A service-oriented middleware for integrated management of crowdsourced and sensor data streams in disaster management

The increasing number of sensors used in diverse applications has provided a massive number of continuous, unbounded, rapid data and requires the management of distinct protocols, interfaces and intermittent connections. As traditional sensor networks are error-prone and difficult to maintain, the study highlights the emerging role of “citizens as sensors” as a complementary data source to increase public awareness. To this end, an interoperable, reusable middleware for managing spatial, temporal, and thematic data using Sensor Web Enablement initiative services and a processing engine was designed, implemented, and deployed. The study found that its approach provided effective sensor data-stream access, publication, and filtering in dynamic scenarios such as disaster management, as well as it enables batch and stream management integration. Also, an interoperability analytics testing of a flood citizen observatory highlighted even variable data such as those provided by the crowd can be integrated with sensor data stream. Our approach, thus, offers a mean to improve near-real-time applications

Fieldservers and Sensor Service Grid as Real-time Monitoring Infrastructure for Ubiquitous Sensor Networks

The fieldserver is an Internet based observation robot that can provide an outdoor solution for monitoring environmental parameters in real-time. The data from its sensors can be collected to a central server infrastructure and published on the Internet. The information from the sensor network will contribute to monitoring and modeling on various environmental issues in Asia, including agriculture, food, pollution, disaster, climate change etc. An initiative called Sensor Asia is developing an infrastructure called Sensor Service Grid (SSG), which integrates fieldservers and Web GIS to realize easy and low cost installation and operation of ubiquitous field sensor networks

Multi-Agent Systems Applications in Energy Optimization Problems: A State-of-the-Art Review

[EN] This article reviews the state-of-the-art developments in Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) and their application to energy optimization problems. This methodology and related tools have contributed to changes in various paradigms used in energy optimization. Behavior and interactions between agents are key elements that must be understood in order to model energy optimization solutions that are robust, scalable and context-aware. The concept of MAS is introduced in this paper and it is compared with traditional approaches in the development of energy optimization solutions. The different types of agent-based architectures are described, the role played by the environment is analysed and we look at how MAS recognizes the characteristics of the environment to adapt to it. Moreover, it is discussed how MAS can be used as tools that simulate the results of different actions aimed at reducing energy consumption. Then, we look at MAS as a tool that makes it easy to model and simulate certain behaviors. This modeling and simulation is easily extrapolated to the energy field, and can even evolve further within this field by using the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. Therefore, we can argue that MAS is a widespread approach in the field of energy optimization and that it is commonly used due to its capacity for the communication, coordination, cooperation of agents and the robustness that this methodology gives in assigning different tasks to agents. Finally, this article considers how MASs can be used for various purposes, from capturing sensor data to decision-making. We propose some research perspectives on the development of electrical optimization solutions through their development using MASs. In conclusion, we argue that researchers in the field of energy optimization should use multi-agent systems at those junctures where it is necessary to model energy efficiency solutions that involve a wide range of factors, as well as context independence that they can achieve through the addition of new agents or agent organizations, enabling the development of energy-efficient solutions for smart cities and intelligent buildings

Trends in office internal gains and the impact on space heating and cooling demands

Internal gains from occupants, equipment and lighting contribute a significant proportion of the heat gains in an office space. Looking at trends in Generation-Y, it appears there are two diverging paths for future ICT demand: one where energy demand is carefully regulated and the other where productivity enhancers such as multiple monitors and media walls causes an explosion of energy demand within the space. These internal gains scenarios were simulated on a variety of different building archetypes to test their influence on the space heating and cooling demand. It was demonstrated that in offices with a high quality facade, internal gains are the dominant factor. As a case study, it was shown that natural ventilation is only possible when the ICT demand is carefully regulated

EIP-AGRI Focus Group : Precision farming

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Cognitive Buildings

Cognitive building is a pioneering topic envisioning the future of our built environment. The concept of "cognitive" provides a paradigm shift that steps from the static concept of the building as a container of human activities towards the modernist vision of "machine à habiter" of Le Corbusier, where the technological content adds the capability of learning from users' behavior and environmental variables to adapt itself to achieve major goals such as user comfort, energy-saving, flexible functionality, high durability, and good maintainability. The concept is based on digital frameworks and IoT networks towards the concept of a smart city

Smart Internet of Things Modular Micro Grow Room Architecture

This article proposes the Internet of Things-based self-sustaining modular grow room architecture for optimising the seed germination and seedling development process. The architecture is scalable and flexible as it can be adapted to particular environments, scopes, requirements and plant types; it is modular as the host room can contain one or more smaller-scale grow rooms, each of them controlling their own micro-environment independently. One of the main goals of the research was to develop such a system that could be deployed efficiently, with minimal costs and energy footprint, which would enable its practical usage primarily in private self-sustainable households. The usage of widely available and inexpensive components, open source code, and free cloud services all enabled us to reach such a goal. Besides simple automation mostly described by existing solutions, the architecture proposed within this article offers remote control and data processing and visualisation, data trend tracking, smart optimisation, and actuator control, and event notifications