Section: Overall Objectives

Vision and approach

TRiBE stands for “Internet Beyond the Usual” and belongs to the Inria theme “Networks and Telecommunications” as well as contributes to the “Challenge no 11: Toward a trustworthy Internet of Everything” of the strategic plan of Inria. Building on an approach combining protocol design, data analytics, and experimental research, the research contributions of TRiBE aims at contributing to the design of smart, unified, and tactful Internet edge networks, skilled for answering application, services, or end-users' purposes.

All the emerging IoT specificities and requirements (i.e., heterogeneity of devices and services, densification, traffic growth, ubiquitous cyber-physical context, etc) bring new demands and consequently, new scientific and technological challenges to the edge of the Internet. In this context, our conviction is that the success of the Internet of Things is rooted in the network designing choices involving its devices and related protocols/services as well as the edge-core network communication loop.

Toward this belief, the research of the team will be organized around three research directions: (1) technologies for accomodating low-end IoT devices; (2) technologies for leveraging high-end IoT devices' advents; and (3) technologies for edge-core network interaction. With those three research directions, the team place its efforts in the three main elements composing the ecosystem of IoT devices: (1) the device itself, (2) their usability, and (3) their network context.

More specifically, the first element tackles the optimization, simplicity, and unification requirements imposed by the heterogeneity and low capabilities of low-end IoT devices. This brings the necessity to deal with hardware and software specificity of devices, while adapting designing choices and simplifying deployment. The second element focus on issues related to “how” and “for what” IoT devices are used. This also brings the human element into play, which dynamics are shaping the way their mobile devices are interacting with the edge of the Internet and consequently, are requesting and consuming network resources and services. Finally, the third element closes the network$\to$usability$\to$device$\to$network loop by bringing solutions supporting functions and communication between IoT devices and the core of the Internet.