Ferramenta de apoio ao projeto, configuração e gestão de instalações domóticas

Esta dissertação apresenta o trabalho realizado no âmbito da unidade curricular de Tese / Dissertação (TEDI) do Mestrado em Engenharia Eletrotécnica e de Computadores – Especialização em Automação e Sistemas em parceria com a empresa Live Simply, uma empresa de domótica que decidiu apostar na inovação e no desenvolvimento de serviços e produtos de valor acrescentado para consolidar a sua posição no mercado. Neste contexto, foram identificadas como mais-valias para a Live Simply a conceção, por um lado, de uma ferramenta de apoio técnico de integração e simplificação das fases de projeto, configuração e gestão de instalações domóticas e, por outro lado, de uma interface com a instalação para o cliente consultar e alterar, em tempo real, o estado dos atuadores. Depois de analisadas as tecnologias disponíveis, selecionaram-se as soluções a adotar (linguagens de programação, servidores de base de dados e ambientes de desenvolvimento), definiu-se a arquitetura do sistema, detalhando-se os módulos de projeto, configuração e gestão de instalações, a estrutura da base de dados assim como o hardware de controlo da instalação. De seguida, procedeu-se ao desenvolvimento dos módulos de software e à configuração e programação do módulo de hardware. Por último, procedeu-se a um conjunto exaustivo de testes aos diferentes módulos que demonstraram o correto funcionamento da ferramenta e a adequação das tecnologias empregues. A ferramenta de apoio técnico realizada integra as fases do projeto, configuração e gestão de instalações domóticas, permitindo melhorar o desempenho dos técnicos e a resposta aos clientes. A interface oferecida ao dono da instalação é uma interface Web de aspeto amigável e fácil utilização que permite consultar e modificar em tempo real o estado da instalação.

Aplicação para gestão de activos de rede do Aeroporto do Porto

O presente trabalho enquadra-se na área das redes de computadores, fazendo referência aos protocolos e ao conjunto de equipamentos e softwares necessários para a administração, controlo e monitorização desse tipos de infra-estruturas. Para a gestão de uma rede de dados, é essencial dispor de conhecimentos e documentação de nível técnico para representar da forma mais fiel possível a configuração da rede, seguindo passo a passo a interligação entre os equipamentos existentes e oferecendo assim uma visão o mais fidedigna possível das instalações. O protocolo SNMP é utilizado em larga escala sendo praticamente um standard para a administração de redes baseadas na tecnologia TCP/IP. Este protocolo define a comunicação entre um administrador e um agente, estabelecendo o formato e o significado das mensagens trocadas entre ambos. Tem a capacidade de suportar produtos de diferentes fabricantes, permitindo ao administrador manter uma base de dados com informações relevantes da monitorização de vários equipamentos, que pode ser consultada e analisada por softwares NMS concebidos especialmente para a gestão de redes de computadores. O trabalho apresentado nesta dissertação teve como objectivo desenvolver uma ferramenta para apoiar à gestão da infra-estrutura de comunicações do Aeroporto Francisco Sá Carneiro que permitisse conhecer em tempo real o estado dos elementos de rede, ajudar no diagnóstico de possíveis problemas e ainda apoiar a tarefa de planeamento e expansão da rede instalada. A ferramenta desenvolvida utiliza as potencialidades do protocolo SNMP para adquirir dados de monitorização de equipamentos de rede presentes na rede do AFSC, disponibilizando-os numa interface gráfica para facilitar a visualização dos parâmetros e alertas de funcionamento mais importantes na administração da rede.

Sistema de Visão Stereo Ativo aplicado aos robôs do ISePorto

A presente dissertação endereça o desenvolvimento de um sistema de visão stereo ativo para os robôs de futebol robótico da equipa ISePorto do ISEP, de modo a que estes tirem o máximo partido das câmaras rotativas neles existentes. Este trabalho surge da necessidade de melhorar a capacidade de perceção do ambiente por parte dos robôs, principalmente da perceção da bola quando não está no plano do campo e dos robôs adversários. Esta necessidade surge devido ao aumento da dinâmica que se tem vindo a veri car ultimamente nas competições. Para tal, foram estudados algumas trabalhos relacionados no que diz respeito a sistemas de visão stereo com baselines variáveis e eixos de rotação em ambas as câmaras, bem como fundamentos de visão stereo. Foi proposta uma arquitetura para o sistema de visão ativo de modo a ser aplicado em qualquer robô da equipa MSL (Middle Size League). Para tornar possível a implementação desta arquitetura foi desenvolvido um procedimento para a calibração e determinação em tempo real dos parâmetros extrínsecos do par stereo em função da posição angular dos eixos rotativos do robô. O sistema de visão foi também dotado de capacidade de sincronismo e foram implementadas funcionalidades ao nível de software que possibilitam a deteção de objetos na imagem, a correspondência de objetos presentes nas imagens de ambas as câmaras e consequentemente a determinação das posições tridimensionais desses objetos relativamente ao robô. O sistema desenvolvido foi testado e validado em cenário MSL ao nível de perceção da bola, robôs adversários e linhas do campo. Os resultados obtidos apresentam uma melhoria signi cativa, face à implementação atual dos robôs, na perceção tridimensional da bola quando não está no plano do campo, e dos robôs adversários.

On the hardware and software architecture of the robuter mobile platform: a hands-on approach

The Robuter is a robotic mobile platform that is located in the “Hands-On” Laboratory of the IPP-Hurray! Research Group, at the School of Engineering of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. Recently, the Robuter was subject of an upgrading process addressing two essential areas: the Hardware Architecture and the Software Architecture. This upgrade in process was triggered due to technical problems on-board of the robot and also to the fact that the hardware/software architecture has become obsolete. This Technical Report overviews the most important aspects of the new Hardware and Software Architectures of the Robuter. This document also presents a first approach on the first steps towards the use of the Robuter platform, and provides some hints on future work that may be carried out using this mobile platform.

Replication management in reliable real-time systems

Building reliable real-time applications on top of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components is not a straightforward task. Thus, it is essential to provide a simple and transparent programming model, in order to abstract programmers from the low-level implementation details of distribution and replication. However, the recent trend for incorporating pre-emptive multitasking applications in reliable real-time systems inherently increases its complexity. It is therefore important to provide a transparent programming model, enabling pre-emptive multitasking applications to be implemented without resorting to simultaneously dealing with both system requirements and distribution and replication issues. The distributed embedded architecture using COTS components (DEAR-COTS) architecture has been previously proposed as an architecture to support real-time and reliable distributed computer-controlled systems (DCCS) using COTS components. Within the DEAR-COTS architecture, the hard real-time subsystem provides a framework for the development of reliable real-time applications, which are the core of DCCS applications. This paper presents the proposed framework, and demonstrates how it can be used to support the transparent replication of software components.

Supporting real-time distributed computer-controlled systems with multi-hop P-NET networks

Fieldbus communication networks aim to interconnect sensors, actuators and controllers within process control applications. Therefore, they constitute the foundation upon which real-time distributed computer-controlled systems can be implemented. P-NET is a fieldbus communication standard, which uses a virtual token-passing medium-access-control mechanism. In this paper pre-run-time schedulability conditions for supporting real-time traffic with P-NET networks are established. Essentially, formulae to evaluate the upper bound of the end-to-end communication delay in P-NET messages are provided. Using this upper bound, a feasibility test is then provided to check the timing requirements for accessing remote process variables. This paper also shows how P-NET network segmentation can significantly reduce the end-to-end communication delays for messages with stringent timing requirements.

From task scheduling in single processor environments to message scheduling in a PROFIBUS fieldbus network

In this paper we survey the most relevant results for the prioritybased schedulability analysis of real-time tasks, both for the fixed and dynamic priority assignment schemes. We give emphasis to the worst-case response time analysis in non-preemptive contexts, which is fundamental for the communication schedulability analysis. We define an architecture to support priority-based scheduling of messages at the application process level of a specific fieldbus communication network, the PROFIBUS. The proposed architecture improves the worst-case messages’ response time, overcoming the limitation of the first-come-first-served (FCFS) PROFIBUS queue implementations.

Multi-μ: an Ada 95 based architecture for fault tolerance support of real-time systems

This paper presents an architecture (Multi-μ) being implemented to study and develop software based fault tolerant mechanisms for Real-Time Systems, using the Ada language (Ada 95) and Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components. Several issues regarding fault tolerance are presented and mechanisms to achieve fault tolerance by software active replication in Ada 95 are discussed. The Multi-μ architecture, based on a specifically proposed Fault Tolerance Manager (FTManager), is then described. Finally, some considerations are made about the work being done and essential future developments.

A communication support for real-time distributed computer controlled systems

In this paper, we analyse the ability of P-NET [1] fieldbus to cope with the timing requirements of a Distributed Computer Control System (DCCS), where messages associated to discrete events should be made available within a maximum bound time. The main objective of this work is to analyse how the network access and queueing delays, imposed by P-NET’s virtual token Medium Access Control (MAC) mechanism, affect the realtime behaviour of the supported DCCS.

Specification of software architecture reconfiguration

In the past years, Software Architecture has attracted increased attention by academia and industry as the unifying concept to structure the design of complex systems. One particular research area deals with the possibility of reconfiguring architectures to adapt the systems they describe to new requirements. Reconfiguration amounts to adding and removing components and connections, and may have to occur without stopping the execution of the system being reconfigured. This work contributes to the formal description of such a process. Taking as a premise that a single formalism hardly ever satisfies all requirements in every situation, we present three approaches, each one with its own assumptions about the systems it can be applied to and with different advantages and disadvantages. Each approach is based on work of other researchers and has the aesthetic concern of changing as little as possible the original formalism, keeping its spirit. The first approach shows how a given reconfiguration can be specified in the same manner as the system it is applied to and in a way to be efficiently executed. The second approach explores the Chemical Abstract Machine, a formalism for rewriting multisets of terms, to describe architectures, computations, and reconfigurations in a uniform way. The last approach uses a UNITY-like parallel programming design language to describe computations, represents architectures by diagrams in the sense of Category Theory, and specifies reconfigurations by graph transformation rules.

Projecto de avaliação de interfaces – PAI

Para obtenção do grau de Doutor pela Universidade de Vigo com menção internacional Departamento de Informática

Building a microscope for the data center

Managing the physical and compute infrastructure of a large data center is an embodiment of a Cyber-Physical System (CPS). The physical parameters of the data center (such as power, temperature, pressure, humidity) are tightly coupled with computations, even more so in upcoming data centers, where the location of workloads can vary substantially due, for example, to workloads being moved in a cloud infrastructure hosted in the data center. In this paper, we describe a data collection and distribution architecture that enables gathering physical parameters of a large data center at a very high temporal and spatial resolutionof the sensor measurements. We think this is an important characteristic to enable more accurate heat-flow models of the data center andwith them, _and opportunities to optimize energy consumption. Havinga high resolution picture of the data center conditions, also enables minimizing local hotspots, perform more accurate predictive maintenance (pending failures in cooling and other infrastructure equipment can be more promptly detected) and more accurate billing. We detail this architecture and define the structure of the underlying messaging system that is used to collect and distribute the data. Finally, we show the results of a preliminary study of a typical data center radio environment.

EMMON: a system architecture for large- scale, dense and real-time WSNs

In spite of the significant amount of scientific work in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), there is a clear lack of effective, feasible and usable WSN system architectures that address both functional and non-functional requirements in an integrated fashion. This poster abstract outlines the EMMON system architecture for large-scale, dense, real-time embedded monitoring. EMMON relies on a hierarchical network architecture together with integrated middleware and command&control mechanisms. It has been designed to use standard commercially– available technologies, while maintaining as much flexibility as possible to meet specific applications’ requirements. The EMMON WSN architecture has been validated through extensive simulation and experimental evaluation, including through a 300+ node test-bed, the largest WSN test-bed in Europe to date

Poster: EMMON: a WSN system architecture and toolset for large-scale and dense real-time embedded monitoring

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have attracted growing interest in the last decade as an infrastructure to support a diversity of ubiquitous computing and cyber-physical systems. However, most research work has focused on protocols or on specific applications. As a result, there remains a clear lack of effective and usable WSN system architectures that address both functional and non-functional requirements in an integrated fashion. This poster outlines the EMMON system architecture for large-scale, dense, real-time embedded monitoring. It provides a hierarchical communication architecture together with integrated middleware and command and control software. It has been designed to maintain as much as flexibility as possible while meeting specific applications requirements. EMMON has been validated through extensive analytical, simulation and experimental evaluations, including through a 300+ nodes test-bed the largest single-site WSN test-bed in Europe.

EMMON: a WSN system architecture for large scale and dense real-time embedded monitoring

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have attracted growing interest in the last decade as an infrastructure to support a diversity of ubiquitous computing and cyber-physical systems. However, most research work has focused on protocols or on specific applications. As a result, there remains a clear lack of effective, feasible and usable system architectures that address both functional and non-functional requirements in an integrated fashion. In this paper, we outline the EMMON system architecture for large-scale, dense, real-time embedded monitoring. EMMON provides a hierarchical communication architecture together with integrated middleware and command and control software. It has been designed to use standard commercially-available technologies, while maintaining as much flexibility as possible to meet specific applications requirements. The EMMON architecture has been validated through extensive simulation and experimental evaluation, including a 300+ node test-bed, which is, to the best of our knowledge, the largest single-site WSN test-bed in Europe to date.