12,029 research outputs found
Overcoming a Communication Barrier on the Way Towards a Global Sensor Network
In a global sensor network different sensor platforms will be deployed. A
grave obstacle on the way of building sensor networks out of different sensor nodes are incompatible implementations of network protocol stacks used with different sensor node platforms. We describe our efforts to overcome this obstacle in a heterogeneous sensor network consisting out of MICAz Motes and Sun SPOTs, both using an IEEE 802.15.4 radio chip. We explain the major differences in the respective network stacks and our approach to bridge them. A network stack that bridges the gap between different platforms allows for more flexible and robust networks
Taming the interoperability challenges of complex IoT systems
of communication protocols and data formats; hence ensuring diverse devices can interoperate with one another remains a significant challenge. Model-driven development and testing solutions have been proposed as methods to aid software developers achieve interoperability compliance in the face of this increasing complexity. However, current approaches often involve complicated and domain specific models (e.g. web services described by WSDL). In this paper, we explore a lightweight, middleware independent, model-driven development framework to help developers tame the challenges of composing IoT services that interoperate with one another. The framework is based upon two key contributions: i) patterns of interoperability behaviour, and ii) a software framework to monitor and reason about interoperability success or failure. We show using a case-study from the FI-WARE Future Internet Service domain that this interoperability framework can support non-expert developers address interoperability challenges. We also deployed tools built atop the framework and made them available in the XIFI large-scale FI-PPP test environment
Innovation landscape and challenges of smart technologies and systems - a European perspective
Latest developments in smart sensor and actuator technologies are expected to lead
to a revolution in future manufacturing systems’ abilities and efficiency, often
referred to as Industry 4.0. Smart technologies with higher degrees of autonomy
will be essential to achieve the next breakthrough in both agility and productivity.
However, the technologies will also bring substantial design and integration
challenges and novelty risks to manufacturing businesses. The aim of this paper is
to analyse the current landscape and to identify the challenges for introducing
smart technologies into manufacturing systems in Europe. Expert knowledge from
both industrial and academic practitioners in the field was extracted using an online
survey. Feedback from a workshop was used to triangulate and extend the survey
results. The findings indicate three main challenges for the ubiquitous
implementation of smart technologies in manufacturing are: i) the perceived risk
of novel technologies, ii) the complexity of integration, and iii) the consideration
of human factors. Recommendations are made based on these findings to transform
the landscape for smart manufacturing
Overcoming barriers and increasing independence: service robots for elderly and disabled people
This paper discusses the potential for service robots to overcome barriers and increase independence of
elderly and disabled people. It includes a brief overview of the existing uses of service robots by disabled and elderly
people and advances in technology which will make new uses possible and provides suggestions for some of these new
applications. The paper also considers the design and other conditions to be met for user acceptance. It also discusses
the complementarity of assistive service robots and personal assistance and considers the types of applications and
users for which service robots are and are not suitable
Accelerated Consensus via Min-Sum Splitting
We apply the Min-Sum message-passing protocol to solve the consensus problem
in distributed optimization. We show that while the ordinary Min-Sum algorithm
does not converge, a modified version of it known as Splitting yields
convergence to the problem solution. We prove that a proper choice of the
tuning parameters allows Min-Sum Splitting to yield subdiffusive accelerated
convergence rates, matching the rates obtained by shift-register methods. The
acceleration scheme embodied by Min-Sum Splitting for the consensus problem
bears similarities with lifted Markov chains techniques and with multi-step
first order methods in convex optimization
Cross-Sender Bit-Mixing Coding
Scheduling to avoid packet collisions is a long-standing challenge in
networking, and has become even trickier in wireless networks with multiple
senders and multiple receivers. In fact, researchers have proved that even {\em
perfect} scheduling can only achieve . Here
is the number of nodes in the network, and is the {\em medium
utilization rate}. Ideally, one would hope to achieve ,
while avoiding all the complexities in scheduling. To this end, this paper
proposes {\em cross-sender bit-mixing coding} ({\em BMC}), which does not rely
on scheduling. Instead, users transmit simultaneously on suitably-chosen slots,
and the amount of overlap in different user's slots is controlled via coding.
We prove that in all possible network topologies, using BMC enables us to
achieve . We also prove that the space and time
complexities of BMC encoding/decoding are all low-order polynomials.Comment: Published in the International Conference on Information Processing
in Sensor Networks (IPSN), 201
Participation in “Smart Cities” : a user-centric evaluation of the smart city-concept
This dissertation is addressing the smart city concept through identifying citizen participation
as an essential part of the framework.
Several smart city examples were analyzed and a high variety, not only in terms of affected
areas, but also concerning the multiple ways how individual programs integrate citizens, was
recognized. Three ways to participate in a smart city were identified:
1. Citizens help the government collecting data
2. Citizens being involved in using the data generated by the government
3. Citizens being involved in government activities.
Through elaborating on the smart city concept, the presence and importance of citizen
engagement was clarified. Further, participation itself was put into focus. Therefore, several
subject-related topics were explored and the identified participation methods were specified.
Furthermore, quantitative research was conducted in form of a survey, examining the key
findings of the literature review. To facilitate the allocation of trends to several groups, a
cluster analysis has been conducted and five clusters could be created:
The “Creatives”, -“Alternatives”, -“Techies”, -“Greens” and -“Normals”.
Major research results were:
The majority associates a smart city with a rather technical nature.
Privacy is standing out as the main concern.
Respondents are the least confident about developing an application or a service.
Combining those results with the key findings based on the literature review, the urge for city
administrations to modernize and to embrace the smart city concept was identified. The
dissertation concludes with recommending governments to overcome those barriers by the
implementation of so-called “living-labs” and “toolkits”
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