Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications

Internet of Things Software Modules Marketplace

The project developed is a centralised repository of software packages to be used in cyber-physical systems. It is composed by a central database, an http api, an ftp client to serve files and a web application to manage the repository. The system also communicates via OPCUA protocol with the embed-system for real time monitoring.The advent of the Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), a physical system representation through a vir-tual model, usually used to control a system or a process comes from the growing democratizationof the computational power. Nowadays, virtually anything can be equipped with some kind ofembedded processor to automate tasks, generate or consume some kind of data. In addition, thecontinuous development and improvement of the communication networks has helped leveragethe concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) in which things are now, themselves, connected to theInternet, exchanging data with each other and with people.In the industrial sector, CPS, also called Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS) and theIoT are the main technological advances that lead to the industry fourth revolution, common des-ignated as Industry 4.0 in which the factory floor is no longer a centralized model where all thecomputation is done centrally but is now a decentralized model where industrial equipment haveembedded devices to control, automate tasks and react in a dynamic and intelligent manner to thesensed physical environment.Thereby, one of the keywords around the CPPSs is software. Software is no longer centralizedand is now distributed through several devices that comprises the system. This new approachcomes with significant changes and one of them is the reuse and distribution of the software. Itis not viable to manual deploy and install software in hundreds or thousands of devices and nothaving a way of reusing the existing software. If, on the one hand, the desire is to develop a moreintelligent process control system, on the other, flexibility, adaptability and simplicity are alsoconvenient capabilities or else intelligent manufacturing process control systems are built upon alot of resources debt. Hence, the solution is to build standards, tools and frameworks that allowthe reuse of software and its rapid deployment in the distributed devices.One option, in the Industry 4.0 field, to cope with the software reuse issue in this kind of sys-tems is the encapsulation of software in functional blocks, the Function Blocks (FBs) and their usein the function block programming paradigm, described in IEC 61499 standard. The functionalityis abstracted away in the FBs and can be reused by just deploying the them to the devices. Thisway, it is easier to manage a network by dragging and dropping these blocks, building complexapplications centrally and deploy everything to the distributed embedded devices. However, theimplementation of this standard to address the aforementioned problem brings, itself, other neces-sities such as managing the FBs, monitoring them and their previous download by the embeddeddevices.This dissertation main goal is the development of a marketplace to manage and monitor of FBs in a IEC 61499 network envisioning the filling of the previous mentioned gaps in this kindof networks. The marketplace, integrated in a IEC 61499 global solution will not only enable thedistribution of FBs among the embedded devices in a IEC 61499 compliant CPPS but also manageFBs versions, functioning as a central repository of software components, having also monitoringand statistical features, allowing the detection of flaws or malfunctions and collect statistical datai iiabout FBs usage

Utilization of e-Logistics in multinational companies to overcome difficulties of today’s economic environment

As the incredible growth of the Internet is changing the way corporations conduct their business. Logistics service providers must consider changing their traditional logistics system into an e-Logistics system in order to accommodate to the dynamic changes in the commercial world. The purpose of this study is to provide a better understanding of how organizations utilize e-Logistics within their supply chain and how to create a competitive advantage during the economic crisis so that losses be limited if not eliminated. To reach this purpose, two research questions are stated (two multinational companies), focusing the factors that influence the e-Logistics system. From the in-depth interviews and used to collect data, the findings show that the e-Logistics system can be described as a network creating value process. The findings further indicate that reliability factors, maintainability factors, software factors and facility, transportation and handling factors, all influence the e-Logistics system. On the other hand, availability factors, economic factors, organizational factors and test and support equipment factors are of low-level importance for e-logistics system. The second part of the paper focuses on how e-logistics will change the multinational traditional logistics systems and how we can measure (Key Performance Indicators) these changes.competitively, e-logistics, economic crises, measure (key Performance Indicators).

Designing Data Spaces

This open access book provides a comprehensive view on data ecosystems and platform economics from methodical and technological foundations up to reports from practical implementations and applications in various industries. To this end, the book is structured in four parts: Part I “Foundations and Contexts” provides a general overview about building, running, and governing data spaces and an introduction to the IDS and GAIA-X projects. Part II “Data Space Technologies” subsequently details various implementation aspects of IDS and GAIA-X, including eg data usage control, the usage of blockchain technologies, or semantic data integration and interoperability. Next, Part III describes various “Use Cases and Data Ecosystems” from various application areas such as agriculture, healthcare, industry, energy, and mobility. Part IV eventually offers an overview of several “Solutions and Applications”, eg including products and experiences from companies like Google, SAP, Huawei, T-Systems, Innopay and many more. Overall, the book provides professionals in industry with an encompassing overview of the technological and economic aspects of data spaces, based on the International Data Spaces and Gaia-X initiatives. It presents implementations and business cases and gives an outlook to future developments. In doing so, it aims at proliferating the vision of a social data market economy based on data spaces which embrace trust and data sovereignty

RobotChain: Artificial Intelligence on a Blockchain using Tezos Technology

Blockchain technology is not only growing everyday at a fast-passed rhythm, but it is also a disruptive technology that has changed how we look at financial transactions. By providing a way to trust an unknown network and by allowing us to conduct transactions without the need for a central authority, blockchain has grown exponentially. Moreover, blockchain also provides decentralization of the data, immutability, accessibility, non-repudiation and irreversibility properties that makes this technology a must in many industries. But, even thought blockchain provides interesting properties, it has not been extensively used outside the financial scope. Similarly, robots have been increasingly used in factories to automate tasks that range from picking objects, to transporting them and also to work collaboratively with humans to perform complex tasks. It is important to enforce that robots act between legal and moral boundaries and that their events and data are securely stored and auditable. This rarely happens, as robots are programmed to do a specific task without certainty that that task will always be performed correctly and their data is either locally stored, without security measures, or disregarded. This means that the data, especially logs, can be altered, which means that robots and manufacturers can be accused of problems that they did not cause. Henceforth, in this work, we sought to integrate blockchain with robotics with the goal to provide enhanced security to robots, to the data and to leverage artificial intelligence algorithms. By doing an extensive overview of the methods that integrate blockchain and artificial intelligence or robotics, we found that this is a growing field but there is a lack of proposals that try to improve robotic systems by using blockchain. It was also clear that most of the existing proposals that integrate artificial intelligence and blockchain, are focused on building marketplaces and only use the latter to storage transactions. So, in this document, we proposed three different methods that use blockchain to solve different problems associated with robots. The first one is a method to securely store robot logs in a blockchain by using smart-contracts as storage and automatically detect when anomalies occur in a robot by using the data contained in the blockchain and a smart-contract. By using smart-contracts, it is assured that the data is secure and immutable as long as the blockchain has enough peers to participate in the consensus process. The second method goes beyond registering events to also register information about external sensors, like a camera, and by using smart-contracts to allow Oracles to interact with the blockchain, it was possible to leverage image analysis algorithms that can detect the presence of material to be picked. This information is then inserted into a smart-contract that automatically defines the movement that a robot should have, regarding the number of materials present to be picked. The third proposal is a method that uses blockchain to store information about the robots and the images derived from a Kinect. This information is then used by Oracles that check if there is any person located inside a robot workspace. If there is any, this information is stored and different Oracles try to identify the person. Then, a smart-contract acts appropriately by changing or even stopping the robot depending on the identity of the person and if the person is located inside the warning or the critical zone surrounding the robot. With this work, we show how blockchain can be used in robotic environments and how it can beneficial in contexts where multi-party cooperation, security, and decentralization of the data is essential. We also show how Oracles can interact with the blockchain and distributively cooperate to leverage artificial intelligence algorithms to perform analysis in the data that allow us to detect robotic anomalies, material in images and the presence of people. We also show that smart-contracts can be used to perform more tasks than just serve the purpose of automatically do monetary transactions. The proposed architectures are modular and can be used in multiple contexts such as in manufacturing, network control, robot control, and others since they are easy to integrate, adapt, maintain and extend to new domains. We expect that the intersection of blockchain and robotics will shape part of the future of robotics once blockchain is more widely used and easy to integrate. This integration will be very prominent in tasks where robots need to behave under certain constraints, in swarm robotics due to the fact that blockchain offers global information and in factories because the actions undertaken by a robot can easily be extended to the rest of the robots by using smart-contracts.Hoje em dia é possível ver que a blockchain não está apenas a crescer a um ritmo exponencial, mas que é também uma tecnologia disruptiva que mudou a forma como trabalhamos com transações financeiras. Ao fornecer uma maneira eficiente de confiar numa rede desconhecida e de permitir realizar transações sem a necessidade de uma autoridade central, a blockchain cresceu rapidamente. Além disso, a blockchain fornece também descentralização de dados, imutabilidade, acessibilidade, não-repúdio e irreversibilidade, o que torna esta tecnologia indispensável em muitos setores. Mas, mesmo fornecendo propriedades interessantes, a blockchain não tem sido amplamente utilizada fora do âmbito financeiro. Da mesma forma, os robôs têm sido cada vez mais utilizados em fábricas para automatizar tarefas que vão desde pegar objetos, transportá-los e colaborar com humanos para realizar tarefas complexas. Porém, é importante impor que os robôs atuem entre certos limites legais e morais e que seus eventos e dados são armazenados com segurança e que estes possam ser auditáveis. O problema é que isso raramente acontece. Os robôs são programados para executar uma tarefa específica sem se ter total certeza de que essa tarefa irá ser executada sempre de maneira correta, e os seus dados são armazenados localmente, desconsiderando a segurança dos dados. Sendo que em muitas ocasiões, não existe qualquer segurança. Isso significa que os dados, especialmente os logs, podem ser alterados, o que pode resultar em que os robôs e, pela mesma linha de pensamento, os fabricantes, possam ser acusados de problemas que não causaram. Tendo isto em consideração, neste trabalho, procuramos integrar a blockchain com a robótica, com o objetivo de proporcionar maior segurança aos robôs e aos dados que geram e potenciar ainda a utilização de algoritmos de inteligência artificial. Fazendo uma visão abrangente dos métodos que propõem integrar a blockchain e inteligência artificial ou robótica, descobrimos que este é um campo em crescimento, mas que há uma falta de propostas que tentem melhorar os sistemas robóticos utilizando a blockchain. Ficou também claro que a maioria das propostas existentes que integram inteligência artificial e blockchain estão focadas na construção de marketplaces e só utilizam a blockchain para armazenar a informação sobre as transações que foram executadas. Assim, neste documento, propomos três métodos que utilizam a blockchain para resolver diferentes problemas associados a robôs. O primeiro é um método para armazenar, com segurança, logs de robôs dentro de uma blockchain, utilizando para isso smart-contracts como armazenamento. Neste método foi também proposta uma maneira de detetar anomalias em robôs automaticamente, utilizando para isso os dados contidos na blockchain e smart-contracts para definir a lógica do algoritmo. Ao utilizar smart-contracts, é garantido que os dados são seguros e imutáveis, desde que a blockchain contenha nós suficientes a participar no algoritmo de consenso. O segundo método vai além de registar eventos, para registar também informações sobre sensores externos, como uma câmara, e utilizando smart-contracts para permitir que Óraculos interajam com a blockchain, foi possível utilizar algoritmos de análise de imagens, que podem detetar a presença de material para ser recolhido. Esta informação é então inserida num smart-contract que define automaticamente o movimento que um robô deve ter, tendo em consideração a quantidade de material à espera para ser recolhida. A terceira proposta é um método que utiliza a blockchain para armazenar informações sobre robôs, e imagens provenientes de uma Kinect. Esta informação é então utilizada por Óraculos que verificam se existe alguma pessoa dentro do um espaço de trabalho de um robô. Se existir alguém, essa informação é armazenada e diferentes Óraculos tentam identificar a pessoa. No fim, um smart-contract age apropriadamente, mudando ou até mesmo parando o robô, dependendo da identidade da Com este trabalho, mostramos como a blockchain pode ser utilizada em ambientes onde existam robôs e como esta pode ser benéfica em contextos onde a cooperação entre várias entidades, a segurança e a descentralização dos dados são essenciais. Mostramos também como Óraculos podem interagir com a blockchain e cooperar de forma distribuída, para alavancar algoritmos de inteligência artificial de forma a realizar análises nos dados, o que nos permite detetar anomalias robóticas, material para ser recolhido e a presença de pessoas em imagens. Mostramos também que os smart-contracts podem ser utilizados para executar mais tarefas do que servir o propósito de fazer transações monetárias de forma automática. As arquiteturas propostas neste trabalho são modulares e podem ser utilizadas em vários contextos, como no fabrico de peças, controle de robô e outras. Devido ao facto de que as arquiteturas propostas, são fáceis de integrar, adaptar, manter e estender a novos domínios. A nossa opinião é que a interseção entre a blockchain e a robótica irá moldar parte do futuro da robótica moderna assim que a blockchain seja mais utilizada e fácil de integrar em sistemas robóticos. Esta integração será muito proeminente em tarefas onde os robôs precisam de se comportar sob certas restrições, em enxames de robôs, devido ao fato de que a blockchain fornece informação global sobre o estado da rede, e também em fábricas, porque as ações realizadas por um robô podem ser facilmente estendidas ao resto dos robôs, e porque fornece um mecanismo extra de segurança aos dados e a todas as ações que são efetuadas com ajuda de smart-contracts

Truth, Beauty, Freedom, and Money: Technology-Based Art and the Dynamics of Sustainability

Proposes innovative new approaches and models for art and technology institutions, and provides details for an "Arts Lab," a unique hybrid art center and research lab

From supply chains to demand networks. Agents in retailing: the electrical bazaar

A paradigm shift is taking place in logistics. The focus is changing from operational effectiveness to adaptation. Supply Chains will develop into networks that will adapt to consumer demand in almost real time. Time to market, capacity of adaptation and enrichment of customer experience seem to be the key elements of this new paradigm. In this environment emerging technologies like RFID (Radio Frequency ID), Intelligent Products and the Internet, are triggering a reconsideration of methods, procedures and goals. We present a Multiagent System framework specialized in retail that addresses these changes with the use of rational agents and takes advantages of the new market opportunities. Like in an old bazaar, agents able to learn, cooperate, take advantage of gossip and distinguish between collaborators and competitors, have the ability to adapt, learn and react to a changing environment better than any other structure. Keywords: Supply Chains, Distributed Artificial Intelligence, Multiagent System.Postprint (published version

Data Spaces

This open access book aims to educate data space designers to understand what is required to create a successful data space. It explores cutting-edge theory, technologies, methodologies, and best practices for data spaces for both industrial and personal data and provides the reader with a basis for understanding the design, deployment, and future directions of data spaces. The book captures the early lessons and experience in creating data spaces. It arranges these contributions into three parts covering design, deployment, and future directions respectively. The first part explores the design space of data spaces. The single chapters detail the organisational design for data spaces, data platforms, data governance federated learning, personal data sharing, data marketplaces, and hybrid artificial intelligence for data spaces. The second part describes the use of data spaces within real-world deployments. Its chapters are co-authored with industry experts and include case studies of data spaces in sectors including industry 4.0, food safety, FinTech, health care, and energy. The third and final part details future directions for data spaces, including challenges and opportunities for common European data spaces and privacy-preserving techniques for trustworthy data sharing. The book is of interest to two primary audiences: first, researchers interested in data management and data sharing, and second, practitioners and industry experts engaged in data-driven systems where the sharing and exchange of data within an ecosystem are critical