Towards the Internet of Smart Trains: A Review on Industrial IoT-Connected Railways

[Abstract] Nowadays, the railway industry is in a position where it is able to exploit the opportunities created by the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) and enabling communication technologies under the paradigm of Internet of Trains. This review details the evolution of communication technologies since the deployment of GSM-R, describing the main alternatives and how railway requirements, specifications and recommendations have evolved over time. The advantages of the latest generation of broadband communication systems (e.g., LTE, 5G, IEEE 802.11ad) and the emergence of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for the railway environment are also explained together with the strategic roadmap to ensure a smooth migration from GSM-R. Furthermore, this survey focuses on providing a holistic approach, identifying scenarios and architectures where railways could leverage better commercial IIoT capabilities. After reviewing the main industrial developments, short and medium-term IIoT-enabled services for smart railways are evaluated. Then, it is analyzed the latest research on predictive maintenance, smart infrastructure, advanced monitoring of assets, video surveillance systems, railway operations, Passenger and Freight Information Systems (PIS/FIS), train control systems, safety assurance, signaling systems, cyber security and energy efficiency. Overall, it can be stated that the aim of this article is to provide a detailed examination of the state-of-the-art of different technologies and services that will revolutionize the railway industry and will allow for confronting today challenges.Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; ED431C 2016-045Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; ED341D R2016/012Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; ED431G/01Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España); TEC2013-47141-C4-1-RAgencia Estatal de Investigación (España); TEC2015-69648-REDCAgencia Estatal de Investigación (España); TEC2016-75067-C4-1-

Design and implementation aspects of open source next generation networks (NGN) test-bed software toolkits

Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien bilden seit langem das immer wichtiger werdende Rückgrat der weltweiten Wirtschaft und Telekommunikation, in der speziell Telekommunikationsnetze und -dienste einen elementaren Anteil tragen. Durch die Konvergenz von Telekommunikations- und Internettechnologien hat sich die Telekommunikationslandschaft in der letzten Dekade drastisch verändert. Bislang geschlossene Telekommunikationsumgebungen haben sich imWandel zum sogenannten Next Generation Network (NGN) hinsichtlich unterstützter Zugangsnetztechnologien und angebotener multimedialer Anwendungen sowie der eingesetzten Protokolle und Dienste zu komplexen, hochdynamischen, Multi-Service Infrastrukturen gewandelt. Die Kontrollschicht solcher NGNs ist dabei von übergeordneter Bedeutung, da diese zwischen den Zugangsnetzen und den Anwendungen sitzt. Der Einsatz und die Optimierung des IP-Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) wurde in diesem Kontext Jahrelang erforscht und diskutiert und es repräsentiert heute die weltweit anerkannte Kontrollplattform für feste und mobile Telekommunikationsnetze. Die Forschung an Protokollen und Diensten in diesen NGN Umgebungen ist aufgrund der Konvergenz von Technologien, Anwendungen und Business Modellen sowie der hohen Dynamik aber kurzen Innovationszyklen hochkomplex. Der frühzeitigen Zugang zu herstellerunabhängigen – aber dicht an der Produktwelt angelehnten - Validierungsinfrastrukturen, sogenannten offenen Technologietest-beds, kurz Test-beds, ist daher für Forschungs- und Entwicklungsabteilungen unerlässlich Die vorliegende Dissertation beschreibt die umfangreiche Forschungsarbeit des Autors auf dem Gebiet der offenen NGN Test-beds über die letzten neun Jahre und konzentriert sich dabei auf Entwurf, Entwicklung und Bereitstellung des Open Source IMS Core Projekt, das seit Jahren die Grundlage für eine Vielzahl von NGN Test-beds und zahllose NGN Forschungs- und Entwicklungsprojekte im akademischen als auch Industrienahen Umfeld rund um den Globus darstellt. Dabei wird ein großer Schwerpunkt auf die Anforderungen hinsichtlich Flexibilität, Leistung, Funktionalitätsumfang und Interoperabilität, sowie elementare Designprinzipien von Test-bedwerkzeugen gelegt. Die Arbeit beschreibt und bewertet darüberhinaus den Einsatz von Open Source Prinzipien und veranschaulicht die Vorteile dieses Ansatzes hinsichtlich Einfluss und Nachhaltigkeit der Forschung anhand des Aufbaus einer globalen Open Source IMS Core (OpenIMSCore) Forschungs-Community. Außerdem veranschaulicht die Arbeit zum Ende die Wiederverwendbarkeit der wesentlichen angewendeten Designprinzipien an anderen maßgeblich durch den Autor entwickelten Test-bed Werkzeugen, insbesondere dem Open Evolved Packet Core (OpenEPC) für die nahtlose Integration verschiedener Breitbandnetztechnologien.Information and Communication Technologies provide for a long time already the backbone of telecommunication networks, such that communication services represent an elementary foundation of today’s globally connected economy. The telecommunication landscape has experienced dramatic transformations through the convergence of the Telecom and the Internet worlds. The previously closed telecommunication domain is currently transforming itself through the so-called NGN evolution into a highly dynamic multiservice infrastructure, supporting rich multimedia applications, as well as providing comprehensive support for various access technologies. The control layer of such NGNs is then of paramount importance, as representing the convergent mediator between access and services. The use and the optimization of the IP-Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) was researched and considered in this domain for many years now, such that today it represents the world-wide recognized control platform for fixed and mobile NGNs. Research on protocols and services for such NGN architectures, due to the convergence of technologies, applications and business models, as well as for enabling highly dynamic and short innovation cycles, is highly complex and requires early access to vendor independent - yet close to real life systems - validation environments, the so-called open technology test-beds. The present thesis describes the extensive research of the author over the last nine years in the field of open NGN test-beds. It focuses on the design, development and deployment of the Open Source IMS Core project, which represents since years the foundation of numerous NGN test-beds and countless NGN Research & Development projects in the academia as well as the industry domain around the globe. A major emphasis is given for ensuring flexibility, performance, reference functionality and inter-operability, as well as satisfying elementary design principles of such test-bed toolkits. The study also describes and evaluates the use of Open Source principles, highlighting the advantages of using it in regard to the creation, impact and sustainability of a global OpenIMSCore research community. Moreover, the work documents that the essential design principles and methodology employed can be reused in a generic way to create test-bed toolkits in other technology domains. This is shown by introducing the OpenEPC project, which provides for seamless integration of different mobile broadband technologies

Next-Generation Self-Organizing Networks through a Machine Learning Approach

Fecha de lectura de Tesis Doctoral: 17 Diciembre 2018.Para reducir los costes de gestión de las redes celulares, que, con el tiempo, aumentaban en complejidad, surgió el concepto de las redes autoorganizadas, o self-organizing networks (SON). Es decir, la automatización de las tareas de gestión de una red celular para disminuir los costes de infraestructura (CAPEX) y de operación (OPEX). Las tareas de las SON se dividen en tres categorías: autoconfiguración, autooptimización y autocuración. El objetivo de esta tesis es la mejora de las funciones SON a través del desarrollo y uso de herramientas de aprendizaje automático (machine learning, ML) para la gestión de la red. Por un lado, se aborda la autocuración a través de la propuesta de una novedosa herramienta para una diagnosis automática (RCA), consistente en la combinación de múltiples sistemas RCA independientes para el desarrollo de un sistema compuesto de RCA mejorado. A su vez, para aumentar la precisión de las herramientas de RCA mientras se reducen tanto el CAPEX como el OPEX, en esta tesis se proponen y evalúan herramientas de ML de reducción de dimensionalidad en combinación con herramientas de RCA. Por otro lado, en esta tesis se estudian las funcionalidades multienlace dentro de la autooptimización y se proponen técnicas para su gestión automática. En el campo de las comunicaciones mejoradas de banda ancha, se propone una herramienta para la gestión de portadoras radio, que permite la implementación de políticas del operador, mientras que, en el campo de las comunicaciones vehiculares de baja latencia, se propone un mecanismo multicamino para la redirección del tráfico a través de múltiples interfaces radio. Muchos de los métodos propuestos en esta tesis se han evaluado usando datos provenientes de redes celulares reales, lo que ha permitido demostrar su validez en entornos realistas, así como su capacidad para ser desplegados en redes móviles actuales y futuras

Sharing Sustainability

The paper reports the results of a phase of the research Project “Sharing Mobility” developed by the authors at the Department of Architecture of the University of Naples "Federico II". The thesis is that sharing mobility can positively affect sustainability of Mediterranean metropolitan areas if implemented on a multiscale-multimodal approach strongly linked with the existing public transport facilities.In order to verify the results and the applicability of the proposed procedural model to the Mediterranean cities, after a review of literature and best practices on sharing mobility, it was also envisaged the preparation of a pilot project for the Metropolitan Area of Naples.The results, in confirming the thesis, show that the Metropolitan Cities, recently implemented in Italian institutional framework, can efficiently implement and manage sharing mobility better than any other well established public authority or little municipality

Mission-Critical Communications from LMR to 5G: a Technology Assessment approach for Smart City scenarios

Radiocommunication networks are one of the main support tools of agencies that carry out actions in Public Protection & Disaster Relief (PPDR), and it is necessary to update these communications technologies from narrowband to broadband and integrated to information technologies to have an effective action before society. Understanding that this problem includes, besides the technical aspects, issues related to the social context to which these systems are inserted, this study aims to construct scenarios, using several sources of information, that helps the managers of the PPDR agencies in the technological decisionmaking process of the Digital Transformation of Mission-Critical Communication considering Smart City scenarios, guided by the methods and approaches of Technological Assessment (TA).As redes de radiocomunicações são uma das principais ferramentas de apoio dos órgãos que realizam ações de Proteção Pública e Socorro em desastres, sendo necessário atualizar essas tecnologias de comunicação de banda estreita para banda larga, e integra- las às tecnologias de informação, para se ter uma atuação efetiva perante a sociedade . Entendendo que esse problema inclui, além dos aspectos técnicos, questões relacionadas ao contexto social ao qual esses sistemas estão inseridos, este estudo tem por objetivo a construção de cenários, utilizando diversas fontes de informação que auxiliem os gestores destas agências na tomada de decisão tecnológica que envolve a transformação digital da Comunicação de Missão Crítica considerando cenários de Cidades Inteligentes, guiado pelos métodos e abordagens de Avaliação Tecnológica (TA)

The influences on the two inner city housing projects of the Bo Kaap and District Six in Cape Town that were built between 1938 and 1944

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 77-81).This study examines the social, political, and architectural influences that shaped the two Cape Town inner city housing projects in the Bo Kaap and District Six that were built after the introduciton of the Slums Act of 1943, between 1938 and 1944. During this period there there were changes in the hegemonic perceptions of the city. The eradication of slums served as a catalyst for spatial change and the dislocation of lived space as the city sought to re-create itself as a modern, rationally planned metropolis. The civic authorities and architects appeared to use the criteria of the modernist discourse as a mechanism to wield social control on marginalised members of society; creating mechanisms of removal, exclusion, surveillance and control based on ethnicity. This reflects the perceptions of the French philosopher, Foucault regarding power and control

The development of universal telephone service in Ireland 1880-1993

This research examines the development of universal service in Ireland over the period from 1880 to 1993. Universal service is a key element o f telecommunications policy. Its precise meaning is the subject o f dispute between differing political outlooks buts its objectives are essentially understood as socially-oriented, promoting the diffusion of telecommunications technologies beyond that achieved by the market, and facilitating access to those same technologies at affordable rates. Differences over the precise meaning of universal service are also the result of the long history of universal service. Although the term itself is a twentieth century one, it has been argued that its fundamental tenets are embodied in particular policy objectives and in particular the long established concept of public service. Thus this research has examined the history of the concept in Ireland over the period of a century with a view to understanding how the current working definition of universal service has been arrived at. The research looks in depth at the development and diffusion of the telephone across Ireland. It describes how the telephone network has expanded from the cities to reach the entire geographical extent of Ireland. It also examines the factors which have driven and the factors which have constrained the development of the telephone network: the overall economic condition of the country, the respective influences of industry, agriculture and society at large, the development of new telecommunication technologies and the perception of the role of the telephone on the part of those with the greatest influence on its expansion: the private companies, governments departments and state agencies which have been charged with the operation of the telephone service. In short this research seeks to identify the specific political, economic, social and technological factors that shaped the development of the telephone system in Ireland. in the final chapters, the research describes universal service as it is in Ireland of the 1990s, concluding that ultimately the scope o f universal service policy in Ireland has been severely constrained both by economic factors (the cost of providing the service) and a political unwillingness to effectively recognise the social role of the telephone. Thus whilst the research considers how new information and communication technologies will affect future conceptions of universal service, it argues that the philosophy underlying the provision of the “plain old telephone service” in Ireland falls far short of the ideal of universal service