Federated Robust Embedded Systems: Concepts and Challenges

The development within the area of embedded systems (ESs) is moving rapidly, not least due to falling costs of computation and communication equipment. It is believed that increased communication opportunities will lead to the future ESs no longer being parts of isolated products, but rather parts of larger communities or federations of ESs, within which information is exchanged for the benefit of all participants. This vision is asserted by a number of interrelated research topics, such as the internet of things, cyber-physical systems, systems of systems, and multi-agent systems. In this work, the focus is primarily on ESs, with their specific real-time and safety requirements. While the vision of interconnected ESs is quite promising, it also brings great challenges to the development of future systems in an efficient, safe, and reliable way. In this work, a pre-study has been carried out in order to gain a better understanding about common concepts and challenges that naturally arise in federations of ESs. The work was organized around a series of workshops, with contributions from both academic participants and industrial partners with a strong experience in ES development. During the workshops, a portfolio of possible ES federation scenarios was collected, and a number of application examples were discussed more thoroughly on different abstraction levels, starting from screening the nature of interactions on the federation level and proceeding down to the implementation details within each ES. These discussions led to a better understanding of what can be expected in the future federated ESs. In this report, the discussed applications are summarized, together with their characteristics, challenges, and necessary solution elements, providing a ground for the future research within the area of communicating ESs

Cloud e-learning for mechatronics: CLEM

his paper describes results of the CLEM project, Cloud E-learning for Mechatronics. CLEM is an example of a domain-specific cloud that is especially tuned to the needs of VET (Vocational, Education and Training) teachers. An interesting development has been the creation of remote laboratories in the cloud. Learners can access such laboratories to support their practical learning of mechatronics without the need to set up laboratories at their own institutions. The cloud infrastructure enables multiple laboratories to come together virtually to create an ecosystem for educators and learners. From such a system, educators can pick and mix materials to create suitable courses for their students and the learners can experience different types of devices and laboratories through the cloud. The paper provides an overview of this new cloud-based e-learning approach and presents the results. The paper explains how the use of cloud computing has enabled the development of a new method, showing how a holistic e-learning experience can be obtained through use of static, dynamic and interactive material together with facilities for collaboration and innovation

Scheduling in cloud manufacturing systems: Recent systematic literature review

Cloud Manufacturing (CMFg) is a novel production paradigm that benefits from Cloud Computing in order to develop manufacturing systems linked by the cloud. These systems, based on virtual platforms, allow direct linkage between customers and suppliers of manufacturing services, regardless of geographical distance. In this way, CMfg can expand both markets for producers, and suppliers for customers. However, these linkages imply a new challenge for production planning and decision-making process, especially in Scheduling. In this paper, a systematic literature review of articles addressing scheduling in Cloud Manufacturing environments is carried out. The review takes as its starting point a seminal study published in 2019, in which all problem features are described in detail. We pay special attention to the optimization methods and problem-solving strategies that have been suggested in CMfg scheduling. From the review carried out, we can assert that CMfg is a topic of growing interest within the scientific community. We also conclude that the methods based on bio-inspired metaheuristics are by far the most widely used (they represent more than 50% of the articles found). On the other hand, we suggest some lines for future research to further consolidate this field. In particular, we want to highlight the multi-objective approach, since due to the nature of the problem and the production paradigm, the optimization objectives involved are generally in conflict. In addition, decentralized approaches such as those based on game theory are promising lines for future research.Fil: Halty, Agustín. Universidad de la República; UruguayFil: Sánchez, Rodrigo. Universidad de la República; UruguayFil: Vázquez, Valentín. Universidad de la República; UruguayFil: Viana, Víctor. Universidad de la República; UruguayFil: Piñeyro, Pedro. Universidad de la República; UruguayFil: Rossit, Daniel Alejandro. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Ingeniería; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca. Instituto de Matemática Bahía Blanca. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Matemática. Instituto de Matemática Bahía Blanca; Argentin

New Solution of Abstract Architecture for Control and Coordination Decentralized Systems

This paper contains a new approach that combines the advantages and disadvantages of suppressing hierarchical and heterarchical control architectures, creating a semi-heterarchical (holonic) control architecture. The degree of subordinate unit autonomy changes dynamically, depending on the presence of a system disruption, and its scope allows for a smooth transition from hierarchical to heterarchic control architecture in subordinate units. We have proposed a representation of the dynamic degree of autonomy and its possible application to subordinate units, which are, in our case, one-directional Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and are guided by magnetic tape. In order to achieve such a semi-heterarchic management architecture with a dynamic degree of autonomy, approaches such as smart product, stymergic (indirect) communication, or basic principles of holon approach have been implemented

Autonomic Management of Networked Small-Medium Factories

The Chapter reports the achievements of a research project that is developing a software platform with a suite of autonomic services enabling every company in the network to move from a situation where it wastes valuable resources in struggling with its customers and suppliers, towards a rational business environment where communication becomes faster, and operation and collaboration more efficient. The ultimate objective of the project is to set-up, develop, experiment and promote the adoption of a new collaboration practice within networked factories taking advantage of the autonomic model applied to a suite of support software services

Human Aspect on Chain of Custody (CoC) System Performance

The tropical forests cover 24% of tropical land area. They are the most productive terrestrial ecosystems on earth with high priorities for biodiversity conservation. These forests store a substantial amount of carbon in biomass and soil, and they also regulate the transfer of carbon into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2). Indonesia is having the third tropical forest area in the world after Brazil and Congo. Over 50 years forest has been felled both legally as well as illegally. High rate of forest degradation resulted from unsustainable forest management, rampant illegal logging, forest area encroachment, conversion and natural disaster. All urges rapid improvement of management system of Indonesia’s forest resources (Holmes, 2002). Forest certification is one tool that can support the achievement of sustainable forest management goal. Under current operation of join certification protocol between the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and the Indonesian Ecolabelling Institute (LEI) in Indonesia, forest management units must be able to show the required performance indicated in LEI criteria and indicator as well as FSC principles and criteria to attain certification of their products. The gap between current practices and performance required by forest certifications schemes is still enormous. The performance of forest certification system from LEI is determined very much by the human that is involved in the process of planning and operation. The name of certification system is chain of custody (CoC) certification. CoC operation involves activities such as tracing raw material from the forest to the factory, through shipping and manufacturing, to the final end product. In all of the above processes, the roles of human are critical, although the specific roles played from one process to another are different. In this paper we present an identification of human aspect and other factors that predominantly affect CoC system performance

Multi-agent System Models for Distributed Services Scheduling

This thesis investigates the computational and modeling issues involved with developing solutions for distributed service scheduling problems. Compared with traditional manufacturing scheduling, service scheduling poses additional challenges due to the significant customer involvement in service processes. The first challenge is that the service scheduling environment is a distributed environment in which scheduling-related information is scattered among individual identities, such as service providers and customers. The second challenge is that the service scheduling environment is a dynamic environment. Uncertainty in customer demand, customer cancellations and no-shows make the scheduling of services a complex dynamic process. Service scheduling has to be robust and prepared to accommodate any contingencies caused by customer involvement in service production. The third challenge concerns customers’ private information. To compute optimal schedules, ideally, the scheduler should know the complete customer availability and preference information within the scheduling horizon. However, customers may act strategically to protect their private information. Therefore, service scheduling systems should be designed so that they are able to elicit enough of a customer’s private information that will make it possible to compute high quality schedules. The fourth challenge is that in a service scheduling environment, the objectives are complicated and they may even be in opposition. The distributed service scheduling environment enables each agent to have their own scheduling objectives. The objectives of these agents can vary from one to another. In addition to multiple objectives, since agents are self-interested, they are likely to behave strategically to achieve their own objectives without considering the global objectives of the system. Existing approaches usually deal with only a part of the challenges in a specific service domain. There is a need for general problem formulations and solutions that address service scheduling challenges in a comprehensive framework. In this thesis, I propose an integrated service scheduling framework for the general service scheduling problem. The proposed framework uses iterative auction as the base mechanism to tackle service scheduling challenges in distributed and dynamic environments. It accommodates customer’s private information by providing appropriate incentives to customers and it has the potential to accommodate dynamic events. This framework integrates customers’ preferences with the allocation of a provider’s capacity through multilateral negotiation between the provider and its customers. The framework can accommodate both price-based commercial settings and non-commercial service settings. Theoretical and experimental results are developed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed framework. The application of the framework to the mass customization of services and to appointment scheduling are developed to demonstrate the applicability of the general framework to specific service domains. A web-based prototype is designed and implemented to evaluate the scalability of the approach in a distributed environment

Internet of things-based framework for public transportation fleet management in the Free State

Thesis (Masters: Information Technology) -- Central University of Technology, Free State, 2019The poor service delivery by the Free State public transportation system inspired us to design a framework solution to improve the current system. This qualitative study focuses on improving the management of the public transportation fleet. One of the most recently developed technologies in Information and Communication Technology (ICT), namely the Internet of Things (IoT), was utilised to develop this framework. Existing problems were identified through research observations, analyses of the current system, analyses of the current problem areas, as well as participants’ questionnaire answers and recommendations, the participants being the passengers, drivers and vehicle owners. The framework was developed in two phases, namely a hardware phase that makes use of ICT sensors (e.g. RFID, GPS, GPRS, IR, Zigbee, WiFi), and a software phase that uses an internet connection to communicate with the different ICT devices. The software utilised a Graphic User Interface (GUI) to ensure that the software is user-friendly and addresses possible problems and barriers such as multiple language interfaces and different ICT skills levels. The newly designed framework offers different services and solutions to meet the participants’ needs, such as real-time tracking for public transport vehicles to help passengers manage their departure and arrival times, as well as for vehicle owners to monitor their own vehicles. In turn, vehicle arrival notifications will encourage passengers to be on time so that vehicles will not be delayed unnecessarily. Another feature is counting devices that can be installed inside the vehicles, which will inform vehicle owners how many passengers are being transported by a vehicle. The passenger pre-booking system will support the drivers when planning their trips/routes. Finally, the framework was designed to fulfil all the participants’ needs that were indicated in the questionnaires in order to achieve the goal of the research study