Use of Single Board Computers as Smart Sensors in the Manufacturing Industry

The continuously growing presence of cyber-physical systems in the industry, especially in the field of processes automation and control, represents the paradigm of the so called fourth industrial revolution, in which the systems are smarter, faster and more optimized by means of artificial intelligence, control systems and sensors networks. The presence of ICT and automation systems guarantees energy and other resources efficiency along the whole value chain of industrial processes. Especially important is the case of the smart sensors, in which a conventional sensor is equipped with interfacing methodologies for signal processing and decision making. In this article the capabilities of using a single board computer as a smart sensor are explored.Postprint (published version

Thermal-Aware Networked Many-Core Systems

Advancements in IC processing technology has led to the innovation and growth happening in the consumer electronics sector and the evolution of the IT infrastructure supporting this exponential growth. One of the most difficult obstacles to this growth is the removal of large amount of heatgenerated by the processing and communicating nodes on the system. The scaling down of technology and the increase in power density is posing a direct and consequential effect on the rise in temperature. This has resulted in the increase in cooling budgets, and affects both the life-time reliability and performance of the system. Hence, reducing on-chip temperatures has become a major design concern for modern microprocessors. This dissertation addresses the thermal challenges at different levels for both 2D planer and 3D stacked systems. It proposes a self-timed thermal monitoring strategy based on the liberal use of on-chip thermal sensors. This makes use of noise variation tolerant and leakage current based thermal sensing for monitoring purposes. In order to study thermal management issues from early design stages, accurate thermal modeling and analysis at design time is essential. In this regard, spatial temperature profile of the global Cu nanowire for on-chip interconnects has been analyzed. It presents a 3D thermal model of a multicore system in order to investigate the effects of hotspots and the placement of silicon die layers, on the thermal performance of a modern ip-chip package. For a 3D stacked system, the primary design goal is to maximise the performance within the given power and thermal envelopes. Hence, a thermally efficient routing strategy for 3D NoC-Bus hybrid architectures has been proposed to mitigate on-chip temperatures by herding most of the switching activity to the die which is closer to heat sink. Finally, an exploration of various thermal-aware placement approaches for both the 2D and 3D stacked systems has been presented. Various thermal models have been developed and thermal control metrics have been extracted. An efficient thermal-aware application mapping algorithm for a 2D NoC has been presented. It has been shown that the proposed mapping algorithm reduces the effective area reeling under high temperatures when compared to the state of the art.Siirretty Doriast

Conception d'un micro capteur d'image CMOS à faible consommation d'énergie pour les réseaux de capteurs sans fil

This research aims to develop a vision system with low energy consumption for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). The imager in question must meet the specific requirements of multimedia applications for Wireless Vision Sensor Networks. Indeed, a multimedia application requires intensive computation at the node and a considerable number of packets to be exchanged through the transceiver, and therefore consumes a lot of energy. An obvious solution to reduce the amount of transmitted data is to compress the images before sending them over WSN nodes. However, the severe constraints of nodes make ineffective in practice the implementation of standard compression algorithms (JPEG, JPEG2000, MJPEG, MPEG, H264, etc.). Desired vision system must integrate image compression techniques that are both effective and with low-complexity. Particular attention should be taken into consideration in order to best satisfy the compromise "Energy Consumption - Quality of Service (QoS)".Ce travail de recherche vise à concevoir un système de vision à faible consommation d'énergie pour les réseaux de capteurs sans fil. L'imageur en question doit respecter les contraintes spécifiques des applications multimédias pour les réseaux de capteurs de vision sans fil. En effet, de par sa nature, une application multimédia impose un traitement intensif au niveau du noeud et un nombre considérable de paquets à échanger à travers le lien radio, et par conséquent beaucoup d'énergie à consommer. Une solution évidente pour diminuer la quantité de données transmise, et donc la durée de vie du réseau, est de compresser les images avant de les transmettre. Néanmoins, les contraintes strictes des noeuds du réseau rendent inefficace en pratique l'exécution des algorithmes de compression standards (JPEG, JPEG2000, MJPEG, MPEG, H264, etc.). Le système de vision à concevoir doit donc intégrer des techniques de compression d'image à la fois efficaces et à faible complexité. Une attention particulière doit être prise en compte en vue de satisfaire au mieux le compromis "Consommation énergétique - Qualité de Service (QoS)"