MusA: Using Indoor Positioning and Navigation to Enhance Cultural Experiences in a museum

In recent years there has been a growing interest into the use of multimedia mobile guides in museum environments. Mobile devices have the capabilities to detect the user context and to provide pieces of information suitable to help visitors discovering and following the logical and emotional connections that develop during the visit. In this scenario, location based services (LBS) currently represent an asset, and the choice of the technology to determine users' position, combined with the definition of methods that can effectively convey information, become key issues in the design process. In this work, we present MusA (Museum Assistant), a general framework for the development of multimedia interactive guides for mobile devices. Its main feature is a vision-based indoor positioning system that allows the provision of several LBS, from way-finding to the contextualized communication of cultural contents, aimed at providing a meaningful exploration of exhibits according to visitors' personal interest and curiosity. Starting from the thorough description of the system architecture, the article presents the implementation of two mobile guides, developed to respectively address adults and children, and discusses the evaluation of the user experience and the visitors' appreciation of these application

A review of the internet of floods : near real-time detection of a flood event and its impact

Worldwide, flood events frequently have a dramatic impact on urban societies. Time is key during a flood event in order to evacuate vulnerable people at risk, minimize the socio-economic, ecologic and cultural impact of the event and restore a society from this hazard as quickly as possible. Therefore, detecting a flood in near real-time and assessing the risks relating to these flood events on the fly is of great importance. Therefore, there is a need to search for the optimal way to collect data in order to detect floods in real time. Internet of Things (IoT) is the ideal method to bring together data of sensing equipment or identifying tools with networking and processing capabilities, allow them to communicate with one another and with other devices and services over the Internet to accomplish the detection of floods in near real-time. The main objective of this paper is to report on the current state of research on the IoT in the domain of flood detection. Current trends in IoT are identified, and academic literature is examined. The integration of IoT would greatly enhance disaster management and, therefore, will be of greater importance into the future

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)

A Comprehensive Review of AI-enabled Unmanned Aerial Vehicle: Trends, Vision , and Challenges

In recent years, the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has brought about advancements in various areas. This comprehensive analysis explores the changing landscape of AI-powered UAVs and friendly computing in their applications. It covers emerging trends, futuristic visions, and the inherent challenges that come with this relationship. The study examines how AI plays a role in enabling navigation, detecting and tracking objects, monitoring wildlife, enhancing precision agriculture, facilitating rescue operations, conducting surveillance activities, and establishing communication among UAVs using environmentally conscious computing techniques. By delving into the interaction between AI and UAVs, this analysis highlights the potential for these technologies to revolutionise industries such as agriculture, surveillance practices, disaster management strategies, and more. While envisioning possibilities, it also takes a look at ethical considerations, safety concerns, regulatory frameworks to be established, and the responsible deployment of AI-enhanced UAV systems. By consolidating insights from research endeavours in this field, this review provides an understanding of the evolving landscape of AI-powered UAVs while setting the stage for further exploration in this transformative domain

The Exploitation of Data from Remote and Human Sensors for Environment Monitoring in the SMAT Project

In this paper, we outline the functionalities of a system that integrates and controls a fleet of Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAVs). UAVs have a set of payload sensors employed for territorial surveillance, whose outputs are stored in the system and analysed by the data exploitation functions at different levels. In particular, we detail the second level data exploitation function whose aim is to improve the sensors data interpretation in the post-mission activities. It is concerned with the mosaicking of the aerial images and the cartography enrichment by human sensors—the social media users. We also describe the software architecture for the development of a mash-up (the integration of information and functionalities coming from the Web) and the possibility of using human sensors in the monitoring of the territory, a field in which, traditionally, the involved sensors were only the hardware ones.JRC.H.6-Digital Earth and Reference Dat

Application of Image Analytics for Disaster Response in Smart Cities

Post-disaster, city planners need to effectively plan response activities and assign rescue teams to specific disaster zones quickly. We address the problem of lack of accurate information of the disaster zones and existence of human survivors in debris using image analytics from smart city data. Innovative usage of smart city infrastructure is proposed as a potential solution to this issue. We collected images from earthquake-hit smart urban environments and implemented a CNN model for classification of these images to identify human body parts out of the debris. TensorFlow backend (using Keras) was utilized for this classification. We were able to achieve 83.2% accuracy from our model. The novel application of image data from smart city infrastructure and the resultant findings from our model has significant implications for effective disaster response operations, especially in smart cities

Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks

In this chapter, we present a literature survey of an emerging, cutting-edge, and multi-disciplinary field of research at the intersection of Robotics and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which we refer to as Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks (RWSN). We define a RWSN as an autonomous networked multi-robot system that aims to achieve certain sensing goals while meeting and maintaining certain communication performance requirements, through cooperative control, learning and adaptation. While both of the component areas, i.e., Robotics and WSN, are very well-known and well-explored, there exist a whole set of new opportunities and research directions at the intersection of these two fields which are relatively or even completely unexplored. One such example would be the use of a set of robotic routers to set up a temporary communication path between a sender and a receiver that uses the controlled mobility to the advantage of packet routing. We find that there exist only a limited number of articles to be directly categorized as RWSN related works whereas there exist a range of articles in the robotics and the WSN literature that are also relevant to this new field of research. To connect the dots, we first identify the core problems and research trends related to RWSN such as connectivity, localization, routing, and robust flow of information. Next, we classify the existing research on RWSN as well as the relevant state-of-the-arts from robotics and WSN community according to the problems and trends identified in the first step. Lastly, we analyze what is missing in the existing literature, and identify topics that require more research attention in the future

Robust, Resilient Networked Communication in Challenged Environments

In challenged environments, digital communication infrastructure may be difficult or even impossible to access. This is especially true in rural and developing regions, as well as in any region during a time of political or environmental crisis. We advance the state of the art in wireless networking and security to design networks and applications that rapidly assess changing networking conditions to restore communication and provide local situational awareness. This dissertation examines new systems for responding to current and emerging needs for wireless networks. This work looks across the wireless ecosystem of widely deployed standards. We develop new tools to improve network assessment and to provide robust and reliable network communication. By incorporating new technological breakthroughs, such as the wide commercial success of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), we introduce novel methods and systems for existing wireless standards for these challenged networks. We assess how existing technologies and standards function in difficult environments: lacking end-end Internet connectivity, experiencing overload or other resource constraints, and operating in three dimensional space. Through this lens, we demonstrate how to optimize networks to serve marginalized communities outside of first world urban cities and make our networks resilient to natural and political crisis that threaten communication