89,360 research outputs found
Root Zone Sensors for Irrigation Management in Intensive Agriculture
Crop irrigation uses more than 70% of the worldâs water, and thus, improving irrigation efficiency is decisive to sustain the food demand from a fast-growing world population. This objective may be accomplished by cultivating more water-efficient crop species and/or through the application of efficient irrigation systems, which includes the implementation of a suitable method for precise scheduling. At the farm level, irrigation is generally scheduled based on the growerâs experience or on the determination of soil water balance (weather-based method). An alternative approach entails the measurement of soil water status. Expensive and sophisticated root zone sensors (RZS), such as neutron probes, are available for the use of soil and plant scientists, while cheap and practical devices are needed for irrigation management in commercial crops. The paper illustrates the main features of RZSâ (for both soil moisture and salinity) marketed for the irrigation industry and discusses how such sensors may be integrated in a wireless network for computer-controlled irrigation and used for innovative irrigation strategies, such as deficit or dual-water irrigation. The paper also consider the main results of recent or current research works conducted by the authors in Tuscany (Italy) on the irrigation management of container-grown ornamental plants, which is an important agricultural sector in Italy
Poster Abstract: Interconnecting Low-Power Wireless and Power-Line Communications using IPv6
Wireless sensor networks for building automation and energy management has made great progress in recent years, but the inherent indoor radio range limitations can make communication unpredictable and system deployments difficult. Low-power radio can be combined with low-power Power-Line Communication (PLC) to extend the range and predictability of indoor communication for building management and automation systems. We take the first steps towards exploring the system implications for integration of low-power wireless and PLC in the same network. We leverage IPv6, which allow networks to exist over multiple physical communication media as well as the RPL routing protocol for low-power lossy networks
Wireless communication, identification and sensing technologies enabling integrated logistics: a study in the harbor environment
In the last decade, integrated logistics has become an important challenge in
the development of wireless communication, identification and sensing
technology, due to the growing complexity of logistics processes and the
increasing demand for adapting systems to new requirements. The advancement of
wireless technology provides a wide range of options for the maritime container
terminals. Electronic devices employed in container terminals reduce the manual
effort, facilitating timely information flow and enhancing control and quality
of service and decision made. In this paper, we examine the technology that can
be used to support integration in harbor's logistics. In the literature, most
systems have been developed to address specific needs of particular harbors,
but a systematic study is missing. The purpose is to provide an overview to the
reader about which technology of integrated logistics can be implemented and
what remains to be addressed in the future
Energy Consumption Of Visual Sensor Networks: Impact Of Spatio-Temporal Coverage
Wireless visual sensor networks (VSNs) are expected to play a major role in
future IEEE 802.15.4 personal area networks (PAN) under recently-established
collision-free medium access control (MAC) protocols, such as the IEEE
802.15.4e-2012 MAC. In such environments, the VSN energy consumption is
affected by the number of camera sensors deployed (spatial coverage), as well
as the number of captured video frames out of which each node processes and
transmits data (temporal coverage). In this paper, we explore this aspect for
uniformly-formed VSNs, i.e., networks comprising identical wireless visual
sensor nodes connected to a collection node via a balanced cluster-tree
topology, with each node producing independent identically-distributed
bitstream sizes after processing the video frames captured within each network
activation interval. We derive analytic results for the energy-optimal
spatio-temporal coverage parameters of such VSNs under a-priori known bounds
for the number of frames to process per sensor and the number of nodes to
deploy within each tier of the VSN. Our results are parametric to the
probability density function characterizing the bitstream size produced by each
node and the energy consumption rates of the system of interest. Experimental
results reveal that our analytic results are always within 7% of the energy
consumption measurements for a wide range of settings. In addition, results
obtained via a multimedia subsystem show that the optimal spatio-temporal
settings derived by the proposed framework allow for substantial reduction of
energy consumption in comparison to ad-hoc settings. As such, our analytic
modeling is useful for early-stage studies of possible VSN deployments under
collision-free MAC protocols prior to costly and time-consuming experiments in
the field.Comment: to appear in IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video
Technology, 201
The crowd as a cameraman : on-stage display of crowdsourced mobile video at large-scale events
Recording videos with smartphones at large-scale events such as concerts and festivals is very common nowadays. These videos register the atmosphere of the event as it is experienced by the crowd and offer a perspective that is hard to capture by the professional cameras installed throughout the venue. In this article, we present a framework to collect videos from smartphones in the public and blend these into a mosaic that can be readily mixed with professional camera footage and shown on displays during the event. The video upload is prioritized by matching requests of the event director with video metadata, while taking into account the available wireless network capacity. The proposed framework's main novelty is its scalability, supporting the real-time transmission, processing and display of videos recorded by hundreds of simultaneous users in ultra-dense Wi-Fi environments, as well as its proven integration in commercial production environments. The framework has been extensively validated in a controlled lab setting with up to 1 000 clients as well as in a field trial where 1 183 videos were collected from 135 participants recruited from an audience of 8 050 people. 90 % of those videos were uploaded within 6.8 minutes
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