Strengthening security and privacy in an ultra-dense green 5G Radio Access Network for the industrial and tactile Internet of Things

The design of exceptionally-strong security and privacy in an ultra-dense green 5G Deterministic Radio Access Network (DRAN) for the Internet of Things (IoT) is proposed. The ultra-dense DRAN exploits fiber-optics and 802.11ad Multi-GHz WiFi technology to transport both fronthaul and backhaul traffic in a unified low-cost Crosshaul network. The Crosshaul network is similar to a very large highly-utilized IEEE Time Synchronized Channel Hopping (TSCH) network, where collision-free scheduling becomes critical. Traditional Omnidirectional Antennas and Media-Access-Control (MAC) protocols cannot be used with 5G systems. This paper shows that the combination of: (1) a centralized SDN control-plane, (2) deterministic low-jitter scheduling, and (iii) lightweight encryption in layer 2, offers a new approach for wireless security and performance with several benefits; (i) All active radio links are identified in advance and can be optimally scheduled. Every transmission has a deterministic time-slot, source, destination, and wireless channel; (ii) Any unauthorized transmissions, even a single packet transmission, can be detected quickly and reported to the SDN control-plane for corrective action; (iii) Wireless interference can be minimized by using pre-programmed Directional-Antennas; (iv) Wireless buffer sizes and queueing delays can be reduced to near-minimal values; and (v) Wireless Crosshaul bandwidth requirements can be reduced significantly. Our 5G DRAN can embed thousands of Deterministic Virtual Networks (DVNs) or Deterministic Network Slices, to ensure exceptionally-strong security and privacy between different M2M or D2D systems. The secure 5G DRAN can also integrate seamlessly with a future secure deterministic Industrial-Tactile IoT.