A fly-by-wireless UAV platform based on a flexible and distributed system architecture

This paper reports and describes the diverse stages concerning the development of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) named “Aeronave Inteligente com Visão Artificial”, better known by its acronym as AIVA. The design and development of the first aerial platform, the onboard ommunications, the instrumentation system, the bidirectional communications platform to/from ground station, the flight control system, the navigation strategies, as well as the vision systems to help navigation and to carry out the planned surveillance missions, are addressed in this paper. One of the main innovative issues of this platform is the distributed onboard wireless network, based on Bluetooth technology and on a multiprocessor architecture system. These features increase the platform flexibility. The goals already accomplished so far reveal interesting developments to be used successfully in commercial UAV platforms

Cloud Computing

In the recent years, Cloud Computing has become very popular and an interesting subject in the field of science and technology. The research efforts in the Cloud Computing have led to a number of applications used for the convenience in daily life. Cloud Computing is not only providing solutions at the enterprise level but it is also suitable in organizing a centralized database which is accessible from every corner of the world. It is said that, 10 to 15 years later when all the enterprises have adopted the Cloud Computing, there will be no more perception for the data center in the company. The aim of this Master’s thesis “Cloud Computing: Server Configuration and Software Implementation for the Data Collection with Wireless Sensor Nodes” was to integrate the Wireless Sensor Network with Cloud Computing in a such a way that the data received from the Sensor node can be access able from anywhere in the world. To accomplish this task, a Wireless Sensor Network was deployed to measure the environmental conditions such as Temperature, Light and the Sensor’s battery information and the measured values are sent to a web server from where the data can be accessed. The project also includes the software implementation to collect the sensor’s measurements and a Graphical User Interface (GUI) application which reads the values from the sensor network and stores it to the database.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

Understanding citizen science and environmental monitoring: final report on behalf of UK Environmental Observation Framework

Citizen science can broadly be defined as the involvement of volunteers in science. Over the past decade there has been a rapid increase in the number of citizen science initiatives. The breadth of environmental-based citizen science is immense. Citizen scientists have surveyed for and monitored a broad range of taxa, and also contributed data on weather and habitats reflecting an increase in engagement with a diverse range of observational science. Citizen science has taken many varied approaches from citizen-led (co-created) projects with local community groups to, more commonly, scientist-led mass participation initiatives that are open to all sectors of society. Citizen science provides an indispensable means of combining environmental research with environmental education and wildlife recording. Here we provide a synthesis of extant citizen science projects using a novel cross-cutting approach to objectively assess understanding of citizen science and environmental monitoring including: 1. Brief overview of knowledge on the motivations of volunteers. 2. Semi-systematic review of environmental citizen science projects in order to understand the variety of extant citizen science projects. 3. Collation of detailed case studies on a selection of projects to complement the semi-systematic review. 4. Structured interviews with users of citizen science and environmental monitoring data focussing on policy, in order to more fully understand how citizen science can fit into policy needs. 5. Review of technology in citizen science and an exploration of future opportunities

Container-based microservice architecture for local IoT services

Abstract. Edge services are needed to save networking and computational resources on higher tiers, enable operation during network problems, and to help limiting private data propagation to higher tiers if the function needing it can be handled locally. MEC at access network level provides most of these features but cannot help when access network is down. Local services, in addition, help alleviating the MEC load and limit the data propagation even more, on local level. This thesis focuses on the local IoT service provisioning. Local service provisioning is subject to several requirements, related to resource/energy-efficiency, performance and reliability. This thesis introduces a novel way to design and implement a Docker container-based micro-service system for gadget-free future IoT (Internet of Things) network. It introduces a use case scenario and proposes few possible required micro-services as of solution to the scenario. Some of these services deployed on different virtual platforms along with software components that can process sensor data providing storage capacity to make decisions based on their algorithm and business logic while few other services deployed with gateway components to connect rest of the devices to the system of solution. It also includes a state-of-the-art study for design, implementation, and evaluation as a Proof-of-Concept (PoC) based on container-based microservices with Docker. The used IoT devices are Raspberry Pi embedded computers along with an Ubuntu machine with a rich set of features and interfaces, capable of running virtualized services. This thesis evaluates the solution based on practical implementation. In addition, the thesis also discusses the benefits and drawbacks of the system with respect to the empirical solution. The output of the thesis shows that the virtualized microservices could be efficiently utilized at the local and resource constrained IoT using Dockers. This validates that the approach taken in this thesis is feasible for providing such services and functionalities to the micro and nanoservice architecture. Finally, this thesis proposes numerous improvements for future iterations

Proceedings of the 2004 ONR Decision-Support Workshop Series: Interoperability

In August of 1998 the Collaborative Agent Design Research Center (CADRC) of the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), approached Dr. Phillip Abraham of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) with the proposal for an annual workshop focusing on emerging concepts in decision-support systems for military applications. The proposal was considered timely by the ONR Logistics Program Office for at least two reasons. First, rapid advances in information systems technology over the past decade had produced distributed collaborative computer-assistance capabilities with profound potential for providing meaningful support to military decision makers. Indeed, some systems based on these new capabilities such as the Integrated Marine Multi-Agent Command and Control System (IMMACCS) and the Integrated Computerized Deployment System (ICODES) had already reached the field-testing and final product stages, respectively. Second, over the past two decades the US Navy and Marine Corps had been increasingly challenged by missions demanding the rapid deployment of forces into hostile or devastate dterritories with minimum or non-existent indigenous support capabilities. Under these conditions Marine Corps forces had to rely mostly, if not entirely, on sea-based support and sustainment operations. Particularly today, operational strategies such as Operational Maneuver From The Sea (OMFTS) and Sea To Objective Maneuver (STOM) are very much in need of intelligent, near real-time and adaptive decision-support tools to assist military commanders and their staff under conditions of rapid change and overwhelming data loads. In the light of these developments the Logistics Program Office of ONR considered it timely to provide an annual forum for the interchange of ideas, needs and concepts that would address the decision-support requirements and opportunities in combined Navy and Marine Corps sea-based warfare and humanitarian relief operations. The first ONR Workshop was held April 20-22, 1999 at the Embassy Suites Hotel in San Luis Obispo, California. It focused on advances in technology with particular emphasis on an emerging family of powerful computer-based tools, and concluded that the most able members of this family of tools appear to be computer-based agents that are capable of communicating within a virtual environment of the real world. From 2001 onward the venue of the Workshop moved from the West Coast to Washington, and in 2003 the sponsorship was taken over by ONR’s Littoral Combat/Power Projection (FNC) Program Office (Program Manager: Mr. Barry Blumenthal). Themes and keynote speakers of past Workshops have included: 1999: ‘Collaborative Decision Making Tools’ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); LtGen Paul Van Riper (USMC Ret.);Radm Leland Kollmorgen (USN Ret.); and, Dr. Gary Klein (KleinAssociates) 2000: ‘The Human-Computer Partnership in Decision-Support’ Dr. Ronald DeMarco (Associate Technical Director, ONR); Radm CharlesMunns; Col Robert Schmidle; and, Col Ray Cole (USMC Ret.) 2001: ‘Continuing the Revolution in Military Affairs’ Mr. Andrew Marshall (Director, Office of Net Assessment, OSD); and,Radm Jay M. Cohen (Chief of Naval Research, ONR) 2002: ‘Transformation ... ’ Vadm Jerry Tuttle (USN Ret.); and, Steve Cooper (CIO, Office ofHomeland Security) 2003: ‘Developing the New Infostructure’ Richard P. Lee (Assistant Deputy Under Secretary, OSD); and, MichaelO’Neil (Boeing) 2004: ‘Interoperability’ MajGen Bradley M. Lott (USMC), Deputy Commanding General, Marine Corps Combat Development Command; Donald Diggs, Director, C2 Policy, OASD (NII

LAYING THE FOUNDATION FOR A MINIATUAIRZED SCADA TESTBED TO BE BUILT AT CSUSB

This culminating experience sought to lay the foundation for a miniaturized physical SCADA testbed to be built at California State University San Bernardino to enable students to apply the cybersecurity knowledge, skills and abilities in a fun and engaging environment while learning about what SCADA is, how it works, and how to improve the security of it. This project was conducted in response to a growing trend of cybersecurity attacks that have targeted our critical infrastructure systems through SCADA systems which are legacy systems that manage critical infrastructure systems within the past 10 years. Since SCADA systems require constant availability, it makes it hard to test the security of these devices which is why testbeds have been designed to analyze how a cyber-attack affects these systems in a safe environment. To build a SCADA testbed at CSUSB this project designed a requirements documentation based on the following questions so that the next person that wants to accomplish this task can take the requirements outlined and build a miniaturized physical SCADA testbed. To craft the appropriate requirements documentation this project aimed to answer the following questions: Q1. How can a miniaturized SCADA testbed be built for a school environment using open-source architecture? Q2. What critical infrastructure sectors can be easily implemented into a physical SCADA testbed? Q3. Which cyber-attacks can be easily replicable in a SCADA scenario-based environment? Q4. How should SCADA scenarios be modeled for an implementation into this testbed? To answer these questions, research was conducted utilizing scholarly articles on currently available SCADA testbeds, conducted interviews with individuals that have built SCADA testbeds, and distributed a survey to different SCADA professionals to build a requirement documentation for the miniaturized SCADA testbed, which included functional and nonfunctional requirements, use case diagrams and detailed use cases. After gathering the data from 3 different interviews with SCADA professionals and aggregating responses of the surveys we crafted a requirements documentation which includes a requirements documentation, detailed use cases, use case diagrams, and a classes and relationship chart so that the next individual who works on this project can use these ideas and begin construction of a miniaturized SCADA testbed at CSUSB

Design and implementation of application-specific medium access control protocol for scalable smart home embedded systems

Thesis (M.S.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2016By incorporating electrical devices, appliances and house features in a system that is controlled and monitored either remotely or on-site, smart home technologies have recently gained an increasing popularity. There are several smart home systems already available, ranging from simple on-site home monitoring to self-learning and Wi-Fi enabled systems. However, current systems do not fully make use of recent technological advancement and synergy among a variable number of sensors for improved data collection. For a synergistic system to be provident it needs to be modular and scalable to match exact user needs (type of applications and adequate number of sensors for each application). With an increased number of sensors intelligently placed to optimize the data collection, a wireless network is indispensable for a flexible and inexpensive installation. Such a network requires an efficient medium access control protocol to sustain a reliable system, provide flexibility in design and to achieve lower power consumption. This thesis brings to light practical ways to improve current smart home systems. As the main contribution of this work, we introduce a novel application-specific medium access control protocol able to support suggested improvements. In addition, a smart home prototype system is implemented to evaluate the protocol performance and prove concepts of recommended advances. This thesis covers the design of the proposed novel medium access protocol and the software/hardware implementation of the prototype system focusing on the monitoring and data analysis side, while providing inputs for the control side of the system. The smart home system prototype is Wi-Fi and Web connected, designed and implemented to emphasize system usability and energy efficiency