Sensor Integration in a Low Cost Land Mobile Mapping System

Mobile mapping is a multidisciplinary technique which requires several dedicated equipment, calibration procedures that must be as rigorous as possible, time synchronization of all acquired data and software for data processing and extraction of additional information. To decrease the cost and complexity of Mobile Mapping Systems (MMS), the use of less expensive sensors and the simplification of procedures for calibration and data acquisition are mandatory features. This article refers to the use of MMS technology, focusing on the main aspects that need to be addressed to guarantee proper data acquisition and describing the way those aspects were handled in a terrestrial MMS developed at the University of Porto. In this case the main aim was to implement a low cost system while maintaining good quality standards of the acquired georeferenced information. The results discussed here show that this goal has been achieved

Deep Space Network information system architecture study

The purpose of this article is to describe an architecture for the Deep Space Network (DSN) information system in the years 2000-2010 and to provide guidelines for its evolution during the 1990s. The study scope is defined to be from the front-end areas at the antennas to the end users (spacecraft teams, principal investigators, archival storage systems, and non-NASA partners). The architectural vision provides guidance for major DSN implementation efforts during the next decade. A strong motivation for the study is an expected dramatic improvement in information-systems technologies, such as the following: computer processing, automation technology (including knowledge-based systems), networking and data transport, software and hardware engineering, and human-interface technology. The proposed Ground Information System has the following major features: unified architecture from the front-end area to the end user; open-systems standards to achieve interoperability; DSN production of level 0 data; delivery of level 0 data from the Deep Space Communications Complex, if desired; dedicated telemetry processors for each receiver; security against unauthorized access and errors; and highly automated monitor and control

Redundant IEC 61850 communication protocols in substation automation

The standard IEC 61850 has been adopted with open arms by the power system automation market. The first version of the standard published in 2005 did not however pay any attention to redundant communication aspects of the substation automation network. The recent extensions to the standard however corrected this defect and bring redundancy into view, adopting two high availability redundancy protocols from the existing standard IEC 62439-3: Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) and High-availability Seamless Redundancy (HSR). These two protocols provide seamless (0 s.) network recovery times and fulfill even the most demanding requirements for substation automation network. In this thesis, these two redundancy protocols, their usage and possibilities in substation automation are investigated. At first, the IEC 61850 features, substation communication network topologies, and also the redundancy protocols and methods used today are presented. After this, the protocols PRP and HSR are discussed more deeply. The theoretical part is followed by a test of a system with PRP and ABB devices to give general notes and clarify possible problems when building such a system, and to investigate if the ABB PRP implementation is accordant with the standard IEC 62439-3. The objective of this thesis was to bring information and early experience about the two high-availability redundancy protocols, as they will be gradually introduced in the projects of the target company. The test confirmed that the current PRP version is ready to be used with the few ABB substation automation products that support it at the moment. However, a new version of PRP has been introduced and it will gradually replace the present version, bringing compatibility with HSR networks. HSR is not yet found on the market, but is expected to come to use in the very near future.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Software Defined Networks based Smart Grid Communication: A Comprehensive Survey

The current power grid is no longer a feasible solution due to ever-increasing user demand of electricity, old infrastructure, and reliability issues and thus require transformation to a better grid a.k.a., smart grid (SG). The key features that distinguish SG from the conventional electrical power grid are its capability to perform two-way communication, demand side management, and real time pricing. Despite all these advantages that SG will bring, there are certain issues which are specific to SG communication system. For instance, network management of current SG systems is complex, time consuming, and done manually. Moreover, SG communication (SGC) system is built on different vendor specific devices and protocols. Therefore, the current SG systems are not protocol independent, thus leading to interoperability issue. Software defined network (SDN) has been proposed to monitor and manage the communication networks globally. This article serves as a comprehensive survey on SDN-based SGC. In this article, we first discuss taxonomy of advantages of SDNbased SGC.We then discuss SDN-based SGC architectures, along with case studies. Our article provides an in-depth discussion on routing schemes for SDN-based SGC. We also provide detailed survey of security and privacy schemes applied to SDN-based SGC. We furthermore present challenges, open issues, and future research directions related to SDN-based SGC.Comment: Accepte

A project to investigate mechanisms and methodologies for the design and construction of communicating concurrent processes in real-time environments

Research undertaken in 1979 into effective and appropriate mechanisms to aid in the design and construction of software for use in the flight research programs undertaken by NASA is presented

Communication and control in an integrated manufacturing system

Typically, components in a manufacturing system are all centrally controlled. Due to possible communication bottlenecking, unreliability, and inflexibility caused by using a centralized controller, a new concept of system integration called an Integrated Multi-Robot System (IMRS) was developed. The IMRS can be viewed as a distributed real time system. Some of the current research issues being examined to extend the framework of the IMRS to meet its performance goals are presented. These issues include the use of communication coprocessors to enhance performance, the distribution of tasks and the methods of providing fault tolerance in the IMRS. An application example of real time collision detection, as it relates to the IMRS concept, is also presented and discussed

Evaluation of the IEC 61850 Communication Solutions

Initially, when the IEC 61850 standard was prepared, it was intended to be used within the limits of a substation for information exchange between devices. In the course of time and due to the standard’s advantages, its concepts are nowadays used as well in other application areas of the power utility system. The IEC 61850 is based to the maximum extent on other existing communication standards (IEC/IEEE/ISO/OSI), offering among others: visualization of the real applications through the ASCI interface, standardized messages to be exchanged (GOOSE, SV), one configuration language regardless of the device (IED) type/brand, and mapping to already implemented computing protocols (MMS, TCP/IP, Ethernet). The features mentioned above lead to cost reduction, reliability, and interoperability, making the IEC61850 the dominant standard for intra- and inter-substation communication. The parts 90-1 and 90-5 of the IEC 61850 standard concern the application of the tunneling and routing method in order to extend the communication beyond the substation’s limits. Although they establish the theoretical background, it can be mentioned a lack of information regarding real applications. So, the objective of this thesis was at first to establish the communication link which will allow the communication of devices belonging to different LANs and second, the acquiring of the round trip times from the exchanged messages. The experiments were conducted by a combination of software (Hamachi) and embedded platform (BeagleBone) pinging to each other first via tunneling and next via 4G mobile network. The acquired round-trip times were used to evaluate and compare the tunneling and the 4G routing method, estimating in parallel what are the perspectives of these methods to be used for inter-substation communication.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Smartphone malware based on synchronisation vulnerabilities

Smartphones are mobile phones that offer processing power and features like personal computers (PC) with the aim of improving user productivity as they allow users to access and manipulate data over networks and Internet, through various mobile applications. However, with such anywhere and anytime functionality, new security threats and risks of sensitive and personal data are envisaged to evolve. With the emergence of open mobile platforms that enable mobile users to install applications on their own, it opens up new avenues for propagating malware among various mobile users very quickly. In particular, they become crossover targets of PC malware through the synchronization function between smartphones and computers. Literature lacks detailed analysis of smartphones malware and synchronization vulnerabilities. This paper addresses these gaps in literature, by first identifying the similarities and differences between smartphone malware and PC malware, and then by investigating how hackers exploit synchronization vulnerabilities to launch their attacks

Tunneling Horizontal IEC 61850 Traffic through Audio Video Bridging Streams for Flexible Microgrid Control and Protection

In this paper, it is argued that some low-level aspects of the usual IEC 61850 mapping to Ethernet are not well suited to microgrids due to their dynamic nature and geographical distribution as compared to substations. It is proposed that the integration of IEEE time-sensitive networking (TSN) concepts (which are currently implemented as audio video bridging (AVB) technologies) within an IEC 61850 / Manufacturing Message Specification framework provides a flexible and reconfigurable platform capable of overcoming such issues. A prototype test platform and bump-in-the-wire device for tunneling horizontal traffic through AVB are described. Experimental results are presented for sending IEC 61850 GOOSE (generic object oriented substation events) and SV (sampled values) messages through AVB tunnels. The obtained results verify that IEC 61850 event and sampled data may be reliably transported within the proposed framework with very low latency, even over a congested network. It is argued that since AVB streams can be flexibly configured from one or more central locations, and bandwidth reserved for their data ensuring predictability of delivery, this gives a solution which seems significantly more reliable than a pure MMS-based solution