34,193 research outputs found
An overview of recent research results and future research avenues using simulation studies in project management
This paper gives an overview of three simulation studies in dynamic project scheduling integrating baseline scheduling with risk analysis and project control. This integration is known in the literature as dynamic scheduling. An integrated project control method is presented using a project control simulation approach that combines the three topics into a single decision support system. The method makes use of Monte Carlo simulations and connects schedule risk analysis (SRA) with earned value management (EVM). A corrective action mechanism is added to the simulation model to measure the efficiency of two alternative project control methods. At the end of the paper, a summary of recent and state-of-the-art results is given, and directions for future research based on a new research study are presented
Neural Feedback Scheduling of Real-Time Control Tasks
Many embedded real-time control systems suffer from resource constraints and
dynamic workload variations. Although optimal feedback scheduling schemes are
in principle capable of maximizing the overall control performance of
multitasking control systems, most of them induce excessively large
computational overheads associated with the mathematical optimization routines
involved and hence are not directly applicable to practical systems. To
optimize the overall control performance while minimizing the overhead of
feedback scheduling, this paper proposes an efficient feedback scheduling
scheme based on feedforward neural networks. Using the optimal solutions
obtained offline by mathematical optimization methods, a back-propagation (BP)
neural network is designed to adapt online the sampling periods of concurrent
control tasks with respect to changes in computing resource availability.
Numerical simulation results show that the proposed scheme can reduce the
computational overhead significantly while delivering almost the same overall
control performance as compared to optimal feedback scheduling.Comment: To appear in International Journal of Innovative Computing,
Information and Contro
EC-CENTRIC: An Energy- and Context-Centric Perspective on IoT Systems and Protocol Design
The radio transceiver of an IoT device is often where most of the energy is consumed. For this reason, most research so far has focused on low power circuit and energy efficient physical layer designs, with the goal of reducing the average energy per information bit required for communication. While these efforts are valuable per se, their actual effectiveness can be partially neutralized by ill-designed network, processing and resource management solutions, which can become a primary factor of performance degradation, in terms of throughput, responsiveness and energy efficiency. The objective of this paper is to describe an energy-centric and context-aware optimization framework that accounts for the energy impact of the fundamental functionalities of an IoT system and that proceeds along three main technical thrusts: 1) balancing signal-dependent processing techniques (compression and feature extraction) and communication tasks; 2) jointly designing channel access and routing protocols to maximize the network lifetime; 3) providing self-adaptability to different operating conditions through the adoption of suitable learning architectures and of flexible/reconfigurable algorithms and protocols. After discussing this framework, we present some preliminary results that validate the effectiveness of our proposed line of action, and show how the use of adaptive signal processing and channel access techniques allows an IoT network to dynamically tune lifetime for signal distortion, according to the requirements dictated by the application
Markov Decision Processes with Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks: A Survey
Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of autonomous and resource-limited
devices. The devices cooperate to monitor one or more physical phenomena within
an area of interest. WSNs operate as stochastic systems because of randomness
in the monitored environments. For long service time and low maintenance cost,
WSNs require adaptive and robust methods to address data exchange, topology
formulation, resource and power optimization, sensing coverage and object
detection, and security challenges. In these problems, sensor nodes are to make
optimized decisions from a set of accessible strategies to achieve design
goals. This survey reviews numerous applications of the Markov decision process
(MDP) framework, a powerful decision-making tool to develop adaptive algorithms
and protocols for WSNs. Furthermore, various solution methods are discussed and
compared to serve as a guide for using MDPs in WSNs
Fuzzy Feedback Scheduling of Resource-Constrained Embedded Control Systems
The quality of control (QoC) of a resource-constrained embedded control
system may be jeopardized in dynamic environments with variable workload. This
gives rise to the increasing demand of co-design of control and scheduling. To
deal with uncertainties in resource availability, a fuzzy feedback scheduling
(FFS) scheme is proposed in this paper. Within the framework of feedback
scheduling, the sampling periods of control loops are dynamically adjusted
using the fuzzy control technique. The feedback scheduler provides QoC
guarantees in dynamic environments through maintaining the CPU utilization at a
desired level. The framework and design methodology of the proposed FFS scheme
are described in detail. A simplified mobile robot target tracking system is
investigated as a case study to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed
FFS scheme. The scheme is independent of task execution times, robust to
measurement noises, and easy to implement, while incurring only a small
overhead.Comment: To appear in International Journal of Innovative Computing,
Information and Contro
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