Communications

Monday April 1st, 2019 at 3:00 p.m. Dr. Ashutosh Dutta, Director, Industry Outreach-IEEE Communications Society, will be presenting an IEEE ComSoc distinguished lecture “Security in SDN/NFV and 5G Networks-Opportunities and Challenges”. Day & Time: Monday April 1st, 2019 3:00 p.m. ‐ 4:00 p.m. Speaker: Dr. Ashutosh Dutta, Director, Industry Outreach-IEEE Communications Society, IEEE 5G Initiative Founding Co-Chair and Senior Scientist JHU/APL (Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Lab) Organizers: IEEE Toronto ComSoc Location: Room Number: BA 4287 40 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 Contact: Eman Hammad Abstract: Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualization (NFV) are the key pillars of future networks, including 5G and Beyond that promise to support emerging applications such as enhanced mobile broadband, ultra low latency, massive sensing type applications while providing the resiliency in the network. Service providers and other verticals (e.g., Connected Cars, IOT, eHealth) can leverage SDN/NFV to provide flexible and cost-effective service without compromising the end user quality of service (QoS). While NFV and SDN open up the door for flexible networks and rapid service creation, these offer both security opportunities while also introducing additional challenges and complexities, in some cases. With the rapid proliferation of 4G and 5G networks, operators have now started the trial deployment of network function virtualization, especially with the introduction of various virtualized network elements in the access and core networks. These include elements such as virtualized Evolved Packet Core (vEPC), virtualized IP Multimedia Services (vIMS), Virtualized Residential Gateway, and Virtualized Next Generation Firewalls. However, very little attention has been given to the security aspects of virtualization. While several standardization bodies (e.g., ETSI, 3GPP, NGMN, ATIS, TIA) have started looking into the many security issues introduced by SDN/NFV, additional work is needed with larger security community involvement including vendors, operators, universities, and regulators. This tutorial will address evolution of cellular technologies towards 5G but will largely focus on various security challenges and opportunities introduced by SDN/NFV and 5G networks such as Hypervisor, Virtual Network Functions (VNFs), SDN Controller, Orchestrator, Network slicing, Cloud RAN, and security function virtualization. This tutorial will also highlight some of the ongoing activities within various standards communities and will illustrate a few deployment use case scenarios for security including threat taxonomy for both operator and enterprise networks. In addition, I will also describe some of the ongoing activities within IEEE Future Network initiative including roadmap efforts and various ways one can get involved and contribute to this initiative. Biography: Ashutosh Dutta is currently Senior Wireless Communication Systems Research Scientist and JHU/APL Sabbatical Fellow at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Labs (JHU/APL), USA. Most recently he served as Principal Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Labs in Middletown, New Jersey. His career, spanning more than 30 years, includes Director of Technology Security and Lead Member of Technical Staff at AT&T, CTO of Wireless at a Cybersecurity company NIKSUN, Inc., Senior Scientist in Telcordia Research, Director of Central Research Facility at Columbia University, adjunct faculty at NJIT, and Computer Engineer with TATA Motors. He has more than 90 conference and journal publications, three book chapters, and 30 issued patents. Ashutosh is co-author of the book, titled, “Mobility Protocols and Handover Optimization: Design, Evaluation and Application” published by IEEE and John & Wiley that has recently been translated into Chinese Language. Ashutosh served as the chair for IEEE Princeton / Central Jersey Section, Industry Relation Chair for Region 1 and MGA, Pre-University Coordinator for IEEE MGA and vice chair of Education Society Chapter of PCJS. He co-founded the IEEE STEM conference (ISEC) and helped to implement EPICS (Engineering Projects in Community Service) projects in several high schools. Ashutosh currently serves as the Director of Industry Outreach for IEEE Communications Society and is the founding co-chair for IEEE 5G initiative. He also serves as IEEE Communications Society’s Distinguished Lecturer for 2017-2018. Ashutosh serves as the general co-chair for the premier IEEE 5G World Forum. He was recipient of the prestigious 2009 IEEE MGA Leadership award and 2010 IEEE-USA professional leadership award. Ashutosh obtained his BS in Electrical Engineering from NIT Rourkela, India, MS in Computer Science from NJIT, and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University under the supervision of Prof. Henning Schulzrinne. Ashutosh is a senior member of IEEE and ACM.

Thursday December 6th, 2018 at 2:00 p.m. Prof. Halim Yanikomeroglu, Carleton University, will be presenting a ComSoc distinguished lecture: “Integrated Terrestrial/Aerial 6G Networks for Ubiquitous 3D Super-Connectivity in 2030s”. Day & Time: Thursday December 6th, 2018 2:00 p.m. ‐ 3:30 p.m. Speaker: Prof. Halim Yanikomeroglu Carleton University Organizers: ComSoc IEEE Toronto Location: Bahen Centre, Room BA1230 40 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4 Contact: ComSoc IEEE Toronto Register: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/183175 Abstract: As the 5G standards are currently being developed with a scheduled completion date of late-2019, it is time to reinitiate a brainstorming endeavour followed by the technical groundwork towards the subsequent generation (6G) wireless networks of 2030s. One reasonable starting point in this new 6G discussion is to reflect on the possible shortcomings of the 5G networks to-be-deployed. 5G promises to provide connectivity for a broad range of use-cases in a variety of vertical industries; after all, this rich set of scenarios is indeed what distinguishes 5G from the previous four generations. Many of the envisioned 5G use-cases require challenging target values for one or more of the key QoS elements, such as high rate, high reliability, low latency, and high energy efficiency; we refer to the presence of such demanding links as the super-connectivity. However, the very fundamental principles of digital and wireless communications reveal that the provision of ubiquitous super-connectivity in the global scale – i.e., beyond indoors, dense downtown or campus-type areas – is infeasible with the legacy terrestrial network architecture as this would require prohibitively expensive gross over-provisioning. The problem will only exacerbate with even more demanding 6G use-cases such as UAVs requiring connectivity (ex: delivery drones), thus the need for 3D super-connectivity. In this talk, we will present a 5-layer vertical architecture composed of fully integrated terrestrial and aerial layers for 6G networks of 2030s: – Terrestrial HetNets with macro-, micro-, and pico-BSs – Flying-BSs (aerial-/UAV-/drone-BSs); altitude: up to several 100 m – High Altitude Platforms (HAPs) (floating-BSs); altitude: ~20 km – Very Low Earth Orbit (VLEO) satellites; altitude: 200-1,000 km – Geostationary Orbit (GEO) satellites; altitude: 35,786 km In the absence of a clear technology roadmap for the 2030s, the talk has, to a certain extent, an exploratory view point to stimulate further thinking and creativity. We are certainly at the dawn of a new era in wireless research and innovation; the next twenty years will be very interesting. Biography: Halim Yanikomeroglu is a Professor at Carleton University. His research covers many aspects of communications technologies with emphasis on wireless networks. He supervised 20 PhD students (all completed with theses). He coauthored 360+ peer-reviewed research papers including 120+ in the IEEE journals; these publications have received 11,000+ citations. He is a Fellow of IEEE, a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Communications Society, and a Distinguished Speaker for the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society. He has been one of the most frequent tutorial presenters in the leading international IEEE conferences (29 times). He has had extensive collaboration with industry which resulted in 25 granted patents (plus more than a dozen applied). During 2012-2016, he led one of the largest academic-industrial collaborative research projects on pre-standards 5G wireless, sponsored by the Ontario Government and the industry. He served as the General Chair and Technical Program Chair of several major international IEEE conferences.

Friday, July 20th at 11:00 a.m., The IEEE Toronto ComSoc Chapter and University of Toronto – ECE are inviting all interested to the distinguished lecture titled: “Integration of Electric Vehicles in Smart Grids”. Day & Time: Friday, July 20, 2018 11:00 a.m. ‐ 12:00 p.m. Speaker: Prof. Ying-Jun Angela Zhang Chinese University of Hong Kong Location: 40 St George Street Toronto, Ontario Canada M5S 2E4 Building: Bahen Centre for Information Technology Room Number: BA4164 Contact: Eman Hammad Organizer: IEEE Toronto Communication Society Abstract: The recent surge in electric vehicle adoption worldwide brings both challenges and opportunities to the electricity power grid. In this talk, we will first introduce our recent work on coordinated electric vehicle charging when the knowledge of future events is unknown. We will then show how the battery systems in electric vehicles can contribute to stabilizing the grid frequency. Biography: Ying-Jun Angela Zhang (S’00-M’05-SM’10) received her PhD degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong in 2004. Since 2005, she has been with Department of Information Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, where she is currently an Associate Professor. Her research interests include mainly wireless communications systems and smart power systems, in particular optimization techniques for such systems. She serves as the Chair of the Executive Editor Committee of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications. Previously, she served many years as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Transactions on Communications, Security and Communications Networks (Wiley), and a Feature Topic in the IEEE Communications Magazine. She has served on the organizing committee of major IEEE conferences including ICC, GLOBECOM, SmartgridComm, VTC, CCNC, ICCC, MASS, etc.. She is now the Chair of IEEE ComSoc Emerging Technical Committee on Smart Grid. She was a Co-Chair of the IEEE ComSoc Multimedia Communications Technical Committee and the IEEE Communication Society GOLD Coordinator. She was the co-recipient of the 2014 IEEE ComSoc APB Outstanding Paper Award, the 2013 IEEE SmartgridComm Best Paper Award, and the 2011 IEEE Marconi Prize Paper Award on Wireless Communications. She was the recipient of the Young Researcher Award from the Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2011. As the only winner from engineering science, she has won the Hong Kong Young Scientist Award 2006, conferred by the Hong Kong Institution of Science. Dr. Zhang is a Fellow of IET and a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE ComSoc.