**Session Date/Time:** 16 Mar 2026 06:00

# [ICNRG](../wg/icnrg.html)

**IETF 125 Session Minutes**

**Chairs:** Dave Oran, Rio Chiariello, Dirk Kutscher (IRTF Chair)  
**Note Taker:** Jinchao Li

## Summary
The Information-Centric Networking Research Group (ICNRG) met at IETF 125 to discuss several research initiatives and platform developments. The session focused primarily on research presentations covering in-network retransmission, reflexive forwarding, service mesh architectures for ICN, wireless sensor network platforms using mmWave, and computing-aware networking (HiCom). The group also welcomed Rio Chiariello as the new co-chair.

## Key Discussion Points

### 1. Introduction and Administration
- **Dave Oran** opened the session, noting the focus on research talks rather than document progression for this meeting.
- **Rio Chiariello** was introduced as the new co-chair, succeeding **Dirk Kutscher**, who has moved to the role of IRTF Chair.
- Chairs' Slides: [Chairs' Sides for ICNRG @ IETF 125](https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/125/materials/slides-125-icnrg-chairs-sides-for-icnrg-ietf125-02)

### 2. In-Network Retransmission Control in ICN
- **Presenter:** Kazuhisa Matsuzono
- **Slides:** [In-Network Retransmission Control in ICN](https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/125/materials/slides-125-icnrg-in-network-retrasnmission-control-in-icn-00)
- **Discussion:** 
    - The presentation addressed the challenge of real-time video feedback (e.g., robot teleoperation) requiring low latency (<200ms) and high bandwidth.
    - Proposed a scheme using a "recovery budget" metric. Consumers allocate budget to links to perform per-link retransmission.
    - Two relay modes were introduced: *stop-and-wait* (minimizes duplicate data) and *fast-relay* (minimizes delay).
    - Evaluation using the **Cefore** platform showed a successful loss recovery ratio of over 90% while effectively suppressing duplicate transmissions.

### 3. Reflexive Forwarding Implementation in Cefore
- **Presenter:** Yohei Okamoto
- **Slides:** [IETF125_icnrg_3_Reflexive-Forwarding_in_Cefore](https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/125/materials/slides-125-icnrg-ietf125-icnrg-3-reflexive-forwarding-cefore-01)
- **Discussion:**
    - Detailed the implementation of reflexive forwarding using four message types: Trigger Interest (TI), Reflexive Interest (RI), Reflexive Data (RD), and Trigger Data (TD).
    - The mechanism uses a Reflexive Name Prefix (RNP) uniquely assigned by the consumer.
    - Demonstrated "push" operations in Cefore, including handling large chunked data (video streaming).
    - Future work involves refining the use of UUIDs for Local Member Prefix (LMP) IDs to ensure uniqueness in forwarding tables.

### 4. ICN Service Mesh for Plug-and-Play ICN
- **Presenter:** Kenji Kanai
- **Slides:** [ICN Service Mesh for plug-and-play ICN](https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/125/materials/slides-125-icn-service-mesh-for-plug-and-play-icn-01)
- **Discussion:**
    - Aimed at making ICN transparent to application developers using a "sidecar" approach (similar to Istio/Envoy in cloud-native stacks).
    - Explored Decentralized Physical Infrastructure Networks (DePIN) and Co-Digital Twins as use cases.
    - Proposed integrating ICN with IPFS to improve content discovery and publication performance compared to standard Kademlia-based DHTs.
    - Discussed User-Centric In-Network Caching (**UC-INC**) for addressing security and geographical limitations in data distribution.
    - **Rio Chiariello** questioned the overhead of HTTP-to-ICN API gateways; the speaker noted that the sidecar model reduces memory usage significantly compared to running full ICN routers for every service.

### 5. Information-Centric Wireless Sensor Network (ICWSN) Platform
- **Presenter:** Shintaro Mori
- **Slides:** [Information-centric wireless-sensor-network platform development in mmWave-band communications](https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/125/materials/slides-125-icnrg-information-centric-wireless-sensor-network-platform-development-in-mmwave-band-communications-01)
- **Discussion:**
    - Explored the use of mmWave for ICWSN, focusing on "overhearing" to enable off-path caching without explicit signaling.
    - Presented experimental results from aerial base stations (drones) and smart agriculture (strawberry harvesting robots).
    - **Dave Oran** raised a technical concern regarding opportunistic caching on broadcast channels: specifically, how to prevent multiple nodes from responding simultaneously and clogging the channel. The speaker acknowledged this as a significant implementation challenge.

### 6. HiCom: A Hyper-ICN Architecture for Edge Computing
- **Presenter:** Shan Zhang
- **Slides:** [HiCom: A Hyper-ICN Architecture for Computing Power Network in Edge](https://datatracker.ietf.org/meeting/125/materials/slides-125-icnrg-hicom-a-hyper-icn-architecture-for-computing-power-network-in-edge-00)
- **Discussion:**
    - Proposed an architecture to unlock underutilized computing power at the network edge.
    - HiCom utilizes a multi-dimensional namespace including Service IDs (SID), Node IDs (NID), and IP addresses to support both server discovery (ICN-style) and efficient result returning (IP-style push).
    - Introduced Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) based task decomposition to allow multiple resource-constrained edge devices to collaborate on a single task.
    - Compared the approach to Computing First Networking (CFN), highlighting HiCom's recursive decomposition and simplified status synchronization.

## Decisions and Action Items
- **New Co-Chair:** Rio Chiariello has officially joined as co-chair.
- **Note Taking:** Jinchao Li will finalize the session notes for publication.

## Next Steps
- **Future Meetings:** Planning for the ICNRG session at IETF 126 in Vienna.
- **Conferences:** Rio Chiariello highlighted the upcoming **ICNP (International Conference on Network Protocols)** deadline, encouraging participants to submit ICN-related research to the ICN track.
- **Ongoing Research:** Continued development on Reflexive Forwarding and ICWSN opportunistic caching mechanisms. Participants are encouraged to move technical discussions (e.g., broadcast channel response suppression) to the mailing list.