ICIN 2023 Tutorials

Tutorial #1
Title: Blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies for 6G Networks and Service Management

Abstract: The research and industrial communities have already started concentrating on formulating the overall 6G vision. Following the trend, it is evident that 6G will emerge as highly softwarized and open networks allowing the participation of multiple stakeholders. However, the programmability and openness will make 6G networks more prone to security, privacy, and traceability. To address these issues, deep integration of blockchain technology with 6G networks is foreseen. In this tutorial, we aim to provide a comprehensive and thorough overview of the recent advances in blockchain and Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLT)and link the capabilities of the blockchain ecosystem with a possible connection to future telecommunication systems in the context of network management and orchestration. Some notable features of this tutorial are:(i) a clear link between the blockchain and DLT with its features including smart contracts;(ii) Decentralized Applications to facilitate use cases towards the recent developments in networking;(iii) An overview of standardization efforts in network management and orchestration and how these can be related to blockchain frameworks, the relationship to blockchainand recent advancements. Two examples(including a demo) on blockchain for inter-provider agreements use cases will also be presented. Finally, gaps, challenges, and futuredirections will be discussed.

Bio: Farhana Javed is Researcher at the CTTC (Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya)and Ph.D. student at UPC (Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya). I completed my Master’s from HUST (Huazhong University of Science and Technology), China in 2019. My current research work is about studying Blockchain networks/Distributed Ledger Technologies and their integration in 6G networks.

Bio: Josep Mangues-Bafalluy  received the PhD degree in Telecommunications in 2003 from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC).
He is research Director and Head of the Services as networkS(SaS) Research Unit of the CTTC. He has given keynotes in conferences/workshops (MONAMI 2015, Mobislice 2020)and tutorials in PhD schools and conferences (e.g., CNSM). His research interests include SDN and NFV applied to next generation mobile networks and data science/engineering and AIML-based network automation.

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Tutorial #2
Title: Distributed, Robust and Trustworthy ServiceDelivery in Edge-Assisted Green 6G 

Abstract: In this tutorial, we will overview 6G green heteroge-neous network architectures as a potential solution for increasedthroughput and reduced latency in innovative applications. Thiskind of architecture can either exploit local or Fog/Edge com-putation to achieve improvements in the energy efficiency ofthe ecosystem itself. The considered scenario is characterizedby two main aspects, that lead to specific functions/modulesto be implemented in the architecture. First, the envisionedapplications are location-aware, so that the architecture has toexploit the (possibly accurate) positioning information fed byproper Location-Based Services (LBS). Due to the requirementsneeded to achieve the green characteristics, the positioningmodule has to exploit simple, yet effective, low-complexity al-gorithms. Second, the integration of networks with differentcomputation and communication capabilities leads to the needfor (context-aware and user-centric) resource allocation and taskoffloading/assignment algorithmswith the aim of improving theefficient use of energywithin them. Finally, since 6G networkswill be secure-by-design, the investigation of the presence ofmalicious users is of key importance. To this end, the tutorial willshow the impact of malicious nodes in two relevant use cases: (i)task allocation in cognitive IoT scenarios and (ii) IoT localization.

Bio: Marco Martalò received the Ph.D. degree in infor-mation technologies from the University of Parma,Italy, in 2009. From 2012 to 2017, he was anAssistant Professor with E-Campus University, Italy,and also a Research Associate with the Universityof Parma, Italy, where he collaborated until 2020.Since 2020, he has been an Associate Professor oftelecommunications with the University of Cagliari,Italy, where he is part of the Networks for Humans(Net4U) laboratory. His research interests are inthe distributed wireless systems and networks, withspecific focus on IoT scenarios. Moreover, his interests are in the securityaspects of such systems, both from protocol design and trustworthy serviceprovisioning points of view. He has coauthored the Springer book Sensor Networks with IEEE 802.15.4 Systems: Distributed Processing, MAC, andConnectivity. He is an IEEE senior member and has won a few awards ininternational conferences. He regularly serves as program committee memberof several international conference and reviewers for international journals.

Bio: Virginia Pilloni is an Assistant Professor at theUniversity of Cagliari, Italy. Her main research in-terests are focused on the Internet of Things andWireless ad-hoc networks, with particular attentionto the improvement of their performance throughtask allocation. She received her PhD in Electronicand Computer Engineering from the University ofCagliari in 2013. She is an expert evaluator of EUH2020 and BELSPO proposals. She has been in-volved in several national and international researchprojects. Virginia is an Editor of Elsevier ComputerNetworks and Frontiers in Communications and Networks. She has served asorganization chair and program committee member of several internationalconferences. She is the Young Professional representative for the EMEAregion of the IEEE ComSoc, a member of the IEEE ComSoc Member ServicesBoard, and of IEEE ComSoc Young Professionals, where she currently is theawards chair for the IEEE ComSoc Best YP Awards.

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