground infrastructure and compared it with the energy efficiencies of Traditional Terrestrial Heterogeneous (TTH) and Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks (in other words – older technology). For an increasing cell density, it was shown that the satellite-terrestrial network performs better in terms of energy efficiency as compared to the TTH and LTE networks. These results are promising and show that satellite networks can complement terrestrial networks for providing communication resources to the users.

Communication satellites have been in service for a long time. They are used to provide communication services to far off and difficult to reach places. Conventional satellites have been large-sized, expensive, and very difficult to deploy. They are also very far away, which introduces significant lag. With the recent uprise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and wireless networks, the service requirements have changed. High data rates with low latency are required, and the current ground-based infrastructure is already overloaded. Due to these circumstances, a rise to the development of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, which have a lot less lag and better bandwidth availability. These satellites are deployed as Dense Small Satellite Networks (DSSN), across the globe, covering a large fraction of our planet at any given time.

These satellite networks have many advantages in telecommunications. Their most crucial benefit is extending coverage to areas that are otherwise difficult to cover with land infrastructure. They also provide low-latency transmission as compared to satellites in higher orbits. There is an exponential increase in the number of connected devices. Satellites can be deployed alongside ground infrastructure to support a massive number of devices. Satellite networks can provide the data rate and bandwidth requirements in areas where there is a sudden increase in network traffic and the ground infrastructure becomes loaded. Satellite networks also complement GPS systems to provide accurate locations for location-based services and can be used to cache data for reducing latency.

LEO satellites do not have a stationary footprint on the ground. Therefore, to use them in telecommunications, the satellite network infrastructure needs to be carefully planned. Satellites could form a constellation with identical satellites or clusters with non-identical satellites performing different functions. The orbital pattern of the satellites could be set as polar, rosette or hybrid. The inter-satellite communication could be based on radio frequency links, optical wireless communication links or visible light communication links. The satellite to ground contact could be either direct, could utilize a space or ground relay, or could be hybrid to utilize both types of relays.

Some technologies will aid the adoption of satellite networks in communications. Owing to the changing distances and positions between satellites, they should be fitted with intelligent, steerable, and high gain antennas. Multiple access techniques should be utilized for satellite networks where there should be provision to reuse frequency resources. Satellite networks are solar-powered, and their energy consumption characteristics are predictable because of known trajectories. Solar power optimization can be used to provide the required energy. To cater flexibility and advancement in network design and operation, satellites systems should be upgradeable to cater for new functionalities to be added remotely without changing the expensive hardware. Satellite network deployment should be optimized for resources such as capacity, power, latency and quality.

Reference:

N. U. Hassan, C. Huang, C. Yuen, A. Ahmad and Y. Zhang, "Dense Small Satellite Networks for Modern Terrestrial Communication Systems: Benefits, Infrastructure, and Technologies," in IEEE Wireless Communications, vol. 27, no. 5, pp. 96-103, October 2020, doi: 10.1109/MWC.001.1900394

پاکستان میں ایک منظر اکثر دیکھا جاتا ہے کہ کسی ویران سڑک پہ دو تین لوگ گاڑی کو دھکا لگا کے پٹرول سٹیشن تک لے  جا رہے ہوتے ہیں۔ عمومی طور پہ  ایسا پٹرول اسٹیشن کے دور ہونے کی وجہ سے ہوتا ہے۔  تاہم  غور طلب بات یہ ہے کہ   بظاہر بے ضرر نظر آنے والا یہ منظر کسی بھی ناخوشگوار واقعہ کا پیش خیمہ بن سکتا ہے۔ برقی توانائی کے حالیہ افراط سے وطنِ  عزیز  میں جہاں بجلی سے چلنے والی گاڑیوں کی آمد کی بازگشت ہے ، وہیں یہ تشویش بھی پائی جاتی ہے کہ  ان گاڑیوں کے چارجنگ اسٹیشن کہاں لگائے جائیں گے؟ 

لمز میں ڈاکٹر نوید ارشد اور انکی ٹیم  نے اس تشویش کو بروقت  زیرِ غور لانے کے بعد  اپنی ٹیم کو   ٹریفک انتظامیہ کے مختلف دفاتر میں بھیجا تاکہ وہاں سےٹریفک کے بہاؤ سمیت دیگر متعلقہ اعداد و شمار اکٹھے کیے جا سکیں۔ تمام اعداد و شمار کا تجزیہ، اور موٹر وے کا سروے کرنے کے بعد لمز کی ٹیم نے  کُل ۸۵ ایسے مقامات کا تعین کیا گیا جو ہر لحاظ سے چارجنگ اسٹیشن کے لیے موزوں  ثابت ہو سکیں گے۔ اعداد و شمار کے مطابق آغاز میں ان میں سے پندرہ کو ترجیحی بنیاد پر قائم کیا جانا چاہیے۔ تحقیق کے مطابق اگر ان  پندرہ مقامات پہ دس تیز رفتار چارجر لگائے جائیں تو وہ پاکستان کے بڑے شہروں تک رسائی کی بنیادی ضرورت کو پورا کر سکیں گے۔ 

لاہور- اسلام آباد موٹروے پرگاڑیوں کے  حالیہ بہاؤ، سالانہ اضافے کی شرح اور نقل و حرکت کو مدِ نظر رکھتے ہوئے پانچ مقامات پہ چارجنگ اسٹیشن بنانے کی تجویز دی گئی ہے جس سے لاہور تا اسلام آباد جانے والی برقی گاڑیوں کی چارجنگ ضروریات کو کماحقہ پورا کیا جا سکے گا۔ یہاں یہ امر بھی قابلِ ذکر ہے کہ دن بھر گاڑیوں کے بدلتے ہوئے بہاؤ  کے پیشِ نظر یہ تجویز دی گئی ہے کہ جن اوقات میں چارجنگ کی طلب بہت کم ہو تب   ایک محرک  چارجنگ سٹیشن  مطلوبہ مقام تک بھیجا بھی جا سکتا ہے۔ 

ان چارجنگ اسٹیشنز کا قیام تاجر برادری کے لیے توجہ کا مرکز بن سکتا ہے جیسا کہ پٹرول ا سٹیشنز کے قریب ہوٹل،دکانات اور دیگر تجارتی مراکز کو فروغ ملتا ہے۔ یہ بھی تجویز کیا گیا ہے کہ یہ تمام کاروبار اپنے منافع کا ایک طے شدہ   حصہ چارجنگ سٹیشن کو دیں جس سے  چارجنگ سٹیشن کے مجموعی منافع میں اضافہ ہو گا جو اسے ملک میں مزید پھیلاؤ کا موقع دے گا تاکہ زیادہ سے زیادہ صارفین کو کم فاصلے اور کم نرخ پہ چارجنگ کی سہولت میسر ہو۔

مکمل تحقیقی مقالہ:

N. Arshad, HOA Khan, M. M. Arslan, and M. A. Javed. Developing Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Across Highways and Motorways of Pakistan. LUMS Energy Institute – June 2021 | https://lei.lums.edu.pk/index.php/2021/06/04/developing-electric-vehicle-charging-infrastructure-across-highways-and-motorways-of-pakistan-report-release/

Raaz Ahtesham is a Carl Sagan Write for Science intern and is an MS student at the Department of Electrical Engineering at SBASSE.