Communication Research

Communication is one of the most essential features of being human. Speech, body language and writing all satisfy the basic human desire to communicate with others. The conventions, standards and formats of such communication are called `protocols´. Unlike humans, computers communication requires the careful design, development and analysis of new techniques and protocols. Our research aims to enable and improve the networking of computers, mobile phones and sensing devices, both over wired and wireless networks.

The Internet´s explosion of devices, connectivity and information has led to an engineering project far in excess of its creators original vision. Currently, billions of computers are globally interconnected and communicating - sharing text, voices, songs and movies over webpages, Peer-to-Peer networks and streaming services. Next-generation networks will enable even richer interactions, incorporating data from sensor networks monitoring our environment, or even computing hardware being embedded in all physical objects enabling "The Internet of Things".

Effectively moving such volume and variety of information will require new techniques in the underlying mechanisms of the Internet through the creation of intelligent, flexible, high-capacity networks. We are actively researching Content Centric Networking, where data is obtained through indicating the required information properties, rather than the source. Such paradigm shifts can help deliver increased resilience and reduced configuration of systems.

The increased importance of networking to society and the economy means that the correct and secure operation of these systems in the face of damaged, malicious or selfish entities is of great concern. Users must have trust in networked computer systems and the quality of the information they provide. Reliable and resilient operation has even greater importance in applications of sensing and ubiquitous communication that are more tightly coupled to the real world, e.g. environmental monitoring, personal health and disaster response. We are developing the next generation of durable, easily deployable networked systems for such situations.

Our group pursues research and development of ideas and technology to solve these kinds of challenges. We perform this work with a focus on the practicality of our solutions through hands on experimentation and empiricism.

Research projects that we are involved with.

Undergraduate Courses

• Computer Networks I
• Computer Networks II
• Computer Networks III
• Distributed Information Systems
• Wireless communication and Networked embedded systems

MS Thesis within the group

If you are interested in doing your MS Thesis work within the group, information about the procedure can be found here.

Latest publications

• Impact of Attack Variations and Topology on IoT Intrusion Detection Model Generalizability. Amin Kaveh, Christian Rohner, and Andreas Johnsson. In 2024 IEEE 21st International Conference on Mobile Ad-Hoc and Smart Systems (MASS), volume 21 of IEEE International Conference on Mobile Ad-hoc and Sensor Systems, pp 364-370, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2024. (DOI).
• Non-Negative Decomposition of Multivariate Information: From Minimum to Blackwell-Specific Information. Tobias Mages, Elli Anastasiadi, and Christian Rohner. In Entropy, volume 26, number 5, MDPI, 2024. (DOI, Fulltext, fulltext:print).
• Quantifying redundancies and synergies with measures of inequality. Tobias Mages and Christian Rohner. In PLOS ONE, volume 19, number 11, Public Library of Science (PLoS), 2024. (DOI, Fulltext, fulltext:print).
• Security and Privacy for Fat Intra-Body Communication: Mechanisms and Protocol Stack. Johan Engstrand, Konrad-Felix Krentz, Noor Badariah Asan, Madhushanka Padmal, Wenqing Yan, Laya Joseph, Pramod Rangaiah, Bappaditya Mandal, Christian Rohner, Maria Mani, Robin Augustine, and Thiemo Voigt. In Proceedings of the 49th IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks, pp 1-9, 2024. (DOI).
• Unlocking the Potential of Low-cost High-resolution Sensing with Analog Backscatter. Dilushi Piumwardane, Madhushanka Padmal, Vaishnavi Ranganathan, Kasun Hewage, Christian Rohner, and Thiemo Voigt. In 2024 IEEE International Conference on RFID (RFID), IEEE International Conference on RFID, pp 1-6, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2024. (DOI).
• A PUF-Based Indirect Authentication and Key Establishment Protocol for Wearable Devices. Vipin N. Sathi, Christian Rohner, and Thiemo Voigt. In ICC 2023 - IEEE International Conference on Communications, IEEE International Conference on Communications, pp 615-621, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), 2023. (DOI).
• Decomposing and Tracing Mutual Information by Quantifying Reachable Decision Regions. Tobias Mages and Christian Rohner. In Entropy, volume 25, number 7, MDPI, 2023. (DOI, Fulltext, fulltext:print).
• Demo: An Educational Platform to Learn Radio Frequency Wireless Communication. Tobias Mages, Wenqing Yan, Ambuj Varshney, and Christian Rohner. In Proceedings of the 21st Annual International Conference on Mobile Systems, Applications and Services, pp 600-601, New York, NY, USA, 2023. (DOI, External link).

All publications by year