IoT system for the validation of conditions in shipping couriers

The growth in online activity these days has caused an increase in the number of online shopping businesses. As the shopping experience becomes less personal, some people try to abuse online businesses with return fraud. The number of IoT devices has also experienced growth due to the fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, which consists of process automation and data exchange in the industry through IoT and machine learning. This dissertation includes research questions, hypotheses, objectives, and a methodology for the development of a system that integrates IoT to solve the problem of fraudulent returns. The prototype developed monitors when packages leave the facilities and when they are delivered, in addition to allowing to check upon the packages’ integrity at these same moments. This is achieved by using a Raspberry Pi with a camera attached and an ESP32 with a motion sensor, connected via the MQTT and Node-RED protocol. To evaluate the system, several tests were created to simulate a scenario of real-world application. With the results obtained, it is possible to conclude that the development was a success and that the prototype can be used in logistics business to prevent return fraud.O aumento da atividade online nos dias de hoje tem causado um aumento no número de lojas de comércio online. À medida que a experiência de compra se torna menos pessoal, algumas pessoas tentam abusar negócios online com fraudes de devolução. O número de dispositivos IoT também tem crescido devido à quarta revolução industrial, ou Indústria 4.0, que consiste na automação de processos e troca de dados na indústria através de IoT e machine learning. Esta dissertação inclui questões de investigação, hipóteses, objetivos e uma metodologia para o desenvolvimento de um sistema que integra IoT para resolver o problema de devoluções fraudulentas. O protótipo desenvolvido monitoriza quando encomendas saem das instalações e quando são entregues, para além de permitir a verificação da integridade física das encomendas nestes mesmos momentos. Isto é alcançado com o uso de um Raspberry Pi com uma câmara associada e um ESP32 com um sensor de movimento, conectados entre si através do protocolo MQTT e Node-RED. Para avaliar o sistema, vários testes foram criados de forma a simular um cenário de aplicação no mundo real. Os resultados obtidos permitem concluir que o desenvolvimento foi um sucesso e que o protótipo pode ser usado em empresas de logística, distribuição e transporte para evitar fraudes de devolução

A prospective geoinformatic approach to indoor navigation for Unmanned Air System (UAS) by use of quick response (QR) codes

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesThis research study explores a navigation system for autonomous indoor flight of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) dead reckoning with Inertial Navigation System (INS) and the use of low cost artificial landmarks, Quick Response (QR) codes placed on the floor and allows for fully autonomous flight with all computation done onboard UAS on embedded hardware. We provide a detailed description of all system components and application. Additionally, we show how the system is integrated with a commercial UAS and provide results of experimental autonomous flight tests. To our knowledge, this system is one of the first to allow for complete closed-loop control and goal-driven navigation of a UAS in an indoor setting without requiring connection to any external infrastructures

Firefighting Remote Exploration Device

Fire environments are dangerous and constantly changing. The goal of this project was to design and build a robot to provide firefighters with additional information about a fire environment to help them make more informed decisions when fighting a fire. We have built a prototype robot that is compact and quick to deploy, with a heat, water, and impact-resistant chassis designed to function in unpredictable firegrounds. The remote-controlled robot returns a real-time video feed and a heat map of a designated area in a building

Electrify Atwater Kent

The Electrify Atwater Kent project aims to breathe new life into the dull, dreary building of Atwater Kent. LED stairs, bringing a modern look to the front stairwell, as well as the RasPiano, with customizable filters and visualizations to demonstrate the discipline of signal processing, will be installed in the building. With a full installation the project aimsto make Atwater Kent not just a more welcoming space that students feel comfortable studying in, but an inspiration for future engineers as well

Phoenix Y6

The mission of this project is to design and fabricate a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) fixed-wing drone for use by firefighters and other emergency services. This vehicle will be designed for uses that include surveying wildfires, as well as spotting vehicular accidents, urban fires, and floods. Current drones available on the market are expensive or not designed specifically for emergency response. Our goal is to develop a working prototype of a vehicle that will be able to collect and relay important data such as live video and thermal images in addition to other measurements such as air velocity and humidity

Vibration edge computing in maritime IoT

IoT and the Cloud are among the most disruptive changes in the way we use data today. These changes have not significantly influenced practices in condition monitoring for shipping. This is partly due to the cost of continuous data transmission. Several vessels are already equipped with a network of sensors. However, continuous monitoring is often not utilised and onshore visibility is obscured. Edge computing is a promising solution but there is a challenge sustaining the required accuracy for predictive maintenance. We investigate the use of IoT systems and Edge computing, evaluating the impact of the proposed solution on the decision making process. Data from a sensor and the NASA-IMS open repository were used to show the effectiveness of the proposed system and to evaluate it in a realistic maritime application. The results demonstrate our real-time dynamic intelligent reduction of transmitted data volume by without sacrificing specificity or sensitivity in decision making. The output of the Decision Support System fully corresponds to the monitored system's actual operating condition and the output when the raw data are used instead. The results demonstrate that the proposed more efficient approach is just as effective for the decision making process

Towards Robust and Efficient Communications for Urban Air Mobility

For the realization of the future urban air mobility, reliable information exchange based on robust and efficient communication between all airspace participants will be one of the key factors to ensure safe operations. Especially in dense urban scenarios, the direct and fast information exchange between drones based on Drone-to-Drone communications is a promising technology for enabling reliable collision avoidance systems. However, to mitigate collisions and to increase overall reliability, unmanned aircraft still lack a redundant, higher-level safety net to coordinate and monitor traffic, as is common in today's civil aviation. In addition, direct and fast information exchange based on ad hoc communication is needed to cope with the very short reaction times required to avoid collisions and to cope with the the high traffic densities. Therefore, we are developing a \ac{d2d} communication and surveillance system, called DroneCAST, which is specifically tailored to the requirements of a future urban airspace and will be part of a multi-link approach. In this work we discuss challenges and expected safety-critical applications that will have to rely on communications for \ac{uam} and present our communication concept and necessary steps towards DroneCAST. As a first step towards an implementation, we equipped two drones with hardware prototypes of the experimental communication system and performed several flights around the model city to evaluate the performance of the hardware and to demonstrate different applications that will rely on robust and efficient communications

Teaching IIoT through Hands-on Activities

This chapter describes a hands-on educational approach to teach Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), including activities like problem analysis, programming, testing and debugging. Students are given autonomy to propose and evaluate different solutions, using adequate tools and following best practices. In parallel, key competencies like team management, project planning, costing and time scheduling, are imbibed in students to prepare them to become deployable automation engineers. To illustrate the proposed approach, we elaborate on the experience gained from teaching an elective course to undergraduate engineering students, in terms of learning outcomes, methodology, assessment and feedback. This course was centered on the Node Red platform (based on Node.js), using hardware devices like Arduino Uno, Nano and Raspberry Pi. Sensors commonly used and protocols like Modbus RTU/TCP, OPC UA, MQTT are discussed in the framework of common industrial applications

Collaboratively Navigating Autonomous Systems

The objective of this project is to focus on technologies for enabling heterogeneous networks of autonomous vehicles to cooperate together on a specific task. The prototyped test bed consists of a retrofitted electric golf cart and a quadrotor designed to perform distributed information gathering to guide decision making across the entire test bed. The system prototype demonstrates several aspects of this technology and lays the groundwork for future projects in this area