An Experiment on Bare-Metal BigData Provisioning

Many BigData customers use on-demand platforms in the cloud, where they can get a dedicated virtual cluster in a couple of minutes and pay only for the time they use. Increasingly, there is a demand for bare-metal bigdata solutions for applications that cannot tolerate the unpredictability and performance degradation of virtualized systems. Existing bare-metal solutions can introduce delays of 10s of minutes to provision a cluster by installing operating systems and applications on the local disks of servers. This has motivated recent research developing sophisticated mechanisms to optimize this installation. These approaches assume that using network mounted boot disks incur unacceptable run-time overhead. Our analysis suggest that while this assumption is true for application data, it is incorrect for operating systems and applications, and network mounting the boot disk and applications result in negligible run-time impact while leading to faster provisioning time.This research was supported in part by the MassTech Collaborative Research Matching Grant Program, NSF awards 1347525 and 1414119 and several commercial partners of the Massachusetts Open Cloud who may be found at http://www.massopencloud.or

DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT, AND FLIGHT TESTING OF A MODULAR AVIONICS AND VEHICLE MONITORING SYSTEM

As more rocket components become commercially available, the feasibility of a low-cost rocket-powered vehicle with capabilities tailored to the needs of the Navy, such as delivering payloads, countering drones, and reliable communications, increases. The avionics bay of such a system is essential as it provides guidance and control to the vehicle and can incorporate a vehicle health monitoring system to transmit vital parameters and document various issues that can arise during flight, which could lead to unexpected flight performance and/or failure. A modular avionics bay was designed to provide flexibility, allow for new hardware requirements and future system improvements, and ensure reliable and proper connections for electronic components to sustain tactical launch and flight vibrations. This effort seeks to give the U.S. Navy more cost-symmetric options and capabilities for a rocket-powered vehicle that adapts to changing mission requirements and technology. A data logging system with a high sampling rate and telemetry capability was also developed to document the forces imposed on the flight system and collect future flight-test data. This data will allow a representative structural vibration spectrum of a delivery vehicle over tactical flight profiles to be constructed, such that future avionics components be certified pre-flight utilizing a shaker table and an established protocol.CRUSER Monterey, CA, 93942Lieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Performance and enhancement for HD videoconference environment

In this work proposed here is framed in the project of research V3 (Video, Videoconference, and Visualization) of the Foundation i2CAT, that has for final goal to design and development of a platform of video, videoconference and independent visualization of resolution in high and super though inside new generation IP networks. i2CAT Foundation uses free software for achieving its goals. UltraGrid for the transmission of HD video is used and SAGE is used for distributed visualization among multiple monitors. The equipment used for management (capturing, sending, visualization, etc) of the high definition stream of work environment it has to be optimized so that all the disposable resources can be used, in order to improve the quality and stability of the platform. We are speaking about the treatment of datum flows of more of 1 Gbps with raw formats, so that the optimization of the use of the disposable resources of a system is given back a need. In this project it is evaluated the requirements for the high definition streams without compressing and a study of the current platform is carried out, in order to extract the functional requirements that an optimum system has to have to work in the best conditions. From this extracted information, a series of systems tests are carried out in order to improve the performance, from level of network until level of application. Different distributions of the Linux operating system have been proved in order to evaluate their performance. These are Debian 4 and openSUSE 10.3. The creation of a system from sources of software has also been proved in order to optimize its code in the compilation. It has been carried out with the help of Linux From Scratch project. It has also been tried to use systems Real Time (RT) with the distributions used. It offers more stability in the stream frame rate. Once operating systems has been test, it has proved different compilers in order to evaluate their efficiency. The GCC and the Intel C++ Compilers have proved, this second with more satisfactory results. Finally a Live CD has been carried out in order to include all the possible improvements in a system of easy distribution

Resource Management in Container-based Mobile Edge Computing

Mobile edge computing is a promising technology which provides support to time-sensitive applications by pushing centralized cloud processing capabilities to distributed Fog nodes. These fog nodes are deployed at one-hop distance from end-user and provide real-time data processing capabilities at the edge of network. Due to service provisioning at the edge of network, no congestion occurs at the core of network, quality of service (QoS) is improved and the overall network operational cost is significantly reduced. However, these nodes have limited capabilities such as processing, storage and coverage so, they face challenge of mobility support for a mobile user when continued service (i.e. zero downtime) is required during handovers between edge nodes. Furthermore, they also need an effective task allocation and resource management strategy to ensure smooth operation of edge services. Unlike traditional VM based environment in Fog Computing, this work explores lightweight Docker containers to deploy and migrate services. In this work, an interactive event-driven dashboard is developed for real-time edge node registration, system monitoring, service initiation and migration. Then, motivated by Fog Following Me, a couple of resource allocation schemes (i.e. algorithm-I & II) have been introduced to dynamically manage the compute resources among fog nodes. For smooth service operation and stable migration, an application profiling feature has been introduced which assigns the needed quota for an application requirement in terms of CPU, GPU and RAM. The developed system's performance is evaluated by conducting various experiments. The experimental results clearly demonstrate and verify the working feasibility of the whole system's operation in context of edge computing. However, the observed processing delays during service migration marks the limitation of Docker and suggest the need to use latest optimization tools to cut down the network delays and ensure zero-downtime service migration

Robot Control and Computer Vision for Automated Test System on Touch Display Products

The goal of this master thesis is to set up a low cost automated robotic test system which can later be reproduced to greatly increase test coverage. Mostly through experimental research this thesis will find good components to use and evaluate these from a performance and cost perspective. It will also develop computer vision algorithms needed and automation software for the final set up. The performance of the robotics will be investigated by comparing with an industrial robot. A modified 6000 SEK 3D-printer was selected and proved to work. The computer vision was developed using OpenCV and a fully automated system with appropriate resulting plots was created. Comparing with the industrial robot the setup using a 3D-printer proved to work better because it allowed for better positioning of the camera. It was also concluded that the selected robot system based on a 3Dprinter was capable enough and would drastically lower the space and cost from a system using an industrial robot

Mesh networks for handheld mobile devices

Mesh communications emerge today as a very popular networking solution. Mesh networks have a decentralized and multihop design. These characteristics arouse interest in research for relevant novel features, such as cooperation among nodes, distribution of tasks, scalability, communication with limited infrastructure support, and the support of mobile devices as mesh nodes. In addition to the inexistence of a solution that implements mesh networks with mobile devices at the data link layer (Layer 2), there is also a need to reconsider existing metrics with new information to tackle the intrinsic characteristics of mobile devices, e.g., the limited energy resources of their battery. To tackle this problem, this thesis presents a detailed study about projects, routing protocols and metrics developed in the area of mesh networks. In addition, two data link layer solutions, Open802.11s and B.A.T.M.A.N-advanced, have been adapted and deployed in a real mesh network testbed with off the shelf routers devices installed with a customized operating system. From this testbed, Open802.11s has proved to offer better performance than B.A.T.M.A.N-advanced. Following this, a breakthrough in this work has been the integration of the 802.11s on an Android mobile device and its subsequent incorporation in the mesh network. This allowed the study of eventual limitations imposed by the mobile device on the operation of the mesh network, namely performance and energy scarcity. With this, another major novelty has followed, by designing, implementing and evaluating several energy related metrics regarding the battery status of mobile devices. This has enabled the participation of mobile devices in mesh routing paths in an efficient way. Our main objective was to implement a mesh network with mobile devices. This has been achieved and validated through the evaluation of diverse testing scenarios performed in a real mesh testbed. The obtained results also show that the operation of a mesh with mobile devices can be enhanced, including the lifetime of mobile devices, when an energy-aware metric is used.As redes mesh surgem hoje em dia como uma solução de rede em crescimento e expansão. Neste tipo de redes o comportamento entre os nós é descentralizado e numa topologia de multihop. Estas características despertam interesse na pesquisa e desenvolvimento de novas funcionalidades tais como: cooperação entre nós, distribuição de tarefas, escalabilidade da rede e comunicações mesmo em casos de uma infraestrutura limitada e o suporte de dispositivos móveis como nós de uma rede mesh. Associado à inexistência de um projecto que implemente redes mesh em dispositivos móveis na camada de ligação de dados (Layer 2), surge a necessidade de repensar as métricas já existentes com novas informações que façam face às novas características dos dispositivos móveis, neste caso, os recursos limitados de bateria. Por forma a resolver este problema, este trabalho apresenta um estudo detalhado sobre os projetos, protocolos de routing e métricas desenvolvidas na área das redes mesh. Além disso, duas soluções que utilizam a camada de ligação de dados, Open802.11s e BATMAN-advanced, estes foram adaptadao e implementados num testbed real utilizando routers com um sistema operacional costumizado instalado. Deste testbed, concluiu-se que o Open802.11s obtem um melhor desempenho que o BATMAN-advanced. Assim, um dos avanços deste trabalho foi a integração do Open802.11s num dispositivo móvel Android e sua posterior incorporação na rede mesh. Isto permitiu o estudo de eventuais limitações impostas pelo dispositivo móvel ao funcionar numa rede mesh, ou seja, desempenho e a escassez de energia. Com isso, foi concebida outra novidade, através da concepção, avaliação e implementação de várias métricas relacionadas com a energia e que têm por base o estado da bateria do dispositivo. Isto permitiu que os dispositivos móveis participem na rede mesh e a sua gestão de bateria seja feita de forma eficiente. O principal objectivo era a implementação de uma rede mesh com dispositivos móveis. Este foi alcançado e validado através de diversos cenários de teste reais. Os resultados obtidos demonstram também que o funcionamento de uma rede mesh com dispositivos móveis pode ser melhorada, incluindo o tempo de vida dos dispositivos móveis, quando uma métrica que considera a energia é utilizada

A Raspberry Pi controlling neuromorphic hardware

This thesis describes the integration of a Raspberry Pi, a credit-card-sized single board computer, into the Wafer Scale Integration (WSI) System of the BrainScaleS project. The Raspberry Pi’s task is to bundle all the interfaces necessary to manage the system’s elaborate power supply into one single-access, easy-to-use interface. To this purpose the Raspberry Pi replaced the former evaluation board responsible for power management, taking over all of its tasks and in addition providing faster and cheaper hardware. The integration took place in two main steps: configuring the Raspberry Pi’s hardware and adapting the control programme from the former board to the new hardware. The results of this thesis are the successful integration of the Raspberry Pi into the WSI system, which was proven by several communication tests between the Raspberry Pi and the rest of the system, and an easy-to-follow step-by-step guide on how to set up Raspberry Pis to manage additional systems

Multi-purpose embedded communication gateway : system design and testbed implementation

Masteroppgave i Informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi IKT590 Universitetet i Agder 2014This dissertation revolves around developing a multi-purpose embedded communication gateway. The gateway is equipped with multiple communication interfaces including Ethernet, Bluetooth, WiFi, Zigbee, LTE, and it can be configured and utilized for many purposes, such as a failover of an Ethernet cable via 4G in order to maintain the network connectivity. Raspberry Pi circuit board and the operating system Raspbian are selected as the hardware and the software platforms respectively. Different communication interfaces are coordinated by the Raspberry Pi and are configured via Linux scripts according to various use cases. Furthermore, a hardware watchdog is adopted to enhance the availability of system. In addition, the system is encapsulated into a box to increase its portability. The system is validated and evaluated through rigorous test-bed experiments. Experiment results indicate that the developed router works smoothly and reliably in environments with little electrical disturbances