Network Functions Virtualization Architecture for Gateways for Virtualized Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks

TL;DR

This paper proposes an NFV-based architecture for scalable, flexible, and dynamic gateways in virtualized wireless sensor and actuator networks, enabling efficient management of heterogeneous devices and applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel NFV architecture for VWSAN gateways, supporting dynamic deployment, scalability, and easy integration of new sensors and applications.

Findings

Prototype built on OpenStack demonstrates feasibility.

Performance analysis shows acceptable latency and throughput.

Architecture supports heterogeneous sensor and actuator integration.

Abstract

Virtualization enables multiple applications to share the same wireless sensor and actuator network (WSAN). However, in heterogeneous environments, virtualized wireless sensor and actuator networks (VWSAN) raise new challenges, such as the need for on-the-fly, dynamic, elastic, and scalable provisioning of gateways. Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) is a paradigm emerging to help tackle these new challenges. It leverages standard virtualization technology to consolidate special-purpose network elements on commodity hardware. This article presents NFV architecture for VWSAN gateways, in which software instances of gateway modules are hosted in NFV infrastructure operated and managed by a VWSAN gateway provider. We consider several VWSAN providers, each with its own brand or combination of brands of sensors and actuators/robots. These sensors and actuators can be accessed by a variety of applications, each may have different interface and QoS (i.e., latency, throughput, etc.) requirements. The NFV infrastructure allows dynamic, elastic, and scalable deployment of gateway modules in this heterogeneous VWSAN environment. Furthermore, the proposed architecture is flexible enough to easily allow new sensors and actuators integration and new application domains accommodation. We present a prototype that is built using the OpenStack platform. Besides, the performance results are discussed