Adaptive edge analytics for distributed networked control of water systems

Over the last decade, there has been a trend where water utility companies aim to make water distribution networks more intelligent in order to improve their quality of service, reduce water waste, minimize maintenance costs etc., by incorporating IoT technologies. Current state of the art solutions use expensive power hungry deployments to monitor and transmit water network states periodically in order to detect anomalous behaviors such as water leakage and bursts. However, more than 97% of water network assets are remote away from power and are often in geographically remote underpopulated areas, facts that make current approaches unsuitable for next generation more dynamic adaptive water networks. Battery-driven wireless sensor/actuator based solutions are theoretically the perfect choice to support next generation water distribution. In this paper, we present an end-to-end water leak localization system, which exploits edge processing and enables the use of battery-driven sensor nodes. Our system combines a lightweight edge anomaly detection algorithm based on compression rates and an efficient localization algorithm based on graph theory. The edge anomaly detection and localization elements of the systems produce a timely and accurate localization result and reduce the communication by 99% compared to the traditional periodic communication. We evaluated our schemes by deploying non-intrusive sensors measuring vibrational data on a real-world water test rig that have had controlled leakage and burst scenarios implemented.

Internet das Coisas aplicada a negócios – Um estudo bibliométrico

The Internet of Things is a technological innovation, based on artifacts and consolidated concepts like Internet and Smart Objects. Its growing business application of Internet of Things makes necessary to evaluate the strategy, benefits and challenges of this technology application. The main objective of this paper is to present the definition of Internet of Things, based on the most cited articles and as a secondary objective, present publication statistics classified by year and related terms, like ubiquitous computation. One of the conclusions is that papers related to business represent only 5% of all the papers analyzed by this research, considering just the papers published on journals. It shows that there is a great field to research on Business Administration.

Reflective judgment vs. investigation of things – a comparative study of Kant and Zhu Xi

This thesis is devoted to studying two historical philosophical events that happened in the West and the East. A metaphysical crisis stimulated Kant’s writings during his late critical period towards the notion of the supersensible. It further motivated a methodological shift and his coining of reflective judgment, which eventually brought about a systemic unfolding of his critical philosophy via Kantian moral teleology. Zhu Xi and his Neo-Confucian contemporaries confronted a transformed intellectual landscape resulting from the Neo-Daoist and Buddhist discourses of “what is beyond the form”. The revival of Confucianism required a method in order to relocate the formless Dao back into daily life and to reconstruct a meta-ethical foundation within a social context. This led to the Neo-Confucian recasting of “investigation of things” from The Great Learning via complex hermeneutic operations. By the respective investigation on, as well as the comparative analysis of the two events, I reveal the convergence and incommensurability between the two distinct cultural traditions concerning the metaphysical quests, the mechanism of intellectual development, and moral teleology, so as to capture the intrinsic characteristics of philosophical research in general.

Influence of combined fundamental potentials in a nonlinear vibration energy harvester

Ambient mechanical vibrations have emerged as a viable energy source for low-power wireless sensor nodes aiming the upcoming era of the ‘Internet of Things’. Recently, purposefully induced dynamical nonlinearities have been exploited to widen the frequency spectrum of vibration energy harvesters. Here we investigate some critical inconsistencies between the theoretical formulation and applications of the bistable Duffing nonlinearity in vibration energy harvesting. A novel nonlinear vibration energy harvesting device with the capability to switch amidst individually tunable bistable-quadratic, monostable-quartic and bistable-quartic potentials has been designed and characterized. Our study highlights the fundamentally different large deflection behaviors of the theoretical bistable-quartic Duffing oscillator and the experimentally adapted bistable-quadratic systems, and underlines their implications in the respective spectral responses. The results suggest enhanced performance in the bistable-quartic potential in comparison to others, primarily due to lower potential barrier and higher restoring forces facilitating large amplitude inter-well motion at relatively lower accelerations.

Gesture based IoT light control for smart clothing

In this paper, a smart wireless wristband is proposed. The potential of innovative gesture based interactivity with connected lighting solutions is reviewed. The solution is intended to offer numerous benefits, in terms of ease of use, and enhanced dynamic interactive functionality. A comparative analysis will be carried out between this work and existing solutions. The evolution of lighting and gesture controls will be discussed and an overview of alternative applications will be provided, as part of the critical analysis.

An Overview of IoT and Healthcare

This paper is an overview of some of the implications of IoT on the healthcare field. Due to the increasing of IoT solutions, healthcare cannot be outside of this paradigm. The contribution of this paper is to introduce directions to achieve a global connectivity between the Internet of Things (IoT) and the medical environments. The need to integrate all in a global environment is a huge challenge to all (from electrical engineers to data engineers).This revolution is redesigning the way we see healthcare, from the smallest sensor to the big data collected.

Evaluation of the productive and vegetative aspects of the cultivar 'Imperial Gala' apple tree with EM-9 interstem in different lengths.

The obtaining of a compact plant, with less vigor and high productivity, equivalent to a conventional plant, constitutes a strong tendency in the current horticulture, aiming at a raising of the fruit production at the same planted area. One of the techniques that have had success nowadays is the interstem use. This study was developed in a commercial orchard of Randon Agro Silvo Pastoril S.A. (RASIP), located in the Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the vegetative and productive development of apple trees of 'Imperial Gala' with different lengths of EM-9 interstem. The treatments consisted of five interstem lengths: 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 cm. In the seventh year of implantation the following parameters were evaluated: the height of the plant, the diameter of the 'Imperial Gala' 5 cm above the second graft point, the volume of the tree-head (height, width and length), the number of bud per branch, and the number of fruits per lineal centimeter of branch. Through this study it could be concluded that the greater interstem (30 cm) presented better indices with relation of vigor control. However, the number of fruits per lineal centimeter of branch with the interstem of 10 cm offered only significant superiority, when compared with the interstem of 30 cm. Using interstem technique allows to gather the benefits of the rootstock 'Marubakaido' and to control excessive vigour with the interstem EM-9.

Analisi Sperimentale delle Prestazioni di Nodi Wireless LoRa in Presenza di Interferente

L’obiettivo dell’Internet of Things (IoT), come suggerisce il nome, è quello di connettere oggetti (spesso alimentati a batteria) alla rete Internet per poterne avere un controllo da remoto. Lo sviluppo di questa tecnologia prevede la progettazione di dispositivi che abbiano: un basso costo per unità, una durata della batteria sufficientemente lunga (anche dell’ordine di anni) quindi bassi consumi e la possibilità di realizzare un’ampia rete che possa supportare tante unità. Per questo elaborato è stata utilizzata la tecnologia LoRa, creata da Semtech. Essa lavora nelle frequenze ISM designate per le varie zone geografiche del mondo, presenta un Livello Fisico personalizzato ispirato alla modulazione CSS e un Livello MAC che si basa sul protocollo ALOHA puro. Lo scopo di questo elaborato è realizzare delle misure delle prestazioni in ambiente indoor tramite l’utilizzo di due nodi (End Devices) e un gateway. Sono state sviluppate due applicazioni Java per realizzare la comunicazione tra i dispositivi. Le misure sono state realizzate inizialmente con un nodo singolo, per osservarne il tasso di perdita di pacchetti (packet loss rate) e l’attenuazione di potenza sul canale (channel loss). Successivamente sono state inviate trasmissioni da entrambi i nodi, prima separatamente e poi in contemporanea, per valutare l’interferenza tra invii di messaggi con uguali impostazioni nello stesso canale. Per fare ciò è stato utilizzato un modello della comunicazione di canale che tiene conto del path loss e dello shadowing log-normale. I risultati hanno mostrato che con un solo nodo si tratta di una tecnologia affidabile. Per quanto riguarda i risultati delle misure con interferente è emersa una differenza con i valori attesi fino al 20%. Nell’elaborato vengono discussi i risultati ottenuti e possibili sviluppi futuri per questo tipo di sperimentazione.

Ray-tracing assessment of the robustness of Physical Layer Security key generation protocol

Nowadays, information security is a very important topic. In particular, wireless networks are experiencing an ongoing widespread diffusion, also thanks the increasing number of Internet Of Things devices, which generate and transmit a lot of data: protecting wireless communications is of fundamental importance, possibly through an easy but secure method. Physical Layer Security is an umbrella of techniques that leverages the characteristic of the wireless channel to generate security for the transmission. In particular, the Physical Layer based-Key generation aims at allowing two users to generate a random symmetric keys in an autonomous way, hence without the aid of a trusted third entity. Physical Layer based-Key generation relies on observations of the wireless channel, from which harvesting entropy: however, an attacker might possesses a channel simulator, for example a Ray Tracing simulator, to replicate the channel between the legitimate users, in order to guess the secret key and break the security of the communication. This thesis work is focused on the possibility to carry out a so called Ray Tracing attack: the method utilized for the assessment consist of a set of channel measurements, in different channel conditions, that are then compared with the simulated channel from the ray tracing, to compute the mutual information between the measurements and simulations. Furthermore, it is also presented the possibility of using the Ray Tracing as a tool to evaluate the impact of channel parameters (e.g. the bandwidth or the directivity of the antenna) on the Physical Layer based-Key generation. The measurements have been carried out at the Barkhausen Institut gGmbH in Dresden (GE), in the framework of the existing cooperation agreement between BI and the Dept. of Electrical, Electronics and Information Engineering "G. Marconi" (DEI) at the University of Bologna.

Hybrid ground-aerial mesh networks for IoT monitoring applications: network design and software platform development

The Internet of Things (IoT) has grown rapidly in recent years, leading to an increased need for efficient and secure communication between connected devices. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are composed of small, low-power devices that are capable of sensing and exchanging data, and are often used in IoT applications. In addition, Mesh WSNs involve intermediate nodes forwarding data to ensure more robust communication. The integration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in Mesh WSNs has emerged as a promising solution for increasing the effectiveness of data collection, as UAVs can act as mobile relays, providing extended communication range and reducing energy consumption. However, the integration of UAVs and Mesh WSNs still poses new challenges, such as the design of efficient control and communication strategies. This thesis explores the networking capabilities of WSNs and investigates how the integration of UAVs can enhance their performance. The research focuses on three main objectives: (1) Ground Wireless Mesh Sensor Networks, (2) Aerial Wireless Mesh Sensor Networks, and (3) Ground/Aerial WMSN integration. For the first objective, we investigate the use of the Bluetooth Mesh standard for IoT monitoring in different environments. The second objective focuses on deploying aerial nodes to maximize data collection effectiveness and QoS of UAV-to-UAV links while maintaining the aerial mesh connectivity. The third objective investigates hybrid WMSN scenarios with air-to-ground communication links. One of the main contribution of the thesis consists in the design and implementation of a software framework called "Uhura", which enables the creation of Hybrid Wireless Mesh Sensor Networks and abstracts and handles multiple M2M communication stacks on both ground and aerial links. The operations of Uhura have been validated through simulations and small-scale testbeds involving ground and aerial devices.

Security and privacy of resource constrained devices

The thesis aims to present a comprehensive and holistic overview on cybersecurity and privacy & data protection aspects related to IoT resource-constrained devices. Chapter 1 introduces the current technical landscape by providing a working definition and architecture taxonomy of ‘Internet of Things’ and ‘resource-constrained devices’, coupled with a threat landscape where each specific attack is linked to a layer of the taxonomy. Chapter 2 lays down the theoretical foundations for an interdisciplinary approach and a unified, holistic vision of cybersecurity, safety and privacy justified by the ‘IoT revolution’ through the so-called infraethical perspective. Chapter 3 investigates whether and to what extent the fast-evolving European cybersecurity regulatory framework addresses the security challenges brought about by the IoT by allocating legal responsibilities to the right parties. Chapters 4 and 5 focus, on the other hand, on ‘privacy’ understood by proxy as to include EU data protection. In particular, Chapter 4 addresses three legal challenges brought about by the ubiquitous IoT data and metadata processing to EU privacy and data protection legal frameworks i.e., the ePrivacy Directive and the GDPR. Chapter 5 casts light on the risk management tool enshrined in EU data protection law, that is, Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) and proposes an original DPIA methodology for connected devices, building on the CNIL (French data protection authority) model.

An Image Recognition Software for Identification of Vehicle Homologation Tags

In recent years, we have witnessed great changes in the industrial environment as a result of the innovations introduced by Industry 4.0, especially in the integration of Internet of Things, Automation and Robotics in the manufacturing field. The project presented in this thesis lies within this innovation context and describes the implementation of an Image Recognition application focused on the automotive field. The project aims at helping the supply chain operator to perform an effective and efficient check of the homologation tags present on vehicles. The user contribution consists in taking a picture of the tag and the application will automatically, exploiting Amazon Web Services, return the result of the control about the correctness of the tag, the correct positioning within the vehicle and the presence of faults or defects on the tag. To implement this application we ombined two IoT platforms widely used in industrial field: Amazon Web Services(AWS) and ThingWorx. AWS exploits Convolutional Neural Networks to perform Text Detection and Image Recognition, while PTC ThingWorx manages the user interface and the data manipulation.

Satellite IoT: a Study and Performance Analysis of GEO and LEO Systems

The study is divided into two main part: one focused on the GEO Satellite IoT and the other on the LEO Satellite IoT. Concerning the GEO Satellite IoT, the activity has been developed in the context of EUMETSAT Data Collection Service (DCS) by investigating the performance at the receiver within challenging scenarios. DCS are provided by several GEO Satellite operators, giving almost total coverage around the world. In this study firstly an overview of the DCS end-to-end architecture is given followed by a detailed description of both the tools used for the simulations: the DCP-TST (message generator and transmitter) and the DCP-RX (receiver). After generating several test messages, the performances have been evaluated with the addition of impairments (CW and sweeping interferences) and considerations in terms of BER and Good Messages are produced. Furthermore, a study on the PLL System is also conducted together with evaluations on the effectiveness of tuning the PLL Bw on the overall performance. Concerning the LEO Satellite IoT, the activity was carried out in the framework of the ASI Bidirectional IoT Satellite Service (BISS) Project. The elaborate covers a survey about the possible services that the project can accomplish and a technical analysis on the uplink MA. In particular, the LR-FHSS is proved to be a valid alternative for the uplink through an extensive analysis on its Network capacity and through the study of an analytic model for Success Probability with its Matlab implementation.

Optoelectronic Digital Capture Device Based on Si/C Multilayer Heterostructures

Combined tunable WDM converters based on SiC multilayer photonic active filters are analyzed. The operation combines the properties of active long-pass and short-pass wavelength filter sections into a capacitive active band-pass filter. The sensor element is a multilayered heterostructure produced by PE-CVD. The configuration includes two stacked SiC p-i-n structures sandwiched between two transparent contacts. Transfer function characteristics are studied both theoretically and experimentally. Results show that optical bias activated photonic device combines the demultiplexing operation with the simultaneous photodetection and self amplification of an optical signal acting the device as an integrated photonic filter in the visible range. Depending on the wavelength of the external background and irradiation side, the device acts either as a short- or a long-pass band filter or as a band-stop filter. The output waveform presents a nonlinear amplitude-dependent response to the wavelengths of the input channels. A numerical simulation and two building-blocks active circuit is presented and gives insight into the physics of the device.

Optoelectronic Logic Functions Based on Reconfigurable SiC Multilayer Devices

WDM multilayered SiC/Si devices based on a-Si:H and a-SiC:H filter design are approached from a reconfigurable point of view. Results show that the devices, under appropriated optical bias, act as reconfigurable active filters that allow optical switching and optoelectronic logic functions development. Under front violet irradiation the magnitude of the red and green channels are amplified and the blue and violet reduced. Violet back irradiation cuts the red channel, slightly influences the magnitude of the green and blue ones and strongly amplifies de violet channel. This nonlinearity provides the possibility for selective removal of useless wavelengths. Particular attention is given to the amplification coefficient weights, which allow taking into account the wavelength background effects when a band needs to be filtered from a wider range of mixed signals, or when optical active filter gates are used to select and filter input signals to specific output ports in WDM communication systems. A truth table of an encoder that performs 8-to-1 multiplexer (MUX) function is presented.