Design and Modelling of Passive UHF RFID Tags for Energy Efficient Liquid Level Detection Applications. A study of various techniques in the design, modelling, optimisation and deployment of RFID reader and passive UHF RFID tags to achieve effective performance for liquid sensing applications

Sewer and oil pipeline spillage issues have become major causes of pollution in urban and rural areas usually caused by blockages in the water storage and drainage system, and oil spillage of underground oil pipelines. An effective way of avoiding this problem will be by deploying some mechanism to monitor these installations at each point in time and reporting unusual liquid activity to the relevant authorities for prompt action to avoid a flooding or spillage occurrence. This research work presents a low cost energy efficient liquid level monitoring technique using Radio Frequency Identification Technology. Passive UHF RFID tags have been designed, modelled and optimized. A simple rectangular tag, the P-shaped tag and S-shaped tag with UHF band frequency of operation (850-950 MHz) has been designed and modelled. Detailed parametric analysis of the rectangular tag is made and the optimised design results analysed and presented in HFSS and Matlab. The optimised rectangular tag designs are then deployed as level sensors in a gully pot. Identical tags were deployed to detect 4 distinct levels in alternate positions and a few inches in seperation distance within the gully pot height (Low, Mid, High and Ultra high). The radiation characteristic of tag sensors in deployment as modelled on HFSS is observed to show consistent performance with application requirements. An in-manhole chamber antenna for an underground communication system is analysed, designed, deployed and measured. The antenna covers dual-band impedance bandwidths (i.e. 824 to 960 MHz, and 1710 to 2170 MHz). The results show that the antenna prototype exhibits sufficient impedance bandwidth, suitable radiation characteristics, and adequate gains for the required underground wireless sensor applications. Finally, a Linearly Shifted Quadrifilar Helical Antenna (LSQHA) designed using Genetic Algorithm optimisation technique for adoption as an RFID reader antenna is proposed and investigated. The new antenna confirms coverage of the RFID bandwidth 860-960 MHz with acceptable power gain of 13.1 dBi.Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) and National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA)

Performance evaluation of real-time indoor positioning with active RFID and ZigBee-based WSN systems

This study measures the accuracy of two radio signal-based positioning methods to track targets in an indoor environment using radio frequency identification (RFID) and a wireless sensor network (WSN), the advantages and disadvantages of which are compared, analyzed, and discussed. We propose a specific configuration to perform measurements in a real environment using various positioning algorithms. The experimental results show that the number and the quality of the reference tags influence the accuracy of positioning when using RFID devices. Although WSN devices require fewer sensors, the unit price of sensors is comparatively high. In addition, adjusting the antenna angle achieves a stronger received signal strength indicator variation when using RFID devices. For WSN devices, the key is to avoid interference between sensors because it causes large errors when estimating the distance between 2 points. The proposed positioning methods are suitable for patrol systems, and can be employed to obtain security service personnel location data and confirm their patrol routes. This study adopts active RFID technology and nano real-time positioning WSN technology to test the indoor positioning accuracy of these technologies and related system construction issues. The findings provide a reference for future research on indoor positioning method selection

Dense and long-term monitoring of Earth surface processes with passive RFID -- a review

Billions of Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) passive tags are produced yearly to identify goods remotely. New research and business applications are continuously arising, including recently localization and sensing to monitor earth surface processes. Indeed, passive tags can cost 10 to 100 times less than wireless sensors networks and require little maintenance, facilitating years-long monitoring with ten's to thousands of tags. This study reviews the existing and potential applications of RFID in geosciences. The most mature application today is the study of coarse sediment transport in rivers or coastal environments, using tags placed into pebbles. More recently, tag localization was used to monitor landslide displacement, with a centimetric accuracy. Sensing tags were used to detect a displacement threshold on unstable rocks, to monitor the soil moisture or temperature, and to monitor the snowpack temperature and snow water equivalent. RFID sensors, available today, could monitor other parameters, such as the vibration of structures, the tilt of unstable boulders, the strain of a material, or the salinity of water. Key challenges for using RFID monitoring more broadly in geosciences include the use of ground and aerial vehicles to collect data or localize tags, the increase in reading range and duration, the ability to use tags placed under ground, snow, water or vegetation, and the optimization of economical and environmental cost. As a pattern, passive RFID could fill a gap between wireless sensor networks and manual measurements, to collect data efficiently over large areas, during several years, at high spatial density and moderate cost.Comment: Invited paper for Earth Science Reviews. 50 pages without references. 31 figures. 8 table

Quality of spatial information for municipal infrastructure management

Management of municipal infrastructure involves many processes such as planning, construction, operation, and maintenance of various assets. Municipal infrastructure management systems require gathering and combining a large amount of data from different sources. These data consist of spatial and non-spatial data for describing the process information about each facility. In recent years, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are widely used in municipal infrastructure management to spatially locate the elements of roads, sewers and water networks. However, the data used in these systems are collected from different sources using different methods with little information about the quality of the data. Problems regarding spatial data quality can affect all fields that use geographic data. Furthermore, the aging of municipal infrastructure assets combined with limited maintenance budgets presents unprecedented challenges to municipalities and public work agencies. A new integrated Municipal Infrastructure Management System (MIMS) is required to perform better quality performance for optimizing maintenance, repair and replacement activities. In this research, first a literature review is conducted about the existing MIMS software solutions, various spatial technologies are introduced, and data standards and quality concepts are discussed. Then, a new framework for MIMS spatial data quality assurance process is proposed. This framework is developed to cover all aspects of data quality and several practical methods for achieving spatial data quality assurance. One case study with four implementations is used to demonstrate the applications of the proposed approach

A GPR-GPS-GIS-integrated, information-rich and error-aware system for detecting, locating and characterizing underground utilities

Underground utilities have proliferated throughout the years. The location and dimension of many underground utilities have not always been properly collected and documented, leading to utility conflicts and utility strikes, and thus resulting in property damages, project delays, cost overruns, environment pollutions, injuries and deaths. The underlying reasons are twofold. First, the reliable data regarding the location and dimension of underground utility are missing or incomplete. Existing methods to collect data are not efficient and effective. Second, positional uncertainties are inherent in the measured utility locations. An effective means is not yet available to visualize and communicate the inherent positional uncertainties associated with utility location data to end-users (e.g., excavator operator). To address the aforementioned problems, this research integrate ground penetrating radar (GPR), global positioning system (GPS) and geographic information system (GIS) to form a total 3G system to collect, inventory and visualize underground utility data. Furthermore, a 3D probabilistic error band is created to model and visualize the inherent positional uncertainties in utility data. ^ Three main challenges are addressed in this research. The first challenge is the interpretation of GPR and GPS raw data. A novel method is created in this research to simultaneously estimate the radius and buried depth of underground utilities using GPR scans and auxiliary GPS data. The proposed method was validated using GPR field scans obtained under various settings. It was found that this newly created method increases the accuracy of estimating the buried depth and radius of the buried utility under a general scanning condition. The second challenge is the geo-registration of detected utility locations. This challenge is addressed by integration of GPR, GPS and GIS. The newly created system takes advantages of GPR and GPS to detect and locate underground utilities in 3D and uses GIS for storing, updating, modeling, and visualizing collected utility data in a real world coordinate system. The third challenge is positional error/uncertainty assessment and modeling. The locational errors of GPR system are evaluated in different depth and soil conditions. Quantitative linkages between error magnitudes and its influencing factors (i.e., buried depths and soil conditions) are established. In order to handle the positional error of underground utilities, a prototype of 3D probabilistic error band is created and implemented in GIS environment. This makes the system error-aware and also paves the way to a more intelligent error-aware GIS. ^ To sum up, the newly created system is able to detect, locate and characterize underground utilities in an information-rich and error-aware manner

Low Power IoT based Automated Manhole Cover Monitoring System as a Smart City application

With the increased population in the big cities, Internet of Things (IoT) devices to be used as automated monitoring systems are required in many of the Smart city’s applications. Monitoring road infrastructure such as a manhole cover (MC) is one of these applications. Automating monitoring manhole cover structure has become more demanding, especially when the number of MC failure increases rapidly: it affects the safety, security and the economy of the society. Only 30% of the current MC monitoring systems are automated with short lifetime in comparison to the lifetime of the MC, without monitoring all the MC issues and without discussing the challenges of the design from IoT device design point of view. Extending the lifetime of a fully automated IoT-based MC monitoring system from circuit design point of view was studied and addressed in this research. The main circuit that consumes more power in the IoT-based MC monitoring system is the analogue to digital converter (ADC) found at the data acquisition module (DAQ). In several applications, the compressive sensing (CS) technique proved its capability to reduce the power consumption for ADC. In this research, CS has been investigated and studied deeply to reach the aim of the research. CS based ADC is named analogue to information converter (AIC). Because the heart of the AIC is the pseudorandom number generator (PRNG), several researchers have used it as a key to secure the data, which makes AIC more suitable for IoT device design. Most of these PRNG designs for AIC are hardware implemented in the digital circuit design. The presence of digital PRNG at the AIC analogue front end requires: a) isolating digital and analogue parts, and b) using two different power supplies and grounds for analogue and digital parts. On the other hand, analogue circuit design becomes more demanding for the sake of the power consumption, especially after merging the analogue circuit design with other fields such as neural networks and neuroscience. This has motivated the researcher to propose two low-power analogue chaotic oscillators to replace digital PRNG using opamp Schmitt Trigger. The proposed systems are based on a coupling oscillator concept. The design of the proposed systems is based on: First, two new modifications for the well-known astable multivibrator using opamp Schmitt trigger. Second, the waveshaping design technique is presented to design analogue chaotic oscillators instead of starting with complex differential equations as it is the case for most of the chaotic oscillator designs. This technique helps to find easy steps and understanding of building analogue chaotic oscillators for electronic circuit designers. The proposed systems used off the shelf components as a proof of concept. The proposed systems were validated based on: a) the range of the temperature found beneath a manhole cover, and b) the signal reconstruction under the presence and the absence of noise. The results show decent performance of the proposed system from the power consumption point of view, as it can exceed the lifetime of similar two opamps based Jerk chaotic oscillators by almost one year for long lifetime applications such as monitoring MC using Li-Ion battery. Furthermore, in comparison to PRNG output sequence generated by a software algorithm used in AIC framework in the presence of the noise, the first proposed system output sequence improved the signal reconstruction by 6.94%, while the second system improved the signal reconstruction by 17.83

The Impact of Occupational Safety on Logistics and Automation in Industrial Plants

Research on workplace health and safety analyses the integration of work practices with safety, health and wealth of people at work. The aim of occupational safety is to realize a safe and health work environment, eliminating or reducing the risks for workers' safety and health. The objective of this thesis is the study, integration, development and application of innovative approaches and models for decision-making support in the context of occupational safety in industrial plants and logistics. Such methodologies are expected to lead practitioners and decision-makers, in particular safety professionals and companies, in the management of occupational safety. In particular, this research focuses on the integration and application of ergonomics principles to reduce biomechanical overload of manual work, and methodologies and solutions to improve safety of confined space work in industrial plants. The study of biomechanical overload due to manual handling of loads and awkward postures is the object of several researches and publications addressing the ergonomic risk assessment and the ergonomic approach to remove or reduce the risk of manual handling injuries and disorders. Furthermore, when awkward postures are assumed in high-risk workplaces as confined spaces, the overall risk of work is extremely high. Confined space work is a high-risk activity, posing a significant hazard for both workers and rescuers involved in the emergency response. The leading cause of accidents and fatalities in confined spaces is atmospheric condition (Sahli & Armstrong 1992, Harris et al. 2005, Flynn & Susi, 2010, Meeker, Susi & Flynn 2010, Ye 2011, Bellamy 2015). Further common causes are fire, explosion, ignition of flammable contaminants, spontaneous combustion and contact with temperature extremes. Besides, work activities in confined spaces (e.g., welding and maintenance tasks) frequently require awkward and static postures, at high temperatures. This thesis stresses the importance of implementing health and safety interventions at workplace. These interventions have impact not only on enterprise level but also on individual and social levels. Furthermore, protection of human life is a matter of human rights and human life has an invaluable value. In this thesis, the role of occupational safety and safety strategy as means for the improvement of workers and companies’ performances clearly emerges. Two parallel research fields on occupational safety are investigated: ergonomics and confined spaces. Selected data are introduced related to occupational accidents and diseases due to biomechanical overload and work in confined spaces. The literature survey on controls for risk elimination and reduction shows that technology for safety is available. Nevertheless, injuries and accidents still occur, i.e. safety is frequently considered an expensive investment and a compliance obligation. Specifically, administrative and engineering controls for risk elimination and reduction are introduced for each research field. Administrative controls include work procedures and mathematical models for the design of safe work processes. Such control methods reduce the workers' exposure to occupational risk factors. The ergonomic analysis of manual handling activities drives the modelling by multi-objective optimisation problems in the design of administrative controls for the ergonomic risk reduction in different industries. Administrative controls for risks in confined spaces include work procedures, a multi-criteria decision tool and the analysis of the requirements of Internet of Things (IOT) technologies for reducing the risk of confined space work. The introduction of automation to replace manual work and engineering controls for confined space work are analysed for the risk elimination. Results show that the integration of ergonomics and safety principles in the industrial processes plays a leading role in the successful implementation of the overall strategy. Technologies for safe confined space work and technical solutions assisting workers during manual material handling tasks have been the focus of the Solutions Database Project, funded by the Azienda Unità Sanitaria Locale of Bologna (AUSL), Italy. The study of such technological and technical solutions lead to the development of the Solutions Database, a free access database available online for researchers and practitioners (http://safetyengineering.din.unibo.it/en/banca-delle-soluzioni). The thesis ends with the recommendation that companies should integrate workplace health and safety principles to human resource management and work organisation. The management of health and safety issues should be considered to be crucial for workplace development, as a lever to increase performance and productivity. Finally, this research aims to support and reinforce the evolution of the concept of safety in industry, from ex post required obligation, to ex ante optimisation strategy

Real-Time Visualization for Prevention of Excavation Related Utility Strikes.

An excavator unintentionally hits a buried utility every 60 seconds in the United States, causing several fatalities and injuries, and billions of dollars in damage each year. Most of these accidents occur either because excavator operators do not know where utilities are buried, or because they cannot perceive where the utilities are relative to the digging excavator. In particular, an operator has no practical means of knowing the distance of an excavator’s digging implement (e.g. bucket) to the nearest buried obstructions until they are visually exposed, which means that the first estimate of proximity an operator receives is often after the digging implement has already struck the buried utility. The objective of this dissertation was to remedy this situation and explore new proximity monitoring methods for improving the spatial awareness and decision-making capabilities of excavator operators. The research pursued fundamental knowledge in equipment articulation monitoring, and geometric proximity interpretation, and their integration for improving spatial awareness and operator knowledge. A comprehensive computational framework was developed to monitor construction activities in real-time in a concurrent 3D virtual world. As an excavator works, a geometric representation of the real ongoing process is recreated in the virtual environment using 3D models of the excavator, buried utilities and jobsite terrain. Data from sensors installed on the excavator is used to update the position and orientation of the corresponding equipment in the virtual world. Finally, geometric proximity monitoring and collision detection computations are performed between the equipment end-effector and co-located buried utility models to provide distance and impending collision information to the operator, thereby realizing real time knowledge-based excavator operation and control. The outcome of this research has the potential to transform excavator operation from a primarily skill-based activity to a knowledge-based practice, leading to significant increases in construction productivity and safety. This is turn is expected to help realize tangible cost savings and reduction of potential hazards to citizens, improvement in competitiveness of U.S. industry, and reduction in life cycle costs of underground infrastructure.PHDCivil EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96133/1/stalmaki_1.pd

Technology and Management Applied in Construction Engineering Projects

This book focuses on fundamental and applied research on construction project management. It presents research papers and practice-oriented papers. The execution of construction projects is specific and particularly difficult because each implementation is a unique, complex, and dynamic process that consists of several or more subprocesses that are related to each other, in which various aspects of the investment process participate. Therefore, there is still a vital need to study, research, and conclude the engineering technology and management applied in construction projects. This book present unanimous research approach is a result of many years of studies, conducted by 35 well experienced authors. The common subject of research concerns the development of methods and tools for modeling multi-criteria processes in construction engineering