8,775 research outputs found
A Low-Delay MAC for IoT Applications: Decentralized Optimal Scheduling of Queues without Explicit State Information Sharing
We consider a system of several collocated nodes sharing a time slotted
wireless channel, and seek a MAC (medium access control) that (i) provides low
mean delay, (ii) has distributed control (i.e., there is no central scheduler),
and (iii) does not require explicit exchange of state information or control
signals. The design of such MAC protocols must keep in mind the need for
contention access at light traffic, and scheduled access in heavy traffic,
leading to the long-standing interest in hybrid, adaptive MACs.
Working in the discrete time setting, for the distributed MAC design, we
consider a practical information structure where each node has local
information and some common information obtained from overhearing. In this
setting, "ZMAC" is an existing protocol that is hybrid and adaptive. We
approach the problem via two steps (1) We show that it is sufficient for the
policy to be "greedy" and "exhaustive". Limiting the policy to this class
reduces the problem to obtaining a queue switching policy at queue emptiness
instants. (2) Formulating the delay optimal scheduling as a POMDP (partially
observed Markov decision process), we show that the optimal switching rule is
Stochastic Largest Queue (SLQ).
Using this theory as the basis, we then develop a practical distributed
scheduler, QZMAC, which is also tunable. We implement QZMAC on standard
off-the-shelf TelosB motes and also use simulations to compare QZMAC with the
full-knowledge centralized scheduler, and with ZMAC. We use our implementation
to study the impact of false detection while overhearing the common
information, and the efficiency of QZMAC. Our simulation results show that the
mean delay with QZMAC is close that of the full-knowledge centralized
scheduler.Comment: 28 pages, 19 figure
Beam scanning by liquid-crystal biasing in a modified SIW structure
A fixed-frequency beam-scanning 1D antenna based on Liquid Crystals (LCs) is designed for application in 2D scanning with lateral alignment. The 2D array environment imposes full decoupling of adjacent 1D antennas, which often conflicts with the LC requirement of DC biasing: the proposed design accommodates both. The LC medium is placed inside a Substrate Integrated Waveguide (SIW) modified to work as a Groove Gap Waveguide, with radiating slots etched on the upper broad wall, that radiates as a Leaky-Wave Antenna (LWA). This allows effective application of the DC bias voltage needed for tuning the LCs. At the same time, the RF field remains laterally confined, enabling the possibility to lay several antennas in parallel and achieve 2D beam scanning. The design is validated by simulation employing the actual properties of a commercial LC medium
Optimising water quality outcomes for complex water resource systems and water grids
As the world progresses, water resources are likely to be subjected to much greater pressures than in the past. Even though the principal water problem revolves around inadequate and uncertain water supplies, water quality management plays an equally important role. Availability of good quality water is paramount to sustainability of human population as well as the environment. Achieving water quality and quantity objectives can be conflicting and becomes more complicated with challenges like, climate change, growing populations and changed land uses. Managing adequate water quality in a reservoir gets complicated by multiple inflows with different water quality levels often resulting in poor water quality. Hence, it is fundamental to approach this issue in a more systematic, comprehensive, and coordinated fashion. Most previous studies related to water resources management focused on water quantity and considered water quality separately. However, this research study focused on considering water quantity and quality objectives simultaneously in a single model to explore and understand the relationship between them in a reservoir system. A case study area was identified in Western Victoria, Australia with water quantity and quality challenges. Taylors Lake of Grampians System in Victoria, Australia receives water from multiple sources of differing quality and quantity and has the abovesaid problems. A combined simulation and optimisation approach was adopted to carry out the analysis. A multi-objective optimisation approach was applied to achieve optimal water availability and quality in the storage. The multi-objective optimisation model included three objective functions which were: water volume and two water quality parameters: salinity and turbidity. Results showed competing nature of water quantity and quality objectives and established the trade-offs. It further showed that it was possible to generate a range of optimal solutions to effectively manage those trade-offs. The trade-off analysis explored and informed that selective harvesting of inflows is effective to improve water quality in storage. However, with strict water quality restriction there is a considerable loss in water volume. The robustness of the optimisation approach used in this study was confirmed through sensitivity and uncertainty analysis. The research work also incorporated various spatio-temporal scenario analyses to systematically articulate long-term and short-term operational planning strategies. Operational decisions around possible harvesting regimes while achieving optimal water quantity and quality and meeting all water demands were established. The climate change analysis revealed that optimal management of water quantity and quality in storage became extremely challenging under future climate projections. The high reduction in storage volume in the future will lead to several challenges such as water supply shortfall and inability to undertake selective harvesting due to reduced water quality levels. In this context, selective harvesting of inflows based on water quality will no longer be an option to manage water quantity and quality optimally in storage. Some significant conclusions of this research work included the establishment of trade-offs between water quality and quantity objectives particular to this configuration of water supply system. The work demonstrated that selective harvesting of inflows will improve the stored water quality, and this finding along with the approach used is a significant contribution to decision makers working within the water sector. The simulation-optimisation approach is very effective in providing a range of optimal solutions, which can be used to make more informed decisions around achieving optimal water quality and quantity in storage. It was further demonstrated that there are range of planning periods, both long-term (>10 years) and short-term (<1 year), all of which offer distinct advantages and provides useful insights, making this an additional key contribution of the work. Importantly, climate change was also considered where it was found that diminishing water resources, particularly to this geographic location, makes it increasingly difficult to optimise both quality and quantity in storage providing further useful insights from this work.Doctor of Philosoph
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Serial Biasing Technique for Rapid Single Flux Quantum Circuits
Superconductor electronics based on the Single Flux Quantum (SFQ) technology are considered a strong contender for the ‘beyond CMOS’ future of digital circuits because of the high speed and low power dissipation associated with them. In fact, digital operations beyond tens of GHz have been routinely demonstrated in the SFQ technology. These circuits have widespread applications such as high-speed analog-to-digital conversion, digital signal processing, high speed computing and in emerging topics such as control circuitry for superconducting quantum computing.
Rapid Single Flux Quantum (RSFQ) circuits have emerged as a promising candidate within the SFQ technology, with information encoded in picosecond wide, milli-volt voltage pulses. As is the case with any integrated circuit technology, scalability of RSFQ circuits is essential to realizing their applications. These circuits, based on the Josephson junction, require a DC bias current for the correct operation. The DC bias current requirement increases with circuit complexity, and this has multiple implications on circuit operation. Large currents produce magnetic fields that can interfere with logic operation. Furthermore, the heat load delivered to the superconducting chip also increases with current which could result in the circuit becoming ‘normal’ and not superconducting. These problems make reduction of the bias current necessary.
Serial Biasing (SB) is a bias current reduction technique, that has been proposed in the past. In this technique, a digital circuit is partitioned into multiple identical islands and bias current is provided to each island in a serial manner. While this scheme is promising, there are multiple challenges such as design of the driver-receiver pair circuit resulting in robust and wide operating bias margins, current management on the floating islands, etc.
This thesis investigates SB in a systematic manner, focusing on the design and measurement of the fundamental components of this technique with an emphasis on reliability and scalability. It presents works on circuit techniques achieving high speed serially biased RSFQ circuits with robust operating margins and the experimental evidence to support the ideas. It develops a framework for serial biasing that could be used by electronic design tools to automate design and synthesis of complex RSFQ circuits. It also investigates Passive Transmission Lines (PTLs) for use as passive interconnects between library cells in a complex design, reducing the DC bias current required by the active circuitry
Multilink and AUV-Assisted Energy-Efficient Underwater Emergency Communications
Recent development in wireless communications has provided many reliable
solutions to emergency response issues, especially in scenarios with
dysfunctional or congested base stations. Prior studies on underwater emergency
communications, however, remain under-studied, which poses a need for combining
the merits of different underwater communication links (UCLs) and the
manipulability of unmanned vehicles. To realize energy-efficient underwater
emergency communications, we develop a novel underwater emergency communication
network (UECN) assisted by multiple links, including underwater light,
acoustic, and radio frequency links, and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)
for collecting and transmitting underwater emergency data. First, we determine
the optimal emergency response mode for an underwater sensor node (USN) using
greedy search and reinforcement learning (RL), so that isolated USNs (I-USNs)
can be identified. Second, according to the distribution of I-USNs, we dispatch
AUVs to assist I-USNs in data transmission, i.e., jointly optimizing the
locations and controls of AUVs to minimize the time for data collection and
underwater movement. Finally, an adaptive clustering-based multi-objective
evolutionary algorithm is proposed to jointly optimize the number of AUVs and
the transmit power of I-USNs, subject to a given set of constraints on transmit
power, signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratios (SINRs), outage probabilities,
and energy, which achieves the best tradeoff between the maximum emergency
response time (ERT) and the total energy consumption (EC). Simulation results
indicate that our proposed approach outperforms benchmark schemes in terms of
energy efficiency (EE), contributing to underwater emergency communications.Comment: 15 page
Low-cost traffic sensing system based on LoRaWAN for urban areas
The advent of Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) has enabled the feasibility of wireless sensor networks for environmental traffic sensing across urban areas. In this study, we explore the usage of LoRaWAN end nodes as traffic sensing sensors to offer a practical traffic management solution. The monitored Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) factor is reported and used in the gateways to assess the traffic of the environment. Our technique utilizes LoRaWAN as a long-range communication technology to provide a large-scale system. In this work, we present a method of using LoRaWAN devices to estimate traffic flows. LoRaWAN end devices then transmit their packets to different gateways. Their RSSI will be affected by the number of cars present on the roadway. We used SVM and clustering methods to classify the approximate number of cars present. This paper details our experiences with the design and real implementation of this system across an area that stretches for miles in urban scenarios. We continuously measured and reported RSSI at different gateways for weeks. Results have shown that if a LoRaWAN end node is placed in an optimal position, up to 96% of correct environment traffic level detection can be obtained. Additionally, we share the lessons learned from such a deployment for traffic sensing.5311-8814-F0ED | Sara Maria da Cruz Maia de Oliveira PaivaN/
Modelling, Monitoring, Control and Optimization for Complex Industrial Processes
This reprint includes 22 research papers and an editorial, collected from the Special Issue "Modelling, Monitoring, Control and Optimization for Complex Industrial Processes", highlighting recent research advances and emerging research directions in complex industrial processes. This reprint aims to promote the research field and benefit the readers from both academic communities and industrial sectors
Aerial Network Assistance Systems for Post-Disaster Scenarios : Topology Monitoring and Communication Support in Infrastructure-Independent Networks
Communication anytime and anywhere is necessary for our modern society to function. However, the critical network infrastructure quickly fails in the face of a disaster and leaves the affected population without means of communication. This lack can be overcome by smartphone-based emergency communication systems, based on infrastructure-independent networks like Delay-Tolerant Networks (DTNs). DTNs, however, suffer from short device-to-device link distances and, thus, require multi-hop routing or data ferries between disjunct parts of the network. In disaster scenarios, this fragmentation is particularly severe because of the highly clustered human mobility behavior. Nevertheless, aerial communication support systems can connect local network clusters by utilizing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) as data ferries. To facilitate situation-aware and adaptive communication support, knowledge of the network topology, the identification of missing communication links, and the constant reassessment of dynamic disasters are required. These requirements are usually neglected, despite existing approaches to aerial monitoring systems capable of detecting devices and networks.
In this dissertation, we, therefore, facilitate the coexistence of aerial topology monitoring and communications support mechanisms in an autonomous Aerial Network Assistance System for infrastructure-independent networks as our first contribution. To enable system adaptations to unknown and dynamic disaster situations, our second contribution addresses the collection, processing, and utilization of topology information. For one thing, we introduce cooperative monitoring approaches to include the DTN in the monitoring process. Furthermore, we apply novel approaches for data aggregation and network cluster estimation to facilitate the continuous assessment of topology information and an appropriate system adaptation. Based on this, we introduce an adaptive topology-aware routing approach to reroute UAVs and increase the coverage of disconnected nodes outside clusters.
We generalize our contributions by integrating them into a simulation framework, creating an evaluation platform for autonomous aerial systems as our third contribution. We further increase the expressiveness of our aerial system evaluation, by adding movement models for multicopter aircraft combined with power consumption models based on real-world measurements. Additionally, we improve the disaster simulation by generalizing civilian disaster mobility based on a real-world field test. With a prototypical system implementation, we extensively evaluate our contributions and show the significant benefits of cooperative monitoring and topology-aware routing, respectively. We highlight the importance of continuous and integrated topology monitoring for aerial communications support and demonstrate its necessity for an adaptive and long-term disaster deployment. In conclusion, the contributions of this dissertation enable the usage of autonomous Aerial Network Assistance Systems and their adaptability in dynamic disaster scenarios
On the Principles of Evaluation for Natural Language Generation
Natural language processing is concerned with the ability of computers to understand natural language texts, which is, arguably, one of the major bottlenecks in the course of chasing the holy grail of general Artificial Intelligence. Given the unprecedented success of deep learning technology, the natural language processing community has been almost entirely in favor of practical applications with state-of-the-art systems emerging and competing for human-parity performance at an ever-increasing pace. For that reason, fair and adequate evaluation and comparison, responsible for ensuring trustworthy, reproducible and unbiased results, have fascinated the scientific community for long, not only in natural language but also in other fields. A popular example is the ISO-9126 evaluation standard for software products, which outlines a wide range of evaluation concerns, such as cost, reliability, scalability, security, and so forth. The European project EAGLES-1996, being the acclaimed extension to ISO-9126, depicted the fundamental principles specifically for evaluating natural language technologies, which underpins succeeding methodologies in the evaluation of natural language.
Natural language processing encompasses an enormous range of applications, each with its own evaluation concerns, criteria and measures. This thesis cannot hope to be comprehensive but particularly addresses the evaluation in natural language generation (NLG), which touches on, arguably, one of the most human-like natural language applications. In this context, research on quantifying day-to-day progress with evaluation metrics lays the foundation of the fast-growing NLG community. However, previous works have failed to address high-quality metrics in multiple scenarios such as evaluating long texts and when human references are not available, and, more prominently, these studies are limited in scope, given the lack of a holistic view sketched for principled NLG evaluation.
In this thesis, we aim for a holistic view of NLG evaluation from three complementary perspectives, driven by the evaluation principles in EAGLES-1996: (i) high-quality evaluation metrics, (ii) rigorous comparison of NLG systems for properly tracking the progress, and (iii) understanding evaluation metrics. To this end, we identify the current state of challenges derived from the inherent characteristics of these perspectives, and then present novel metrics, rigorous comparison approaches, and explainability techniques for metrics to address the identified issues.
We hope that our work on evaluation metrics, system comparison and explainability for metrics inspires more research towards principled NLG evaluation, and contributes to the fair and adequate evaluation and comparison in natural language processing
Proceedings of FORM 2022. Construction The Formation of Living Environment
This study examines the integration of building information modelling (BIM) technologies in operation & maintenance stage in the system of managing real estate that helps to reduce transaction costs. The approach and method are based on Digital Twin technology and Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) approach.
The results of the development of a service for digital facility management and
digital expertise are presented. The connection between physical and digital objects is conceptualized
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