Design Space Exploration in Cyber-Physical Systems

Cyber physical systems (CPS) integrate a variety of engineering areas such as control, mechanical and computer engineering in a holistic design effort. While interdependencies between the different disciplines are key attributes of CPS design science, little is known about the impact of design decisions of the cyber part on the overall system qualities. To investigate these interdependencies, this paper proposes a simulation-based Design Space Exploration (DSE) framework that considers detailed cyber system parameters such as cache size, bus width, and voltage levels in addition to physical and control parameters of the CPS. We propose an exploration algorithm that surfs the parameter configurations in the cyber physical sub-systems, in order to approximate the Pareto-optimal design points with regards to the trade-os among the design objectives, such as energy consumption and control stability. We apply the proposed framework to a network control system for an inverted-pendulum application. The presented holistic evaluation of the identified Pareto-points reveals the presence of non-trivial trade-os, which are imposed by the control, physical, and detailed cyber parameters. For instance the identified energy and control optimal design points comprise configurations with a wide range of CPU speeds, sample times and cache configuration following non-trivial zig-zag patterns. The proposed framework could identify and manage those trade-os and, as a result, is an imperative rst step to automate the search for superior CSP configurations

OpenPING: A Reflective Middleware for the Construction of Adaptive Networked Game Applications

The emergence of distributed Virtual Reality (VR) applications that run over the Internet has presented networked game application designers with new challenges. In an environment where the public internet streams multimedia data and is constantly under pressure to deliver over widely heterogeneous user-platforms, there has been a growing need that distributed VR applications be aware of and adapt to frequent variations in their context of execution. In this paper, we argue that in contrast to research efforts targeted at improvement of scalability, persistence and responsiveness capabilities, much less attempts have been aimed at addressing the flexibility, maintainability and extensibility requirements in contemporary distributed VR platforms. We propose the use of structural reflection as an approach that not only addresses these requirements but also offers added value in the form of providing a framework for scalability, persistence and responsiveness that is itself flexible, maintainable and extensible. We also present an adaptive middleware platform implementation called OpenPING1 that supports our proposal in addressing these requirements

Towards evaluation design for smart city development

Smart city developments integrate digital, human, and physical systems in the built environment. With growing urbanization and widespread developments, identifying suitable evaluation methodologies is important. Case-study research across five UK cities - Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, Milton Keynes and Peterborough - revealed that city evaluation approaches were principally project-focused with city-level evaluation plans at early stages. Key challenges centred on selecting suitable evaluation methodologies to evidence urban value and outcomes, addressing city authority requirements. Recommendations for evaluation design draw on urban studies and measurement frameworks, capitalizing on big data opportunities and developing appropriate, valid, credible integrative approaches across projects, programmes and city-level developments

Low Power, Low Delay: Opportunistic Routing meets Duty Cycling

Traditionally, routing in wireless sensor networks consists of two steps: First, the routing protocol selects a next hop, and, second, the MAC protocol waits for the intended destination to wake up and receive the data. This design makes it difficult to adapt to link dynamics and introduces delays while waiting for the next hop to wake up. In this paper we introduce ORW, a practical opportunistic routing scheme for wireless sensor networks. In a dutycycled setting, packets are addressed to sets of potential receivers and forwarded by the neighbor that wakes up first and successfully receives the packet. This reduces delay and energy consumption by utilizing all neighbors as potential forwarders. Furthermore, this increases resilience to wireless link dynamics by exploiting spatial diversity. Our results show that ORW reduces radio duty-cycles on average by 50% (up to 90% on individual nodes) and delays by 30% to 90% when compared to the state of the art

An architecture for organisational decision support

The Decision Support (DS) topic of the Network Enabled Capability for Through Life Systems Engineering (NECTISE) project aims to provide organisational through-life decision support for the products and services that BAE Systems deliver. The topic consists of five streams that cover resource capability management, decision management, collaboration, change prediction and integration. A proposed architecture is presented for an Integrated Decision Support Environment (IDSE) that combines the streams to provide a structured approach to addressing a number of issues that have been identified by BAE Systems business units as being relevant to DS: uncertainty and risk, shared situational awareness, types of decision making, decision tempo, triggering of decisions, and support for autonomous decision making. The proposed architecture will identify how either individuals or groups of decision makers (including autonomous agents) would be utilised on the basis of their capability within the requirements of the scenario to collaboratively solve the decision problem. Features of the scenario such as time criticality, required experience level, the need for justification, and conflict management, will be addressed within the architecture to ensure that the most appropriate decision management support (system/naturalistic/hybrid) is provided. In addition to being reliant on a number of human factors issues, the decision making process is also reliant on a number of information issues: overload, consistency, completeness, uncertainty and evolution, which will be discussed within the context of the architecture