81,956 research outputs found
Training of Crisis Mappers and Map Production from Multi-sensor Data: Vernazza Case Study (Cinque Terre National Park, Italy)
This aim of paper is to presents the development of a multidisciplinary project carried out by the cooperation between Politecnico di Torino and ITHACA (Information Technology for Humanitarian Assistance, Cooperation and Action). The goal of the project was the training in geospatial data acquiring and processing for students attending Architecture and Engineering Courses, in order to start up a team of "volunteer mappers". Indeed, the project is aimed to document the environmental and built heritage subject to disaster; the purpose is to improve the capabilities of the actors involved in the activities connected in geospatial data collection, integration and sharing. The proposed area for testing the training activities is the Cinque Terre National Park, registered in the World Heritage List since 1997. The area was affected by flood on the 25th of October 2011. According to other international experiences, the group is expected to be active after emergencies in order to upgrade maps, using data acquired by typical geomatic methods and techniques such as terrestrial and aerial Lidar, close-range and aerial photogrammetry, topographic and GNSS instruments etc.; or by non conventional systems and instruments such us UAV, mobile mapping etc. The ultimate goal is to implement a WebGIS platform to share all the data collected with local authorities and the Civil Protectio
Cost-Aware Green Cellular Networks with Energy and Communication Cooperation
Energy cost of cellular networks is ever-increasing to match the surge of
wireless data traffic, and the saving of this cost is important to reduce the
operational expenditure (OPEX) of wireless operators in future. The recent
advancements of renewable energy integration and two-way energy flow in smart
grid provide potential new solutions to save the cost. However, they also
impose challenges, especially on how to use the stochastically and spatially
distributed renewable energy harvested at cellular base stations (BSs) to
reliably supply time- and space-varying wireless traffic over cellular
networks. To overcome these challenges, in this article we present three
approaches, namely, {\emph{energy cooperation, communication cooperation, and
joint energy and communication cooperation}}, in which different BSs
bidirectionally trade or share energy via the aggregator in smart grid, and/or
share wireless resources and shift loads with each other to reduce the total
energy cost.Comment: Submitted for possible publicatio
Self-Sustaining Caching Stations: Towards Cost-Effective 5G-Enabled Vehicular Networks
In this article, we investigate the cost-effective 5G-enabled vehicular
networks to support emerging vehicular applications, such as autonomous
driving, in-car infotainment and location-based road services. To this end,
self-sustaining caching stations (SCSs) are introduced to liberate on-road base
stations from the constraints of power lines and wired backhauls. Specifically,
the cache-enabled SCSs are powered by renewable energy and connected to core
networks through wireless backhauls, which can realize "drop-and-play"
deployment, green operation, and low-latency services. With SCSs integrated, a
5G-enabled heterogeneous vehicular networking architecture is further proposed,
where SCSs are deployed along roadside for traffic offloading while
conventional macro base stations (MBSs) provide ubiquitous coverage to
vehicles. In addition, a hierarchical network management framework is designed
to deal with high dynamics in vehicular traffic and renewable energy, where
content caching, energy management and traffic steering are jointly
investigated to optimize the service capability of SCSs with balanced power
demand and supply in different time scales. Case studies are provided to
illustrate SCS deployment and operation designs, and some open research issues
are also discussed.Comment: IEEE Communications Magazine, to appea
Autonomous Mobility and Energy Service Management in Future Smart Cities: An Overview
With the rise of transportation electrification, autonomous driving and
shared mobility in urban mobility systems, and increasing penetrations of
distributed energy resources and autonomous demand-side management techniques
in energy systems, tremendous opportunities, as well as challenges, are
emerging in the forging of a sustainable and converged urban mobility and
energy future. This paper is motivated by these disruptive transformations and
gives an overview of managing autonomous mobility and energy services in future
smart cities. First, we propose a three-layer architecture for the convergence
of future mobility and energy systems. For each layer, we give a brief overview
of the disruptive transformations that directly contribute to the rise of
autonomous mobility-on-demand (AMoD) systems. Second, we propose the concept of
autonomous flexibility-on-demand (AFoD), as an energy service platform built
directly on existing infrastructures of AMoD systems. In the vision of AFoD,
autonomous electric vehicles provide charging flexibilities as a service on
demand in energy systems. Third, we analyze and compare AMoD and AFoD, and we
identify four key decisions that, if appropriately coordinated, will create a
synergy between AMoD and AFoD. Finally, we discuss key challenges towards the
success of AMoD and AFoD in future smart cities and present some key research
directions regarding the system-wide coordination between AMoD and AFoD.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure
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