TONTA: Trend-based Online Network Traffic Analysis in ad-hoc IoT networks

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) refers to a system of interconnected heterogeneous smart devices communicatingwithout human intervention. A significant portion of existing IoT networks is under the umbrella of ad-hoc andquasi ad-hoc networks. Ad-hoc based IoT networks suffer from the lack of resource-rich network infrastructuresthat are able to perform heavyweight network management tasks using, e.g. machine learning-based NetworkTraffic Monitoring and Analysis (NTMA) techniques. Designing light-weight NTMA techniques that do notneed to be (re-) trained has received much attention due to the time complexity of the training phase. In thisstudy, a novel pattern recognition method, called Trend-based Online Network Traffic Analysis (TONTA), isproposed for ad-hoc IoT networks to monitor network performance. The proposed method uses a statisticallight-weight Trend Change Detection (TCD) method in an online manner. TONTA discovers predominant trendsand recognizes abrupt or gradual time-series dataset changes to analyze the IoT network traffic. TONTA isthen compared with RuLSIF as an offline benchmark TCD technique. The results show that TONTA detectsapproximately 60% less false positive alarms than RuLSIF