UWB localization with battery-powered wireless backbone for drone-based inventory management

Current inventory-taking methods (counting stocks and checking correct placements) in large vertical warehouses are mostly manual, resulting in (i) large personnel costs, (ii) human errors and (iii) incidents due to working at large heights. To remedy this, the use of autonomous indoor drones has been proposed. However, these drones require accurate localization solutions that are easy to (temporarily) install at low costs in large warehouses. To this end, we designed a Ultra-Wideband (UWB) solution that uses infrastructure anchor nodes that do not require any wired backbone and can be battery powered. The resulting system has a theoretical update rate of up to 2892 Hz (assuming no hardware dependent delays). Moreover, the anchor nodes have an average current consumption of only 27 mA (compared to 130 mA of traditional UWB infrastructure nodes). Finally, the system has been experimentally validated and is available as open-source software

Device-to-device communications for 5G Radio Access Networks

Nowadays it is very popular to share video clips and images to one’s social network in the proximity. Direct device-to-device (D2D) communication is one of the means to respond to this requirement. D2D offers users improved end-to-end latency times, and additionally can provide higher data rates. At the same time the overall cellular network congestion decreases. D2D is also known as Proximity Services (ProSe). LTE is missing direct D2D communication. Currently D2D for 5G is standardised in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Releases 12, and in parallel Mobile and wireless communications Enablers for the Twenty-twenty Information Society (METIS) project has D2D as one of its research topics. Multiple articles have been published about D2D communication. This thesis is a literature based thesis following D2D communication in 5G literature. The scope is to describe similarities and differences found in Technical Reports and Technical Specifications of the 3GPP Release 12, in deliverables written in METIS project and in some selected D2D related publications about D2D communications. 3GPP Release 12 concentrates on ProSe at least for public safety. ProSe communication out-of-coverage is only for public safety purposes. METIS provides multiple solutions for diverse D2D topics, for example, device discovery, radio resource management, mobility management and relaying. METIS provides solutions for D2D communication not yet mature enough for development and implementation but which might be realized in the future.Nykyisin on suosittua lähettää lyhyitä videoita tai kuvia läheisyydessä oleville ystäville. Laitteiden välinen suora kommunikointi eli D2D-viestintä tuo ratkaisun tähän vaatimukseen. D2D-viestinnän ansiosta viive lyhenee ja lisäksi siirtonopeudet kasvavat. Samaan aikaan koko verkon kuormitus vähenee. Suora kahden laitteen välinen kommunikointi puuttuu LTE:stä. Tällä hetkellä 3GPP Release 12 standardisoi suoraa kahden laitteen välistä kommunikointia. Samanaikaisesti Mobile and wireless communications Enablers for the Twenty-twenty Information Society (METIS) –projektin yhtenä tutkimuskohteenaan on kahden laitteen välinen suora kommunikointi, Lisäksi on lukuisia julkaisuja liittyen D2D-viestintään. Tämä diplomityö perustuu kirjallisuuteen. Sen tavoitteena on selvittää, miten kahden laitteen välistä suoraa kommunikointia on kuvattu 3GPP Release 12:ta teknisissä spesifikaatioissa, METIS-projektin julkaisuissa sekä muutamassa valitussa tieteellisessä julkaisussa. Tavoitteena on selvittää D2D-viestinnän yhtäläisyyksiä sekä poikkeamia. 3PGG Release 12 standardointi keskittyy D2D-viestinnän käyttöön ainakin julkisessa pelastustyössä. D2D-viestinnän tulee ainakin julkisessa pelastustyössä toimia myös siellä missä matkapuhelinverkko ei toimi tai sitä ei ole olemassa. METIS tarjoaa useita ratkaisuja D2D-viestinnän eri osa-alueille, esimerkiksi laitteiden tunnistamiseen, resurssien hallintaan, liikkuvuuden hallintaa ja viestien edelleen lähettämiseen. METIS-projekti on tuottanut D2D-viestinnän ratkaisuja, joiden toteuttaminen on järkevää ja mahdollista vasta tulevaisuudessa

Accurate Localization with Ultra-Wideband Ranging for Multi-Robot Systems

RÉSUMÉ : Avec l’avancement de la technologie matérielle et logicielle, l’application de l’automatisation et de la robotique se développe rapidement. Les systèmes multi-robots sont particulièrement prometteurs en raison de leur grande efficacité et robustesse. De tels systèmes peuvent être utilisés pour aider les humains à effectuer efficacement des tâches dangereuses ou pénibles, telles que l’intervention en cas de catastrophe, l’exploration souterraine, etc. Pour déployer un système multi-robot dans un environnement sans GPS, la coordination des robots dans le système est un défi crucial. Chaque robot doit avoir une estimation précise de sa propre position pour permettre aux robots du système de collaborer pour la réalisation de leur tâche. Comme cette direction de recherche est relativement nouvelle, les approches existantes ne sont pas encore abouties. Elles consistent principalement en des systèmes centralisés qui reposent sur des signaux GPS. La dépendance sur un signal GPS limite l’application aux espaces extérieurs ouverts. De plus, les systèmes centralisés sont confrontés au risque d’un point de défaillance unique, qui limite la robustesse du système. Par ailleurs, un système centralisé n’est pas toujours approprié à une taille grandissante, comme lors d’ajout de nouveaux groupes de robots ou lors de la fusion de différents groupes. Par conséquent, une solution distribuée, décentralisée, et adaptée à de larges groupes de tailles variables pouvant produire une estimation et un suivi du positionnement des robots dans un environnement sans GPS est souhaitée. Dans ce travail, nous adoptons une stratégie descendante pour relever ces défis.----------ABSTRACT : With the advancement of hardware and software technology, the everyday applications of automation and robotics are developing rapidly. Multi-robot systems are particularly promising because of their high efficiency and robustness. Such systems can be used to assist humans in performing dangerous or strenuous tasks, such as disaster response, subterranean exploration, etc. To deploy a multi-robot system in an environment without a global positioning system (GPS), coordinating the robots in the system is a crucial challenge. Each robot needs to have the correct tracking of its own and its teammates positions to enable the robots to cooperate. Because this research direction is relatively new, there are not many mature methods: existing approaches are mainly centralized systems that rely on GPS signals. The dependence on GPS restricts the application to the outdoors or indoor spaces with expensive infrastructure. Centralized systems also face the risk of a single point of failure, which is not acceptable for critical systems. In addition, centralized systems can be hard to scale both statically and dynamically (e.g. adding new groups of robots or merging different groups). Therefore, a distributed and scalable solution with accurate positioning and tracking in a GPS-denied environment is desired. In this work, we follow a top-down strategy to address these challenges

Autonomous, Collaborative, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Search and Rescue

Search and Rescue is a vitally important subject, and one which can be improved through the use of modern technology. This work presents a number of advances aimed towards the creation of a swarm of autonomous, collaborative, unmanned aerial vehicles for land-based search and rescue. The main advances are the development of a diffusion based search strategy for route planning, research into GPS (including the Durham Tracker Project and statistical research into altitude errors), and the creation of a relative positioning system (including discussion of the errors caused by fast-moving units). Overviews are also given of the current state of research into both UAVs and Search and Rescue

Shortest Route at Dynamic Location with Node Combination-Dijkstra Algorithm

Abstract— Online transportation has become a basic requirement of the general public in support of all activities to go to work, school or vacation to the sights. Public transportation services compete to provide the best service so that consumers feel comfortable using the services offered, so that all activities are noticed, one of them is the search for the shortest route in picking the buyer or delivering to the destination. Node Combination method can minimize memory usage and this methode is more optimal when compared to A* and Ant Colony in the shortest route search like Dijkstra algorithm, but can’t store the history node that has been passed. Therefore, using node combination algorithm is very good in searching the shortest distance is not the shortest route. This paper is structured to modify the node combination algorithm to solve the problem of finding the shortest route at the dynamic location obtained from the transport fleet by displaying the nodes that have the shortest distance and will be implemented in the geographic information system in the form of map to facilitate the use of the system. Keywords— Shortest Path, Algorithm Dijkstra, Node Combination, Dynamic Location (key words

Storia delle telecomunicazioni

Focusing on the history of scientific and technological development over recent centuries, the book is dedicated to the history of telecommunications, where Italy has always been in the vanguard, and is presented by many of the protagonists of the last half century. The book is divided into five sections. The first, dealing with the origins, starts from the scientific bases of the evolution of telecommunications in the nineteenth century (Bucci), addressing the developments of scientific thought that led to the revolution of the theory of fields (Morando), analysing the birth of the three fundamental forms of communication – telegraph (Maggi), telephone (Del Re) and radio (Falciasecca) – and ending with the contribution made by the Italian Navy to the development of telecommunications (Carulli, Pelosi, Selleri, Tiberio). The second section, on technical and scientific developments, presents the numerical processing of signals (Rocca), illustrating the genesis and metamorphosis of transmission (Pupolin, Benedetto, Mengali, Someda, Vannucchi), network packets (Marsan, Guadagni, Lenzini), photonics in telecommunications (Prati) and addresses the issue of research within the institutions (Fedi-Morello), dwelling in particular on the CSELT (Mossotto). The next section deals with the sectors of application, offering an overview of radio, television and the birth of digital cinema (Vannucchi, Visintin), military communications (Maestrini, Costamagna), the development of radar (Galati) and spatial telecommunications (Tartara, Marconicchio). Section four, on the organisation of the services and the role of industry, outlines the rise and fall of the telecommunications industries in Italy (Randi), dealing with the telecommunications infrastructures (Caroppo, Gamerro), the role of the providers in national communications (Gerarduzzi), the networks and the mobile and wireless services (Falciasecca, Ongaro) and finally taking a look towards the future from the perspective of the last fifty years (Vannucchi). The last section, dealing with training and dissemination, offers an array of food for thought: university training in telecommunications, with focus on the evolution of legislation and on the professional profiles (Roveri), social and cultural aspects (Longo and Crespellani) as well as a glance over the most important museums, collections and documentary sources for telecommunications in Italy (Lucci, Savini, Temporelli, Valotti). The book is designed to offer a compendium comprising different analytical approaches, and aims to foster an interest in technology in the new generations, in the hope of stimulating potentially innovative research