Application of G.hn broadband powerline communication for industrial control using COTS components

Broadband powerline communication is a technology developed mainly with consumer applications and bulk data transmission in mind. Typical use cases include file download, streaming, or last-mile internet access for residential buildings. Applications gaining momentum are smart metering and grid automation, where response time requirements are relatively moderate compared to industrial (real-time) control. This work investigates to which extent G.hn technology, with existing, commercial off-the-shelf components, can be used for real-time control applications. Maximum packet rate and latency statistics are investigated for different G.hn profiles and MAC algorithms. An elevator control system serves as an example application to define the latency and throughput requirements. The results show that G.hn is a feasible technology candidate for industrial IoT-type applications if certain boundary conditions can be ensured

An intelligent multi-floor mobile robot transportation system in life science laboratories

In this dissertation, a new intelligent multi-floor transportation system based on mobile robot is presented to connect the distributed laboratories in multi-floor environment. In the system, new indoor mapping and localization are presented, hybrid path planning is proposed, and an automated doors management system is presented. In addition, a hybrid strategy with innovative floor estimation to handle the elevator operations is implemented. Finally the presented system controls the working processes of the related sub-system. The experiments prove the efficiency of the presented system

A NETWORK PROCESSING NODE FOR LIGHT UNMANNED AIRCRAFT

Over the last decade, research into unmanned and autonomous vehicles has greatly increased. With applications ranging from science and exploration to humanitarian and military efforts, the rising need for autonomous vehicles demands constant innovation and growth. The Intelligent Dependable Embedded Architectures (IDEA) lab at the University of Kentucky is continually launching research oriented programs [1]. A few key projects focus on the development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). Through this research, at the University of Kentucky, the need to develop a reliable, lightweight, node based hardware for use in light UAVs and other unmanned and autonomous vehicles became apparent. This paper addresses the design and implementation of a network processing node for light UAVs. This system utilizes a Controller Area Network (CAN) noise tolerant communications bus, a low power ZigBee Wireless Network for expanded inner plane communications and Silicon Laboratories C8051F041 microcontrollers to provide the necessary inputs/output and data processing. The final result will be a flight ready light UAV featuring distributed processing nodes to handle the servo communications and controls

Vision-based control of near-obstacle flight

Lightweight micro unmanned aerial vehicles (micro-UAVs) capable of autonomous flight in natural and urban environments have a large potential for civil and commercial applications, including environmental monitoring, forest fire monitoring, homeland security, traffic monitoring, aerial imagery, mapping and search and rescue. Smaller micro-UAVs capable of flying inside houses or small indoor environments have further applications in the domain of surveillance, search and rescue and entertainment. These applications require the capability to fly near to the ground and amongst obstacles. Existing UAVs rely on GPS and AHRS (attitude heading reference system) to control their flight and are unable to detect and avoid obstacles. Active distance sensors such as radars or laser range finders could be used to measure distances to obstacles, but are typically too heavy and power-consuming to be embedded on lightweight systems. In this thesis, we draw inspiration from biology and explore alternative approaches to flight control that allow aircraft to fly near obstacles. We show that optic flow can be used on flying platforms to estimate the proximity of obstacles and propose a novel control strategy, called optiPilot, for vision-based near-obstacle flight. Thanks to optiPilot, we demonstrate for the first time autonomous near-obstacle flight of micro-UAVs, both indoor and outdoor, without relying on an AHRS nor external beacons such as GPS. The control strategy only requires a small series of optic flow sensors, two rate gyroscopes and an airspeed sensor. It can run on a tiny embedded microcontroller in realtime. Despite its simplicity, optiPilot is able to fully control the aircraft, including altitude regulation, attitude stabilisation, obstacle avoidance, landing and take-off. This parsimony, inherited from the biology of flying insects, contrasts with the complexity of the systems used so far for flight control while offering more capabilities. The results presented in this thesis contribute to a better understanding of the minimal requirements, in terms of sensing and control architecture, that enable animals and artificial systems to fly and bring closer to reality the perspective of using lightweight and inexpensive micro-UAV for civilian purposes

Networking 8-bit embedded controllers, using the controller area network method

The initial aim of this project was to create an ethernet (IEEE 802.3) Communications System. The system was to connect Embedded controllers to facilitate the operation of a real time operation. After extensive investigation and scheduled meetings with industry, it became apparent that a superior communication system for this type of task lay in the Controller Area Network (CAN) standard. Communications Networks are extremely susceptible to volatile surroundings. A vital controller network necessitates that its communication network be invulnerable to high noise levels. It is also imperative that critical messages from one controller reach their destination on time. CAN was conceived by BOSCH as a solution to this dilemma. The project undertaken was to develop a controller area network, whose purpose was to control a solar tracker in a remote fashion. The solar tracker developed needed to be able to work in an autonomous fashion via its own embedded controller, however be able to receive commands from a remote control unit. This remote unit was able to display the status and operation mode of the tracker, yet also be able to issue over ridding commands to the tracker in a real time sense. A CAN network was created and interfaced to a MC68HC11 embedded controller. A two wire differential (RS 485) system was implemented as the physical CAN bus. Every aspect of interfacing the CAN (Intel 82527) device to the HC11 was investigated. Chip Select problems resulted in the simulation of the of the HC11 Address/Data bus using a MC68HC24 Port Replacement Unit (PRU), even the possibility of Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI) connection was considered before a hardware solution was developed. The driver software and low level communication system developed addresses all aspects of operation, from initialisation of the 82527, to dealing with the reception and transmission of various messages. Software to enable simultaneous network communications and solar tracking operation was completed for the solar tracking device. Every message object type was utilised within the system. The generation interrupts to deal with the reception of critical messages, and other message prioritisation schemes were incorporated. The resulting system demonstrated that the controller was able to drive a solar tracking panel and receive additional commands and issue status reports to a remote micro controller, in a real time situation. Such a system as this could have many solar trackers connected to the same bus and result in a cheap but reliable installation. Alternatively virtually any Industrial distributed automated process confined within a relatively close proximity could be developed by using a derivative of such a system described within this report

Pervasive computing reference architecture from a software engineering perspective (PervCompRA-SE)

Pervasive computing (PervComp) is one of the most challenging research topics nowadays. Its complexity exceeds the outdated main frame and client-server computation models. Its systems are highly volatile, mobile, and resource-limited ones that stream a lot of data from different sensors. In spite of these challenges, it entails, by default, a lengthy list of desired quality features like context sensitivity, adaptable behavior, concurrency, service omnipresence, and invisibility. Fortunately, the device manufacturers improved the enabling technology, such as sensors, network bandwidth, and batteries to pave the road for pervasive systems with high capabilities. On the other hand, this domain area has gained an enormous amount of attention from researchers ever since it was first introduced in the early 90s of the last century. Yet, they are still classified as visionary systems that are expected to be woven into people’s daily lives. At present, PervComp systems still have no unified architecture, have limited scope of context-sensitivity and adaptability, and many essential quality features are insufficiently addressed in PervComp architectures. The reference architecture (RA) that we called (PervCompRA-SE) in this research, provides solutions for these problems by providing a comprehensive and innovative pair of business and technical architectural reference models. Both models were based on deep analytical activities and were evaluated using different qualitative and quantitative methods. In this thesis we surveyed a wide range of research projects in PervComp in various subdomain areas to specify our methodological approach and identify the quality features in the PervComp domain that are most commonly found in these areas. It presented a novice approach that utilizes theories from sociology, psychology, and process engineering. The thesis analyzed the business and architectural problems in two separate chapters covering the business reference architecture (BRA) and the technical reference architecture (TRA). The solutions for these problems were introduced also in the BRA and TRA chapters. We devised an associated comprehensive ontology with semantic meanings and measurement scales. Both the BRA and TRA were validated throughout the course of research work and evaluated as whole using traceability, benchmark, survey, and simulation methods. The thesis introduces a new reference architecture in the PervComp domain which was developed using a novel requirements engineering method. It also introduces a novel statistical method for tradeoff analysis and conflict resolution between the requirements. The adaptation of the activity theory, human perception theory and process re-engineering methods to develop the BRA and the TRA proved to be very successful. Our approach to reuse the ontological dictionary to monitor the system performance was also innovative. Finally, the thesis evaluation methods represent a role model for researchers on how to use both qualitative and quantitative methods to evaluate a reference architecture. Our results show that the requirements engineering process along with the trade-off analysis were very important to deliver the PervCompRA-SE. We discovered that the invisibility feature, which was one of the envisioned quality features for the PervComp, is demolished and that the qualitative evaluation methods were just as important as the quantitative evaluation methods in order to recognize the overall quality of the RA by machines as well as by human beings

A NOVEL MESSAGE ROUTING LAYER FOR THE COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT OF DISTRIBUTED EMBEDDED SYSTEMS

Fault tolerant and distributed embedded systems are research areas that have the interest of such entities as NASA, the Department of Defense, and various other government agencies, corporations, and universities. Taking a system and designing it to work in the presence of faults is appealing to these entities as it inherently increases the reliability of the deployed system. There are a few different fault tolerant techniques that can be implemented in a system design to handle faults as they occur. One such technique is the reconfiguration of a portion of the system to a redundant resource. This is a difficult task to manage within a distributed embedded system because of the distributed, directly addressed data producer and consumer dependencies that exist in common network infrastructures. It is the goal of this thesis work to develop a novel message routing layer for the communication management of distributed embedded systems that reduces the complexity of this problem. The resulting product of this thesis provides a robust approach to the design, implementation, integration, and deployment of a distributed embedded system

Development of a System Architecture for Unmanned Systems Across Multiple Domains

In the unmanned systems industry, there is no common standard for systems components, connections and relations. Such a standard is never likely to exist. Needless to say, a system needs to have the components that are required for the application, however, it is possible to abstract the common functionality out of an individual implementation. This thesis presents a universal unmanned systems architecture that collects all of the common features of an unmanned system and presents them as a set of packages and libraries that can be used in any domain of unmanned system operation. The research and design of the universal architecture results in a well-defined architecture that can be used and implemented on any unmanned system. The AUVSI student competitions are specifically analyzed and it is shown how this universal architecture can be applied to the challenges posed by the competitions in different domains