# Giovanni Grieco

> Giovanni Grieco is a scientist at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, where he works on detecting the electromagnetic emissions of uncooperative and silent drones. He holds a PhD in Electrical and Information Engineering from the Polytechnic University of Bari, with a background spanning telecommunication engineering, computer science, and cybersecurity.

- Role: Scientist, European Commission Joint Research Centre — Centre for Advanced Studies, Ispra, Italy
- Contact: giovanni@grieco.dev
- ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6326-4244
- Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=8uIXjuoAAAAJ (174 citations, h-index 8, as of 7 October 2026)
- GitHub: https://github.com/GiovanniGrieco
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/giovanni-grieco/

## Research areas

### Counter-UAS detection and sensor fusion

Detecting, tracking and identifying unauthorised drones near critical infrastructure. No single sensor is enough: radar struggles with small plastic airframes, RF detection with autonomous flights, cameras with darkness and range. The work fuses radar, radio-frequency, electro-optical and acoustic streams into one track. Experimental research is being conducted to complement these systems with highly-sensitive equipment able to detect drone electromagnetic emissions.

### Simulating 6G terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks

IoD-Sim is a system-level simulator for the Internet of Drones built on ns-3. It models drones, network access points and the Zone Service Provider over IEEE 802.11, LTE and 5G NR, and since version 4.1 adds LEO and GEO satellites so integrated terrestrial/non-terrestrial 6G scenarios can be described in high-level and reproducible JSON files.

### Experimental UAV communication testbeds

Simulation results only count once they survive real radios. The lab work moves drone control and video over 5G and Wi-Fi 6 using open RAN software stacks, software-defined radios and embedded compute on board — indoors first, then in the field.

### Security of networked systems

Identity and access control for digital service chains, security plugins for Apache Kafka with JWT/OAuth2 and time-bound ACLs, and fuzzing of 5G control-plane procedures between user equipment and the AMF to surface denial-of-service weaknesses.

## Pages

- [Home](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/): profile, research areas, selected publications
- [Publications](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/): all 19 works with abstracts and BibTeX
- [Software](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/software/): IoD-Sim and related open-source tools
- [Curriculum vitae](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/cv/): experience, teaching, education, awards
- [Full text for LLMs](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/llms-full.txt)

## Publications

- [A Survey on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) Communications: State-of-the-Art, Existing Standards and Future Directions](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2026-uav-communications-survey/) — Fabrizio Granelli, Yan-Ping Lu, Qingqing Wu, Zhenhui Yuan, Aly Sabri Abdalla, Vuk Marojevic, Yifan Jiang, Fatemeh Afghah, Giovanni Geraci, Anandarup Mukherjee, Sabur Baidya, Giovanni Grieco, Abid Yaqoob, Muhammad Abul Hassan, Kamesh R. Namuduri, Ranga Rao Venkatesha Prasad, Laaziz Lahlou, John Sengendo, Gabriel‐Miro Muntean. IEEE Open Journal of the Communications Society, 2026. Journal article. https://doi.org/10.1109/ojcoms.2026.3675046
- [IoD-Sim: An Open-Source Simulator for 6G Integrated Terrestrial/Non-Terrestrial Networks](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2025-iod-sim-6g-tn-ntn/) — Giovanni Grieco, Daniele Pugliese, Adnan Rashid, Ilaria Cianci. Computer Networks (Elsevier), vol. 274, 111876, 2025. Journal article. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2025.111876
- [Spatial Situational Awareness for Safe UAVs in XAI-enhanced 6G Networks: Vision, Challenges, and Opportunities](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2025-spatial-situational-awareness-xai-6g/) — Giovanni Grieco, Arcangela Rago, Gennaro Boggia, Luigi Alfredo Grieco. TechRxiv (preprint), 2025. Preprint. https://doi.org/10.36227/techrxiv.175695641.10388179/v1
- [Detection, Tracking, and Identification of Drones: an Overview on Counter-UAS Techniques, and Open Challenges](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2025-counter-uas-overview/) — Giovanni Grieco, Danilo Amendola, D. Chris Anderson. 2025 Integrated Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Conference (ICNS), 2025. Conference paper. https://doi.org/10.1109/icns65417.2025.10976862
- [Design and Experimental Evaluation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Communications](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2025-phd-thesis-uas-communications/) — Giovanni Grieco. PhD thesis, Polytechnic University of Bari, 2025. PhD thesis. https://doi.org/10.60576/poliba/iris/grieco-giovanni_phd2025
- [Towards the Integration of Terrestrial and Non-Terrestrial Networks: a Testbed for in-Lab Evaluation](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2025-tn-ntn-testbed/) — Enrico Boffetti, Salvatore Carbonara, Daniele Pugliese, Giovanni Grieco, Carolina Sbiroli, Alessio Fascista, Arcangela Rago, Giuseppe Piro. 2025 17th International Congress on Ultra Modern Telecommunications and Control Systems and Workshops (ICUMT), 2025. Conference paper. https://doi.org/10.1109/icumt67815.2025.11268725
- [An Indoor Experimental Testbed for 5G-Based UAV Control and Communication](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2025-5g-uav-indoor-testbed/) — Salvatore Carbonara, Daniele Pugliese, Enrico Boffetti, Fabrizio Greco, Barbara Didonna, Giovanni Grieco, Alessio Fascista, Luigi Alfredo Grieco. 2025 21st International Conference on Wireless and Mobile Computing, Networking and Communications (WiMob), 2025. Conference paper. https://doi.org/10.1109/wimob66857.2025.11257529
- [Towards an Open-Source Simulation Platform for Counter-UAS Sensor Fusion](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2025-counter-uas-sensor-fusion-simulation/) — Danilo Amendola, Giovanni Grieco. 2025 16th IFIP Wireless and Mobile Networking Conference (WMNC), 2025. Conference paper. https://doi.org/10.23919/wmnc67099.2025.11299256
- [A System-Level Simulation Module for Multi-UAV IRS-Assisted Communications](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2024-multi-uav-irs-simulation-module/) — Giovanni Grieco, Giovanni Iacovelli, Daniele Pugliese, Domenico Striccoli, Luigi Alfredo Grieco. IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Technology, vol. 73, no. 5, 2024. Journal article. https://doi.org/10.1109/tvt.2023.3342298
- [Fair Energy and Data Rate Maximization in UAV-Powered IoT-Satellite Integrated Networks](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2024-fair-energy-uav-iot-satellite/) — Giovanni Iacovelli, Giovanni Grieco, Antonio Petrosino, Luigi Alfredo Grieco, Gennaro Boggia. IEEE Transactions on Communications, vol. 72, no. 4, 2024. Journal article. https://doi.org/10.1109/tcomm.2023.3343417
- [Counter-drone systems and data fusion](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2024-counter-drone-systems-data-fusion/) — Giovanni Grieco, Danilo Amendola, D. Chris Anderson. JRC Technical Report, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg, 2024. Technical report. https://doi.org/10.2760/6037951
- [Preliminary Performance Evaluation of a Satellite-to-HAP Communication Link](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2023-satellite-to-hap-link/) — Giovanni Grieco, Giovanni Iacovelli, Mattia Sandri, Marco Giordani, Michele Zorzi, Luigi Alfredo Grieco. European Wireless 2023; 28th European Wireless Conference, Rome, 2023. Conference paper. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2310.01143
- [Internet of Drones Simulator: Design, Implementation, and Performance Evaluation](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2022-internet-of-drones-simulator/) — Giovanni Grieco, Giovanni Iacovelli, Pietro Boccadoro, Luigi Alfredo Grieco. IEEE Internet of Things Journal, vol. 10, no. 2, 2023. Journal article. https://doi.org/10.1109/jiot.2022.3207324
- [Authentication and Authorization in Cyber-Security Frameworks: a Novel Approach for Securing Digital Service Chains](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2022-authn-authz-digital-service-chains/) — Giovanni Grieco, Domenico Striccoli, Giuseppe Piro, Raffaele Bolla, Gennaro Boggia, Luigi Alfredo Grieco. 2022 IEEE 8th International Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft), Milan, 2022. Conference paper. https://doi.org/10.1109/netsoft54395.2022.9844030
- [A Reference Architecture for Management of Security Operations in Digital Service Chains](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2022-security-operations-digital-service-chains/) — Alessandro Carrega, Giovanni Grieco, Domenico Striccoli, Manos Papoutsakis, Tomas Lima, José Ignacio Carretero, Matteo Repetto. Cybersecurity of Digital Service Chains, Lecture Notes in Computer Science vol. 13300, Springer, 2022. Book chapter. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04036-8_1
- [On the Design of the Drone Control Layer](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2021-drone-control-layer/) — Giovanni Grieco, Giovanni Iacovelli, Pietro Boccadoro, Luigi Alfredo Grieco. European Wireless 2021; 26th European Wireless Conference, Verona, 2021. Conference paper
- [Dynamic Management of Forwarding Rules in a T-SDN Architecture with Energy and Bandwidth Constraints](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2020-t-sdn-forwarding-rules/) — Antonio Petrosino, Giancarlo Sciddurlo, Giovanni Grieco, Awais Aziz Shah, Giuseppe Piro, Luigi Alfredo Grieco, Gennaro Boggia. ADHOC-NOW 2020, Lecture Notes in Computer Science vol. 12338, Springer, 2020. Conference paper. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61746-2_1
- [A Real-time Simulation Framework for Complex and Large-scale Optical Transport Networks based on the SDN Paradigm](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2020-optical-transport-sdn-simulation/) — Awais Aziz Shah, Marco Mussini, F. Nicassio, G. Parladori, Francesco Triggiani, Giovanni Grieco, G. Iaffaldano, Giuseppe Piro. 2020 IEEE/ACM 24th International Symposium on Distributed Simulation and Real Time Applications (DS-RT), 2020. Conference paper. https://doi.org/10.1109/ds-rt50469.2020.9213701
- [An Open Source and System-Level Simulator for the Internet of Drones](https://giovanni.grieco.dev/publications/2019-iod-sim-open-source-simulator/) — Giovanni Grieco, Roberto Artuso, Pietro Boccadoro, Giuseppe Piro, Luigi Alfredo Grieco. 2019 IEEE 30th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (PIMRC Workshops), Istanbul, 2019. Conference paper. https://doi.org/10.1109/pimrcw.2019.8880832

## Software

- IoD-Sim (C++, 2019–present): System-level simulator for the Internet of Drones, built on ns-3. Models drones, access points and the Zone Service Provider over IEEE 802.11, LTE and 5G NR, plus LEO/GEO satellites for integrated terrestrial/non-terrestrial scenarios described in JSON. https://github.com/telematics-lab/IoD_Sim
- SeDaFuV (C++, 2024–2026): Proof-of-concept UAV identification and tracking system that fuses radar, RF, optical and acoustic sensor streams. Built for sensor resilience, released as open source and ready for self-hosting.
- IoD-Sim Airflow (Python, 2020–2021): Visual programming editor for composing IoD-Sim scenarios as node graphs instead of hand-written configuration. https://github.com/GiovanniGrieco/IoD_Sim-airflow
- IoD-Sim Splash (C++, 2020–2021): Intermediate transpiler that turns IoD-Sim models into building blocks for the Airflow visual editor. https://github.com/GiovanniGrieco/IoD_Sim-splash
- IoD-Sim Workspace Quickstart (Shell, 2021): Provisions an Azure virtual machine ready to run IoD-Sim binaries, for labs and students without a Linux workstation. https://github.com/GiovanniGrieco/iod-sim-workspace-quickstart
- IUNS-3 5G NR (C++, 2023): Google Summer of Code 2023 project improving the usability of ns-3’s 5G NR module — API refactoring and helper classes for configuring complex RAN scenarios.
- GUARD Kafka security plugins (Java, 2020–2021): Apache Kafka authentication and authorisation plugins for the H2020 GUARD project — JWT/OAuth2 sign-in plus ACL and time-window policies for SOC monitoring pipelines.

## Recent roles

- 2026–Present: Project Officer (Scientist), European Commission, Joint Research Centre — Centre for Advanced Studies (Ispra, Italy). Runs EMERALD, a project that detects the electromagnetic emissions of drones for counter-terrorism applications.
- 2025: Research Engineer — ISP5G+ project, Polytechnic University of Bari (Bari, Italy). Designed 5G and beyond-5G testbeds on OpenAirInterface and srsRAN with USRP B210, USRP X410 and bladeRF xA9 radios.
- 2024–2026: Research Engineer, external service provider to the JRC, Piksel S.r.l. for the European Commission Joint Research Centre (Bari, Italy). Built SeDaFuV, an open-source C++ proof of concept that identifies and tracks UAVs by fusing radar, RF, optical and acoustic streams.
- 2024: Research Engineer — RESTART ITA-NTN, CNIT — National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications (Bari, Italy). Studied hybrid terrestrial/non-terrestrial architectures for 5G-Advanced and 6G, focusing on handover and radio resource management across LEO/GEO constellations (3GPP Rel-17+).
- 2024: Research Trainee, European Commission, Joint Research Centre (Geel, Belgium). Built a counter-UAS platform to protect critical infrastructure, integrating DeDrone detection hardware and PTZ cameras.
- 2023–2025: R&D Embedded & Wireless Engineer, Polytechnic University of Bari (Bari, Italy). Developed MANET architectures so UAVs, rovers and ground control stations interoperate, on NVIDIA Jetson Orin and Nano.