Air Force Institute of Technology Research Report 2009

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; lists student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedures for contacting the school. Included in the report are: faculty publications, conference presentations, consultations, and funded research projects. Research was conducted in the areas of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electro-Optics, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Systems and Engineering Management, Operational Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering Physics

Ambient Intelligence for Next-Generation AR

Next-generation augmented reality (AR) promises a high degree of context-awareness - a detailed knowledge of the environmental, user, social and system conditions in which an AR experience takes place. This will facilitate both the closer integration of the real and virtual worlds, and the provision of context-specific content or adaptations. However, environmental awareness in particular is challenging to achieve using AR devices alone; not only are these mobile devices' view of an environment spatially and temporally limited, but the data obtained by onboard sensors is frequently inaccurate and incomplete. This, combined with the fact that many aspects of core AR functionality and user experiences are impacted by properties of the real environment, motivates the use of ambient IoT devices, wireless sensors and actuators placed in the surrounding environment, for the measurement and optimization of environment properties. In this book chapter we categorize and examine the wide variety of ways in which these IoT sensors and actuators can support or enhance AR experiences, including quantitative insights and proof-of-concept systems that will inform the development of future solutions. We outline the challenges and opportunities associated with several important research directions which must be addressed to realize the full potential of next-generation AR.Comment: This is a preprint of a book chapter which will appear in the Springer Handbook of the Metavers

On trade-offs and communal breeding: the behavioural ecology of Agta foragers

Time is finite and no organism can avoid the allocation dilemma that this necessarily entails. A quintessential trade-off is that between parental investment and reproduction, otherwise known as the quality-quantity trade-off. However, humans may be exceptional among apes given our high quantity production of high quality offspring. This success has been argued only to be possible by breeding communally. In this thesis I explore questions surrounding trade-offs, communal breeding and their fitness consequences in a small-scale foraging society, the Agta. The first analysis examines the composition of Agta childcare using an innovative form of data collection to maximise sample sizes, previously a major limitation in hunter-gatherer research. The Agta, like many small-scale societies are prolific communal breeders. However, contra previous conclusions, juveniles and non-kin appeared to provide more allocare than grandmothers. Interactions with non-kin were associated with significant decreases in maternal workload, while interactions with siblings and grandmothers were not. The next analysis explores why both kin and non-kin behave cooperatively, finding support for kin selection among close kin and reciprocity for distant kin and non-kin allocare. Communal breeding appears to be an important mechanism to ensure enough childcare was received in the absence of other strategies to counter shortfalls in household energy budgets. The next analysis asks, what are the fitness consequences of maternal social networks and allocare? Mothers’ network centrality positively correlated with non-kin allocare as well as reproductive success, revealing the adaptive value of communal breeding. These results highlight the optimising nature of hunter-gatherer cooperation and life history strategies

Collective sensing: integrating geospatial technologies to understand urban systems : an overview

Cities are complex systems composed of numerous interacting components that evolve over multiple spatio-temporal scales. Consequently, no single data source is sufficient to satisfy the information needs required to map, monitor, model, and ultimately understand and manage our interaction within such urban systems. Remote sensing technology provides a key data source for mapping such environments, but is not sufficient for fully understanding them. In this article we provide a condensed urban perspective of critical geospatial technologies and techniques: (i) Remote Sensing; (ii) Geographic Information Systems; (iii) object-based image analysis; and (iv) sensor webs, and recommend a holistic integration of these technologies within the language of open geospatial consortium (OGC) standards in-order to more fully understand urban systems. We then discuss the potential of this integration and conclude that this extends the monitoring and mapping options beyond “hard infrastructure” by addressing “humans as sensors”, mobility and human-environment interactions, and future improvements to quality of life and of social infrastructures.(VLID)218440

Design techniques for smart and energy-efficient wireless body sensor networks

Tesis inédita de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Informática, Departamento de Arquitectura de Computadores y Automática, leída el 26/10/2012Las redes inalámbricas de sensores corporales (en inglés: "wireless body sensor networks" o WBSNs) para monitorización, diagnóstico y detección de emergencias, están ganando popularidad y están llamadas a cambiar profundamente la asistencia sanitaria en los próximos años. El uso de estas redes permite una supervisión continua, contribuyendo a la prevención y el diagnóstico precoz de enfermedades, al tiempo que mejora la autonomía del paciente con respecto a otros sistemas de monitorización actuales. Valiéndose de esta tecnología, esta tesis propone el desarrollo de un sistema de monitorización de electrocardiograma (ECG), que no sólo muestre continuamente el ECG del paciente, sino que además lo analice en tiempo real y sea capaz de dar información sobre el estado del corazón a través de un dispositivo móvil. Esta información también puede ser enviada al personal médico en tiempo real. Si ocurre un evento peligroso, el sistema lo detectará automáticamente e informará de inmediato al paciente y al personal médico, posibilitando una rápida reacción en caso de emergencia. Para conseguir la implementación de dicho sistema, se desarrollan y optimizan distintos algoritmos de procesamiento de ECG en tiempo real, que incluyen filtrado, detección de puntos característicos y clasificación de arritmias. Esta tesis también aborda la mejora de la eficiencia energética de la red de sensores, cumpliendo con los requisitos de fidelidad y rendimiento de la aplicación. Para ello se proponen técnicas de diseño para reducir el consumo de energía, que permitan buscar un compromiso óptimo entre el tamaño de la batería y su tiempo de vida. Si el consumo de energía puede reducirse lo suficiente, sería posible desarrollar una red que funcione permanentemente. Por lo tanto, el muestreo, procesamiento, almacenamiento y transmisión inalámbrica tienen que hacerse de manera que se suministren todos los datos relevantes, pero con el menor consumo posible de energía, minimizando así el tamaño de la batería (que condiciona el tamaño total del nodo) y la frecuencia de recarga de la batería (otro factor clave para su usabilidad). Por lo tanto, para lograr una mejora en la eficiencia energética del sistema de monitorización y análisis de ECG propuesto en esta tesis, se estudian varias soluciones a nivel de control de acceso al medio y sistema operativo.Depto. de Arquitectura de Computadores y AutomáticaFac. de InformáticaTRUEunpu

Urban Agriculture, Sustainability, and Internet-of-Things : Applying UTAUT to Determine the Behavioural Intention to Use IoT

Thesis (MIT (Information Systems))--University of Pretoria, 2022.The Internet of Things (IoT) is approaching the maturity stage of the technology adoption lifecycle in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). By 2025, most of the world's population will be living in urban areas. In South Africa, 66.8% of the population currently resides in urban areas with nearly two-thirds of these households experiencing food insecurity. Urbanisation affects food security in South Africa as people and physical resources migrate from the rural areas where food production typically happens. As such, there is a need to localise Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to make them more relevant and context-specific to urban farmers to ensure participation in working towards achieving these goals. Along with localising SDGs, IoT advancements should be considered by urban farmers to not only increase efficiency but to assist in realising the goal of sustainability and sustainable development. The study aims to adapt the unified theory of unified technology acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) by introducing sustainability as a construct to determine how it influences urban farmers in Johannesburg and their behavioural intention to adopt IoT. This will contribute to making the theory robust to the determinants that influence individuals’ use of IoT, which aligns with recommendations made by the originators of the theory that researchers should identify constructs that serve to edify the prediction of intention and behaviour beyond what has already been studied. The results produced in the study are based on a pragmatist mixed methods approach. The quantitative approach was an online 25-question survey based on the existing UTAUT questionnaire items with the addition of the sustainability construct. This questionnaire was distributed to Gauteng-based urban farmers with active agribusinesses. The qualitative approach was a case study in the form of a semi-structured interview with three urban farmers in Gauteng with businesses currently in operation. The findings show significant relationships between behavioural intention and effort expectancy, as well as social influence, indicating that urban farmers’ behavioural intention to use IoT will be influenced by its ease of use and whether people they deem important, or look to for leadership, believe they should adopt IoT to be more sustainable. There was a non-significant relationship between behavioural intention and sustainability despite urban farmers’ belief that sustainability is important, with most being willing to explore any available means of ensuring the sustainability of their farms, including IoT. Based on the interviews and other data, this is due to constraints such as funding, accessibility, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on their businesses, the state of the economy and load-shedding. The study focuses on urban farms operating in cities around the province of Gauteng. This sector can be considered a niche, and this limited our sample size.InformaticsMIT (Information Systems)Unrestricte

A study of SPRT algorithm and New-Guard for radiation detection

A novel and efficient radiation detection algorithm combined with a measuring unit will produce an ideal detector to battle field radiation measurement problems. Studies of Sequential Probability Ratio Test (SPRT) for radiation detection are essential towards developing efficient and accurate radiation detection algorithms. In this study, the performance of the classical Single-Threshold-Test (STT) and the SPRT First-In-First-Out (FIFO) algorithms is considered. Next, improvements made by the Last-In-First-Elected-Last-Out (LIFELO) algorithm are analyzed. Further, enhancements to the LIFELO algorithm, using the Dynamic Background Updating and Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE), are performed; The thesis also provides detailed requirements for an innovative hand-held radiation detection system and underlines additional features available on a New Generation User Adaptable Radiation Detector (New-GUARD) to help the field survey processes. Currently available technologies are studied to rationalize the need for the New-GUARD prototype. The New-GUARD is compared to similar products that are already available in the market to show its completeness as a radiation detector incorporated with Global Positioning System (GPS), wireless communication, and a self-correcting system. Primary performance evaluations of the algorithms are executed using Mathematica and further analysis is carried out with Matlab and C

Advanced Radio Frequency Identification Design and Applications

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a modern wireless data transmission and reception technique for applications including automatic identification, asset tracking and security surveillance. This book focuses on the advances in RFID tag antenna and ASIC design, novel chipless RFID tag design, security protocol enhancements along with some novel applications of RFID

Models of everywhere revisited: a technological perspective

The concept ‘models of everywhere’ was first introduced in the mid 2000s as a means of reasoning about the environmental science of a place, changing the nature of the underlying modelling process, from one in which general model structures are used to one in which modelling becomes a learning process about specific places, in particular capturing the idiosyncrasies of that place. At one level, this is a straightforward concept, but at another it is a rich multi-dimensional conceptual framework involving the following key dimensions: models of everywhere, models of everything and models at all times, being constantly re-evaluated against the most current evidence. This is a compelling approach with the potential to deal with epistemic uncertainties and nonlinearities. However, the approach has, as yet, not been fully utilised or explored. This paper examines the concept of models of everywhere in the light of recent advances in technology. The paper argues that, when first proposed, technology was a limiting factor but now, with advances in areas such as Internet of Things, cloud computing and data analytics, many of the barriers have been alleviated. Consequently, it is timely to look again at the concept of models of everywhere in practical conditions as part of a trans-disciplinary effort to tackle the remaining research questions. The paper concludes by identifying the key elements of a research agenda that should underpin such experimentation and deployment