NeTS: Small: Exploring the Design, Implementation, Operation Issues of Cellular IoT via Formal Analysis and Empirical Validation

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The Internet of Things is coming into our daily life. As the only large-scale wireless network infrastructure on a par with the Internet, the cellular network plays a critical role in interconnecting a variety of things. Connected cellular IoT (CIoT) devices are forecast to grow almost four-fold from 2015 (0.4 billion) to 2021 (1.5 billion). With the explosive growth of CIoT devices, any design defects of CIoT standards, implementation issues of CIoT devices, and operational slips of CIoT service operators could lead to devastating consequences on a global scale. This project seeks to conduct a full investigation of CIoT services from their design, implementation and operation perspectives. The successful completion of this project will not only contribute new techniques to identify design defects, implementation issues, and operational slips of CIoT services, but also facilitate the deployment of CIoT services and boost the CIoT economy in the U.S. The research findings may also influence the design of CIoT in the upcoming 5G wireless networks.The proposed research has three key areas of technical contributions. First, it aims to develop a CIoT control-plane protocol verification tool based on formal methods, which identifies design defects of CIoT standards in terms of functional incorrectness, performance downgrade, and security issues. Second, it aims to develop a rigorous testing methodology for exploring the implementation issues and operational slips of CIoT practice, which covers CIoT conformance testing standards, CIoT practice, and feedbacks from SQA (Software Quality Assurance) experts in the CIoT industry. Third, it aims to develop an open-source CIoT test-bed including CIoT terminals and infrastructure to verify the possible design defects, implementation issues, and operational slips which are hardly to be validated in practice due to security, business, and other concerns. This CIoT test-bed will be released to the research community for future CIoT research. Besides technical contributions, the proposed project allows the researchers to integrate their research findings into both undergraduate and graduate curricula for both Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science majors. Finally, this project will contribute to the nation's workforce by training students to obtain technical expertise in mobile systems, wireless networking, and formal methods.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.