Towards the Internet of Smart Trains: A Review on Industrial IoT-Connected Railways

[Abstract] Nowadays, the railway industry is in a position where it is able to exploit the opportunities created by the IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) and enabling communication technologies under the paradigm of Internet of Trains. This review details the evolution of communication technologies since the deployment of GSM-R, describing the main alternatives and how railway requirements, specifications and recommendations have evolved over time. The advantages of the latest generation of broadband communication systems (e.g., LTE, 5G, IEEE 802.11ad) and the emergence of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) for the railway environment are also explained together with the strategic roadmap to ensure a smooth migration from GSM-R. Furthermore, this survey focuses on providing a holistic approach, identifying scenarios and architectures where railways could leverage better commercial IIoT capabilities. After reviewing the main industrial developments, short and medium-term IIoT-enabled services for smart railways are evaluated. Then, it is analyzed the latest research on predictive maintenance, smart infrastructure, advanced monitoring of assets, video surveillance systems, railway operations, Passenger and Freight Information Systems (PIS/FIS), train control systems, safety assurance, signaling systems, cyber security and energy efficiency. Overall, it can be stated that the aim of this article is to provide a detailed examination of the state-of-the-art of different technologies and services that will revolutionize the railway industry and will allow for confronting today challenges.Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; ED431C 2016-045Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; ED341D R2016/012Galicia. Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria; ED431G/01Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España); TEC2013-47141-C4-1-RAgencia Estatal de Investigación (España); TEC2015-69648-REDCAgencia Estatal de Investigación (España); TEC2016-75067-C4-1-

Developing a Framework for Stigmergic Human Collaboration with Technology Tools: Cases in Emergency Response

Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs), particularly social media and geographic information systems (GIS), have become a transformational force in emergency response. Social media enables ad hoc collaboration, providing timely, useful information dissemination and sharing, and helping to overcome limitations of time and place. Geographic information systems increase the level of situation awareness, serving geospatial data using interactive maps, animations, and computer generated imagery derived from sophisticated global remote sensing systems. Digital workspaces bring these technologies together and contribute to meeting ad hoc and formal emergency response challenges through their affordances of situation awareness and mass collaboration. Distributed ICTs that enable ad hoc emergency response via digital workspaces have arguably made traditional top-down system deployments less relevant in certain situations, including emergency response (Merrill, 2009; Heylighen, 2007a, b). Heylighen (2014, 2007a, b) theorizes that human cognitive stigmergy explains some self-organizing characteristics of ad hoc systems. Elliott (2007) identifies cognitive stigmergy as a factor in mass collaborations supported by digital workspaces. Stigmergy, a term from biology, refers to the phenomenon of self-organizing systems with agents that coordinate via perceived changes in the environment rather than direct communication. In the present research, ad hoc emergency response is examined through the lens of human cognitive stigmergy. The basic assertion is that ICTs and stigmergy together make possible highly effective ad hoc collaborations in circumstances where more typical collaborative methods break down. The research is organized into three essays: an in-depth analysis of the development and deployment of the Ushahidi emergency response software platform, a comparison of the emergency response ICTs used for emergency response during Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, and a process model developed from the case studies and relevant academic literature is described

Towards realisation of spectrum sharing of cognitive radio networks

Cognitive radio networks (CRN) have emerged as a promising solution to spectrum shortcoming, thanks to Professor Mitola who coined Cognitive Radios. To enable efficient communications, CRNs need to avoid interference to both Primary (licensee) Users (PUs), and among themselves (called self-coexistence). In this thesis, we focus on self-coexistence issues. Very briefly, the problems are categorised into intentional and unintentional interference. Firstly, unintentional interference includes: 1) CRNs administration; 2) Overcrowded CRNs Situation; 3) Missed spectrum detection; 4) Inter-cell Interference (ICI); and 5) Inability to model Secondary Users’ (SUs) activity. In intentional interference there is Primary User Emulation Attack (PUEA). To administer CRN operations (Prob. 1), in our first contribution, we proposed CogMnet, which aims to manage the spectrum sharing of centralised networks. CogMnet divides the country into locations. It then dedicates a real-time database for each location to record CRNs’ utilisations in real time, where each database includes three storage units: Networks locations storage unit; Real-time storage unit; and Historical storage unit. To tackle Prob. 2, our second contribution is CRNAC, a network admission control algorithm that aims to calculate the maximum number of CRNs allowed in any location. CRNAC has been tested and evaluated using MATLAB. To prevent research problems 3, 4, and to tackle research problem (5), our third contribution is RCNC, a new design for an infrastructure-based CRN core. The architecture of RCNC consists of two engines: Monitor and Coordinator Engine (MNCE) and Modified Cognitive Engine (MCE). Comprehensive simulation scenarios using ICS Designer (by ATDI) have validated some of RCNC’s components. In the last contribution, to deter PUEA (the intentional interference type), we developed a PUEA Deterrent (PUED) algorithm capable of detecting PUEAs commission details. PUED must be implemented by a PUEA Identifier Component in the MNCE in RCNC after every spectrum handing off. Therefore, PUED works like a CCTV system. According to criminology, robust CCTV systems have shown a significant prevention of clear visible theft, reducing crime rates by 80%. Therefore, we believe that our algorithm will do the same. Extensive simulations using a Vienna simulator showed the effectiveness of the PUED algorithm in terms of improving CRNs’ performance

Air Force Institute of Technology Research Report 2007

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

Outside the fence,\u27 the threat to the U.S. Aviation Industry

The purpose of this thesis was to examine the threat to the Aviation Industry from within the United States. The overall investigation starts with one assumption “that there will at some time in the near future be a covert operative group that desires to attack or engage the United States in war on its home land.” The principles of war will be analyzed resulting in covert cell guidance specifically; “economy of force” will require the covert units to be as small as possible to affect as many nodes as possible. Endurance will require the covert team to restrict any tactics that would be high risk, and would prohibit the use of suicide tactics. There has also been a redefinition of warfare in the last several years. What has emerged is a form of unrestricted warfare. The covert cell may abide by the principles of war while engaging the U.S. in unrestricted warfare. These assumptions lead to a center of gravity determination and terrorism as the possible action for the desired effect. Attack and weapon selection analysis results in the selection of the 50 caliber sniper rifle with armor-piercing incendiary ammunition as the most probable attack tactic executed against urban airport environments. Possible solution analysis of acoustic, mid wave infrared and optical augmentation systems reveals the advantages of each of these approaches. The conclusion is that open system architecture should be used to tailor the sensor suite around each airport based on the vital area locations with respect to the urban layout and the best sniping positions. This will lead to a multi- layer and multi-system defensive posture around each airport significantly reducing the risk of a drawn out terror campaign which involves the airline industry

iCity. Transformative Research for the Livable, Intelligent, and Sustainable City

This open access book presents the exciting research results of the BMBF funded project iCity carried out at University of Applied Science Stuttgart to help cities to become more liveable, intelligent and sustainable, to become a LIScity. The research has been pursued with industry partners and NGOs from 2017 to 2020. A LIScity is increasingly digitally networked, uses resources efficiently, and implements intelligent mobility concepts. It guarantees the supply of its grid-bound infrastructure with a high proportion of renewable energy. Intelligent cities are increasingly human-centered, integrative, and flexible, thus placing the well-being of the citizens at the center of developments to increase the quality of life. The articles in this book cover research aimed to meet these criteria. The book covers research in the fields of energy (i.e. algorithms for heating and energy storage systems, simulation programs for thermal local heating supply, runtime optimization of combined heat and power (CHP), natural ventilation), mobility (i.e. charging distribution and deep learning, innovative emission-friendly mobility, routing apps, zero-emission urban logistics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence for individual route planning, mobility behavior), information platforms (i.e. 3DCity models in city planning: sunny places visualization, augmented reality for windy cities, internet of things (IoT) monitoring to visualize device performance, storing and visualizing dynamic energy data of smart cities), and buildings and city planning (i.e. sound insulation of sustainable facades and balconies, multi-camera mobile systems for inspection of tunnels, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) as active façade elements, common space, the building envelopes potential in smart sustainable cities)

Crowd simulation and visualization

Large-scale simulation and visualization are essential topics in areas as different as sociology, physics, urbanism, training, entertainment among others. This kind of systems requires a vast computational power and memory resources commonly available in High Performance Computing HPC platforms. Currently, the most potent clusters have heterogeneous architectures with hundreds of thousands and even millions of cores. The industry trends inferred that exascale clusters would have thousands of millions. The technical challenges for simulation and visualization process in the exascale era are intertwined with difficulties in other areas of research, including storage, communication, programming models and hardware. For this reason, it is necessary prototyping, testing, and deployment a variety of approaches to address the technical challenges identified and evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of each proposed solution. The focus of this research is interactive large-scale crowd simulation and visualization. To exploit to the maximum the capacity of the current HPC infrastructure and be prepared to take advantage of the next generation. The project develops a new approach to scale crowd simulation and visualization on heterogeneous computing cluster using a task-based technique. Its main characteristic is hardware agnostic. It abstracts the difficulties that imply the use of heterogeneous architectures like memory management, scheduling, communications, and synchronization — facilitating development, maintenance, and scalability. With the goal of flexibility and take advantage of computing resources as best as possible, the project explores different configurations to connect the simulation with the visualization engine. This kind of system has an essential use in emergencies. Therefore, urban scenes were implemented as realistic as possible; in this way, users will be ready to face real events. Path planning for large-scale crowds is a challenge to solve, due to the inherent dynamism in the scenes and vast search space. A new path-finding algorithm was developed. It has a hierarchical approach which offers different advantages: it divides the search space reducing the problem complexity, it can obtain a partial path instead of wait for the complete one, which allows a character to start moving and compute the rest asynchronously. It can reprocess only a part if necessary with different levels of abstraction. A case study is presented for a crowd simulation in urban scenarios. Geolocated data are used, they were produced by mobile devices to predict individual and crowd behavior and detect abnormal situations in the presence of specific events. It was also address the challenge of combining all these individual’s location with a 3D rendering of the urban environment. The data processing and simulation approach are computationally expensive and time-critical, it relies thus on a hybrid Cloud-HPC architecture to produce an efficient solution. Within the project, new models of behavior based on data analytics were developed. It was developed the infrastructure to be able to consult various data sources such as social networks, government agencies or transport companies such as Uber. Every time there is more geolocation data available and better computation resources which allow performing analysis of greater depth, this lays the foundations to improve the simulation models of current crowds. The use of simulations and their visualization allows to observe and organize the crowds in real time. The analysis before, during and after daily mass events can reduce the risks and associated logistics costs.La simulación y visualización a gran escala son temas esenciales en áreas tan diferentes como la sociología, la física, el urbanismo, la capacitación, el entretenimiento, entre otros. Este tipo de sistemas requiere una gran capacidad de cómputo y recursos de memoria comúnmente disponibles en las plataformas de computo de alto rendimiento. Actualmente, los equipos más potentes tienen arquitecturas heterogéneas con cientos de miles e incluso millones de núcleos. Las tendencias de la industria infieren que los equipos en la era exascale tendran miles de millones. Los desafíos técnicos en el proceso de simulación y visualización en la era exascale se entrelazan con dificultades en otras áreas de investigación, incluidos almacenamiento, comunicación, modelos de programación y hardware. Por esta razón, es necesario crear prototipos, probar y desplegar una variedad de enfoques para abordar los desafíos técnicos identificados y evaluar las ventajas y desventajas de cada solución propuesta. El foco de esta investigación es la visualización y simulación interactiva de multitudes a gran escala. Aprovechar al máximo la capacidad de la infraestructura actual y estar preparado para aprovechar la próxima generación. El proyecto desarrolla un nuevo enfoque para escalar la simulación y visualización de multitudes en un clúster de computo heterogéneo utilizando una técnica basada en tareas. Su principal característica es que es hardware agnóstico. Abstrae las dificultades que implican el uso de arquitecturas heterogéneas como la administración de memoria, las comunicaciones y la sincronización, lo que facilita el desarrollo, el mantenimiento y la escalabilidad. Con el objetivo de flexibilizar y aprovechar los recursos informáticos lo mejor posible, el proyecto explora diferentes configuraciones para conectar la simulación con el motor de visualización. Este tipo de sistemas tienen un uso esencial en emergencias. Por lo tanto, se implementaron escenas urbanas lo más realistas posible, de esta manera los usuarios estarán listos para enfrentar eventos reales. La planificación de caminos para multitudes a gran escala es un desafío a resolver, debido al dinamismo inherente en las escenas y el vasto espacio de búsqueda. Se desarrolló un nuevo algoritmo de búsqueda de caminos. Tiene un enfoque jerárquico que ofrece diferentes ventajas: divide el espacio de búsqueda reduciendo la complejidad del problema, puede obtener una ruta parcial en lugar de esperar a la completa, lo que permite que un personaje comience a moverse y calcule el resto de forma asíncrona, puede reprocesar solo una parte si es necesario con diferentes niveles de abstracción. Se presenta un caso de estudio para una simulación de multitud en escenarios urbanos. Se utilizan datos geolocalizados producidos por dispositivos móviles para predecir el comportamiento individual y público y detectar situaciones anormales en presencia de eventos específicos. También se aborda el desafío de combinar la ubicación de todos estos individuos con una representación 3D del entorno urbano. Dentro del proyecto, se desarrollaron nuevos modelos de comportamiento basados ¿¿en el análisis de datos. Se creo la infraestructura para poder consultar varias fuentes de datos como redes sociales, agencias gubernamentales o empresas de transporte como Uber. Cada vez hay más datos de geolocalización disponibles y mejores recursos de cómputo que permiten realizar un análisis de mayor profundidad, esto sienta las bases para mejorar los modelos de simulación de las multitudes actuales. El uso de simulaciones y su visualización permite observar y organizar las multitudes en tiempo real. El análisis antes, durante y después de eventos multitudinarios diarios puede reducir los riesgos y los costos logísticos asociadosPostprint (published version

iCity. Transformative Research for the Livable, Intelligent, and Sustainable City

This open access book presents the exciting research results of the BMBF funded project iCity carried out at University of Applied Science Stuttgart to help cities to become more liveable, intelligent and sustainable, to become a LIScity. The research has been pursued with industry partners and NGOs from 2017 to 2020. A LIScity is increasingly digitally networked, uses resources efficiently, and implements intelligent mobility concepts. It guarantees the supply of its grid-bound infrastructure with a high proportion of renewable energy. Intelligent cities are increasingly human-centered, integrative, and flexible, thus placing the well-being of the citizens at the center of developments to increase the quality of life. The articles in this book cover research aimed to meet these criteria. The book covers research in the fields of energy (i.e. algorithms for heating and energy storage systems, simulation programs for thermal local heating supply, runtime optimization of combined heat and power (CHP), natural ventilation), mobility (i.e. charging distribution and deep learning, innovative emission-friendly mobility, routing apps, zero-emission urban logistics, augmented reality, artificial intelligence for individual route planning, mobility behavior), information platforms (i.e. 3DCity models in city planning: sunny places visualization, augmented reality for windy cities, internet of things (IoT) monitoring to visualize device performance, storing and visualizing dynamic energy data of smart cities), and buildings and city planning (i.e. sound insulation of sustainable facades and balconies, multi-camera mobile systems for inspection of tunnels, building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) as active façade elements, common space, the building envelopes potential in smart sustainable cities)

DRONE DELIVERY OF CBNRECy – DEW WEAPONS Emerging Threats of Mini-Weapons of Mass Destruction and Disruption (WMDD)

Drone Delivery of CBNRECy – DEW Weapons: Emerging Threats of Mini-Weapons of Mass Destruction and Disruption (WMDD) is our sixth textbook in a series covering the world of UASs and UUVs. Our textbook takes on a whole new purview for UAS / CUAS/ UUV (drones) – how they can be used to deploy Weapons of Mass Destruction and Deception against CBRNE and civilian targets of opportunity. We are concerned with the future use of these inexpensive devices and their availability to maleficent actors. Our work suggests that UASs in air and underwater UUVs will be the future of military and civilian terrorist operations. UAS / UUVs can deliver a huge punch for a low investment and minimize human casualties.https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1046/thumbnail.jp