From a Competition for Self-Driving Miniature Cars to a Standardized Experimental Platform: Concept, Models, Architecture, and Evaluation

Context: Competitions for self-driving cars facilitated the development and research in the domain of autonomous vehicles towards potential solutions for the future mobility. Objective: Miniature vehicles can bridge the gap between simulation-based evaluations of algorithms relying on simplified models, and those time-consuming vehicle tests on real-scale proving grounds. Method: This article combines findings from a systematic literature review, an in-depth analysis of results and technical concepts from contestants in a competition for self-driving miniature cars, and experiences of participating in the 2013 competition for self-driving cars. Results: A simulation-based development platform for real-scale vehicles has been adapted to support the development of a self-driving miniature car. Furthermore, a standardized platform was designed and realized to enable research and experiments in the context of future mobility solutions. Conclusion: A clear separation between algorithm conceptualization and validation in a model-based simulation environment enabled efficient and riskless experiments and validation. The design of a reusable, low-cost, and energy-efficient hardware architecture utilizing a standardized software/hardware interface enables experiments, which would otherwise require resources like a large real-scale test track.Comment: 17 pages, 19 figues, 2 table

Combining Unmanned Aerial Systems and Sensor Networks for Earth Observation

The combination of remote sensing and sensor network technologies can provide unprecedented earth observation capabilities, and has attracted high R&D interest in recent years. However, the procedures and tools used for deployment, geo-referenciation and collection of logged measurements in the case of traditional environmental monitoring stations are not suitable when dealing with hundreds or thousands of sensor nodes deployed in an environment of tenths of hectares. This paper presents a scheme based on Unmanned Aerial Systems that intends to give a step forward in the use of sensor networks for environment observation. The presented scheme includes methods, tools and technologies to solve sensor node deployment, localization and collection of measurements. The presented scheme is scalable—it is suitable for medium–large environments with a high number of sensor nodes—and highly autonomous—it is operated with very low human intervention. This paper presents the scheme including its main components, techniques and technologies, and describes its implementation and evaluation in field experimentsMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad DPI2014-59383-C2-1-

An Integrated Testbed for Cooperative Perception with Heterogeneous Mobile and Static Sensors

Cooperation among devices with different sensing, computing and communication capabilities provides interesting possibilities in a growing number of problems and applications including domotics (domestic robotics), environmental monitoring or intelligent cities, among others. Despite the increasing interest in academic and industrial communities, experimental tools for evaluation and comparison of cooperative algorithms for such heterogeneous technologies are still very scarce. This paper presents a remote testbed with mobile robots and Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) equipped with a set of low-cost off-the-shelf sensors, commonly used in cooperative perception research and applications, that present high degree of heterogeneity in their technology, sensed magnitudes, features, output bandwidth, interfaces and power consumption, among others. Its open and modular architecture allows tight integration and interoperability between mobile robots and WSN through a bidirectional protocol that enables full interaction. Moreover, the integration of standard tools and interfaces increases usability, allowing an easy extension to new hardware and software components and the reuse of code. Different levels of decentralization are considered, supporting from totally distributed to centralized approaches. Developed for the EU-funded Cooperating Objects Network of Excellence (CONET) and currently available at the School of Engineering of Seville (Spain), the testbed provides full remote control through the Internet. Numerous experiments have been performed, some of which are described in the paper

Analysis of simulator feasibility in development of wireless sensor network applications

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of small autonomous electronic devices that sense environmental conditions and communicate over wireless links. WSNs have applications in various fields of science and technology, which are diverse and typically exist in remote areas with harsh conditions. This makes testing and debugging of applications time consuming, costly and sometimes even impossible for application developers. Hence, simulators are used to develop and test WSN applications to verify the functionality of applications without actual deployment and to avoid debugging and testing costs. Selection of a feasible simulator for WSN application development requires analysis and comparison of available WSN simulators. A feasible simulator fulfils application requirements and presents related features. Existing comparison surveys and articles present strengths and weaknesses of WSN simulators. They do not concentrate on the attributes of simulators, which an application developer should consider in selecting a feasible WSN simulator before application development. In this thesis, WSN simulators are analyzed and their attributes are collected, which can be used in selecting a feasible simulator for application development. Three types of attributes are collected: 1) activity attributes, 2) basic attributes, 3) core attributes. Activity attributes present how active and up-to-date the WSN simulators are. Basic attributes specify the type, category and development language of WSN simulators. Core attributes present the availability of core WSN requirements such as, scalability, consumed power and memory calculation modules in simulators. Seven simulators are compared using these attributes. Requirements for typical WSN applications are defined and consist of multi-hop routing, calculation of execution time, power and memory consumption of nodes. The feasibilities of the simulators are measured against the application requirements. COOJA meets all the requirements and seems feasible for WSN application development and testing. Feasibility of COOJA simulator is verified experimentally by developing three test applications. In the first application, COOJA simulates multi-hop network and provides four types of statistics, which are network, power, sensor and topology statistics. In the second application, COOJA measures power and memory consumption. In the third application, power consumption is measured for each function call of the application program. COOJA fulfils all requirements and is found feasible for WSN application development and testing

Potential to sell firewood in the Netherlands : a market research

Detta examensarbete skrevs på uppdrag av Södra skogsägarna. Syftet med arbetet var att fördjupa kunskapen om marknaden för pannved i Nederländerna. Arbetet beskriver bland annat kunder till vedföretagen, priser för ved, var veden kommer ifrån samt hur vedföretagen ser på framtiden inom vedmarknaden. Förutom detta ger arbetet även en bild av Nederländerna, dess energiförsörjning, den förnyelsebara energin och skogsråvaran i landet. Teorierna som ligger till grund för arbetet är framförallt marknadsundersökning, omvärldsanalys och beskrivning av erbjudandet. Teorierna fokuserar på hur omvärlden inom ett specifikt område kan undersökas och vad som är viktigt när ett företag vill gå in på en ny marknad. Vidare beskriver teorierna även vad ett erbjudande består av. Datainsamlingen gjordes både med hjälp av primär- och sekundärdata. Primärdata samlades in via telefonintervju, intervjuer på plats samt genom e-mail konversationer. Sekundärdata samlades in genom diverse böcker och hemsidor via Internet. Resultatet visar att det finns potential för pannvedsförsäljning i Nederländerna. I Nederländerna finns ett antal företag som livnär sig på att sälja ved till privatpersoner, restauranger och byggvaruhus. Arbetet visar att företag som arbetar med pannved under de senaste åren ökat i antal. De företag som säljer ved importerar ved huvudsakligen från låglöneländer såsom baltländerna, Ukraina och Ryssland. Avgörande faktorer för var en vedförsäljare köper ved ifrån är pris och kvalitet på produkten. För att vara framgångsrika på marknaden för pannved krävs en konkurrensförmåga vad gäller framförallt pris och kvalitet på den erbjudna produkten. De företag som säljer ved efterfrågar en kvalitativ produkt till lågt pris.This thesis was written on behalf of Södra skogsägarna. The objective of this work was to deepen the knowledge of the market for firewood in the Netherlands. This work describes for instance customers to the firewood businesses, prices for firewood, where the wood come from and how the firewood businesses see the future in the firewood market. The thesis does also give a picture of the Netherlands, its energy, the renewable energy and forest products in the country. The theory underlying the work is primarily marketing research, environmental scanning and description of the offer. Theories focus on how the outside world in a specific field can be described and what is important when a company wants to enter a new market. Further theories is what an offer is made up of. The data was collected through both primary and secondary data. Primary data was collected via telephone interview, interviews on the spot and through e-mail conversations. Secondary data was collected through various books and websites on the Internet. The result shows that there is a potential for selling firewood in the Netherlands. In the Netherlands there are a number of companies that make their living on selling firewood to individuals, restaurants and DIY stores. The work shows that companies working with firewood in recent years have increased in number. The companies that sell firewood import wood mainly from low-wage countries such as the Baltic countries, Ukraine and Russia. Decisive factors where firewood businesses buy wood from are the price and quality of the product. To be successful on the market for firewood in the Netherlands, a competitiveness with regard to particularly price and quality of the product offered. The companies that sell firewood demand a product with quality at a low price

Generic Adaptation Support for Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless Sensor Networks are used in various and expanding application scenarios and are also considered to be important elements of the Internet of Things. They monitor and deliver data, which is not only used for research but to an increasing degree also in business environments. With the increasing complexity of these scenarios and the increasing dependency on the availability of the sensor network data, the requirements to a Wireless Sensor Network increase at the same pace. Since Wireless Sensor Networks are typically implemented using resource-constrained platforms, sensor network algorithms are typically optimised for specific operating conditions such as static or mobile networks, high or low traffic etc. However, due to scenario complexity and dynamic real-world conditions a static configuration of a Wireless Sensor Network software cannot always meet the requirements. Moreover, these requirements of the sensor network's user can change over time, for example concerning accuracy. Therefore, the sensor network software has to adapt itself to cope with dynamic system conditions and user requirements. This thesis presents the TinyAdapt and TinySwitch frameworks to solve the aforementioned problems. TinyAdapt, our generic adaptation framework for Wireless Sensor Networks, allows for the autonomous adaptation of arbitrary sensor network algorithms based on explicit and intuitively defined user preferences and on automatically monitored network conditions. Due to a two-phase approach, run-time adaptation is executed completely and efficiently on standard sensor node hardware and does not need support from, e.g., the base station. The creation of adaptive applications is guided by a complete workflow, which is presented as well. When changing parameters of an algorithm is not enough to achieve the desired adaptation results, the algorithm has to be exchanged completely. However, several limitations of TinyOS and the sensor node hardware limit the use of simple code exchange by node reprogramming for efficient adaptation. TinySwitch, our generic switching framework, allows to switch between alternative algorithms that are already installed in parallel. TinySwitch analyses these algorithms, determines their dependencies and creates all code to enable one of the algorithms while isolating all others. Due to its minimal overhead, TinySwitch is perfectly suited for run-time adaptation in TinyAdapt

The Emerging Domain of Cooperating Objects: Definitions and Concepts /

This book provides a classification of current and future applications for the domain of Cooperating Objects. The book has been created with a very strong participation of the industry and taking into account current research trends and industrial roadmap