Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Communication Networks for the Maritime Internet of Things: Key Technologies, Opportunities, and Challenges

With the rapid development of marine activities, there has been an increasing number of maritime mobile terminals, as well as a growing demand for high-speed and ultra-reliable maritime communications to keep them connected. Traditionally, the maritime Internet of Things (IoT) is enabled by maritime satellites. However, satellites are seriously restricted by their high latency and relatively low data rate. As an alternative, shore & island-based base stations (BSs) can be built to extend the coverage of terrestrial networks using fourth-generation (4G), fifth-generation (5G), and beyond 5G services. Unmanned aerial vehicles can also be exploited to serve as aerial maritime BSs. Despite of all these approaches, there are still open issues for an efficient maritime communication network (MCN). For example, due to the complicated electromagnetic propagation environment, the limited geometrically available BS sites, and rigorous service demands from mission-critical applications, conventional communication and networking theories and methods should be tailored for maritime scenarios. Towards this end, we provide a survey on the demand for maritime communications, the state-of-the-art MCNs, and key technologies for enhancing transmission efficiency, extending network coverage, and provisioning maritime-specific services. Future challenges in developing an environment-aware, service-driven, and integrated satellite-air-ground MCN to be smart enough to utilize external auxiliary information, e.g., sea state and atmosphere conditions, are also discussed

Precise vehicle location as a fundamental parameter for intelligent selfaware rail-track maintenance systems

The rail industry in the UK is undergoing substantial changes in response to a modernisation vision for 2040. Development and implementation of these will lead to a highly automated and safe railway. Real-time regulation of traffic will optimise the performance of the network, with trains running in succession within an adjacent movable safety zone. Critically, maintenance will use intelligent trainborne and track-based systems. These will provide accurate and timely information for condition based intervention at precise track locations, reducing possession downtime and minimising the presence of workers in operating railways. Clearly, precise knowledge of trains’ real-time location is of paramount importance. The positional accuracy demand of the future railway is less than 2m. A critical consideration of this requirement is the capability to resolve train occupancy in adjacent tracks, with the highest degree of confidence. A finer resolution is required for locating faults such as damage or missing parts, precisely. Location of trains currently relies on track signalling technology. However, these systems mostly provide an indication of the presence of trains within discrete track sections. The standard Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), cannot precisely and reliably resolve location as required either. Within the context of the needs of the future railway, state of the art location technologies and systems were reviewed and critiqued. It was found that no current technology is able to resolve location as required. Uncertainty is a significant factor. A new integrated approach employing complimentary technologies and more efficient data fusion process, can potentially offer a more accurate and robust solution. Data fusion architectures enabling intelligent self-aware rail-track maintenance systems are proposed

SOAR (Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research) Annual Report 1995/1996

The Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research (SOAR) was a facility of the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs whose mission is to make airborne geophysical observations available to the broad research community of geology, glaciology and other sciences. The central office of the SOAR facility is located in Austin, Texas within the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. Other institutions with significant responsibilities are the Lamont­ Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and the Geophysics Branch of the U.S . Geological Survey. This report summarizes the goals and accomplishments of the SOAR facility during 1995/1996 and plans for the next year.National Science Foundation's Office of Polar ProgramsInstitute for Geophysic

SOAR (Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research) Annual Report 1994/1995

The Support Office for Aerogeophysical Research (SOAR) was a facility of the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs whose mission is to make airborne geophysical observations available to the broad research community of geology, glaciology and other sciences. The central office of the SOAR facility is located in Austin, Texas within the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics. Other institutions with significant responsibilities are the Lamont­ Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University and the Geophysics Branch of the U.S . Geological Survey. This report summarizes the goals and accomplishments of the SOAR facility during 1994/1995 and plans for the next year.National Science Foundation's Office of Polar ProgramsInstitute for Geophysic

The Implementation of an Intelligent Logistics Tracking System Utilizing RFID

Due to globalization and the advancement of technology, the differences are lessened among businesses in terms of IT capabilities and product quality. Operation cost has become a critical key factor of success that determines company’s profit level, as well as its competence in the market. Under the environment of electronic-commerce, logistics in the supply chain ensures a stable supply of stocks to satisfy customer’s demands. An efficient supply chain requires a sound inventory system and operates in coordination with well designed shipping processes. Present shipping process uses barcode in tracking the flow of materials; however, scanning barcode one at a time is tedious and inefficient. Recently, RFID has been regarded as an important technology that influences the growth of global industries in the near future. RFID is able to effectively reduce the overall cost of logistics. However, application of RFID on supply chain management is still at its infant stage. Therefore, this research attempts to develop a prototype of a Smart Logistics Tracking System (SLTS) utilizing RFID. The proposed system aims to replace barcode with RFID, eradicate the time-consuming scanning procedure and ensures an efficient flow of materials. SLTS provides a cargo tracking platform that reports real-time location of the cargo and its flow

TRACKING AND TRACING PORTAL FOR PROJECT LOGISTICS. A Review on the Interconnectivity of EDI, ERP and Cloud-based Systems

Tracking and tracing is becoming an essential factor for the success of project logistics. The safety and on-time arrival of shipments has become the primary concerns for manufacturing companies. The paper has introduced an overall approach to track and trace their deliveries from the starting point to the end-customer. Detail implementation of the whole solution will not be presented, yet each component in the system will be analyzed and discussed. Electronic Data Exchange (EDI) has been around for the last 30 years and is known for providing logistics companies a fast, reliable way to exchange information electronically. EDI, together with Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), are considered as one of the remarkable emerging technologies which play an important role in supply chain management tracking network. Although the implementation of EDI and ERP systems is not straight forward and not easy to established, many logistics companies are still seeing this as a vital factor which can help companies to establish a sustainable development, increase productivity and reduce costs. In this paper, the interconnectivity of EDI, ERP, and cloud-based systems in tracking and tracing portal will be analyzed in business perspective in order to define what benefits it could achieve for logistics and supply chain management tracking network. A case study of Logistics Tracking Network (LogTrack) project is presented and examined with the view to implement, evaluate and manage the interconnectivity of EDI, ERP, and cloud-based systems in a practical point of view. Information collected from this research project will be analyzed to provide a list of mapping attributes between these systems and used as a basic for the further development of tracking and tracing portal. The impacts and implications of such system for managing the business logistics are discussed and presented in conclusion.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Architecture and Information Requirements to Assess and Predict Flight Safety Risks During Highly Autonomous Urban Flight Operations

As aviation adopts new and increasingly complex operational paradigms, vehicle types, and technologies to broaden airspace capability and efficiency, maintaining a safe system will require recognition and timely mitigation of new safety issues as they emerge and before significant consequences occur. A shift toward a more predictive risk mitigation capability becomes critical to meet this challenge. In-time safety assurance comprises monitoring, assessment, and mitigation functions that proactively reduce risk in complex operational environments where the interplay of hazards may not be known (and therefore not accounted for) during design. These functions can also help to understand and predict emergent effects caused by the increased use of automation or autonomous functions that may exhibit unexpected non-deterministic behaviors. The envisioned monitoring and assessment functions can look for precursors, anomalies, and trends (PATs) by applying model-based and data-driven methods. Outputs would then drive downstream mitigation(s) if needed to reduce risk. These mitigations may be accomplished using traditional design revision processes or via operational (and sometimes automated) mechanisms. The latter refers to the in-time aspect of the system concept. This report comprises architecture and information requirements and considerations toward enabling such a capability within the domain of low altitude highly autonomous urban flight operations. This domain may span, for example, public-use surveillance missions flown by small unmanned aircraft (e.g., infrastructure inspection, facility management, emergency response, law enforcement, and/or security) to transportation missions flown by larger aircraft that may carry passengers or deliver products. Caveat: Any stated requirements in this report should be considered initial requirements that are intended to drive research and development (R&D). These initial requirements are likely to evolve based on R&D findings, refinement of operational concepts, industry advances, and new industry or regulatory policies or standards related to safety assurance

Augmented Sustainability Reports: A Design Science Approach

Sustainability reports provide stakeholders with information about a company’s efforts to balance its economic, ecological and social goals. Because of their influence on a company’s image as well as on the customers’ buying and shareholders’ investment decisions, sustainability reports are an integral part of today’s corporate online communication. Following a design science research approach, this paper describes the design, prototypical implementation and evaluation of augmented sustainability reports. In contrast to traditional PDF- or print media-based sustainability reports, augmented sustainability reports contain multimedia contextual information that is displayed depending on the user’s gaze position. In our prototype the gaze position is simulated using mouse tracking. The comparative evaluation of the prototype was conducted via a quantitative questionnaire based on the technology acceptance model (TAM). Additionally, qualitative feedback was gathered during the course of the evaluation. Traditional and augmented sustainability reports were compared on the basis of the questionnaire results which reveal room for improvement of the prototype as well as possible starting points for future research. Overall, the evaluation results indicate that our test users had a strong preference for the augmented sustainability report compared to the PDF-based report even though both alternatives had identical content