Using a Semi-autonomous Drone Swarm to Support Wildfire Management – A Concept of Operations Development Study

This paper provides insights into a human factors-oriented Concept of Operations (ConOps), which can be applied for future semi-autonomous drone swarms to support the management of wildfires. The results provide, firstly, an overview of the current practices to manage wildfires in Finland. Secondly, some of the current challenges and future visions about drone usage in a wildfire situation are presented. Third, a description of the key elements of the developed future ConOps for operating a drone swarm to support the combat of wildfires is given. The ConOps has been formulated based on qualitative research, which included a literature review, seven subject matter expert interviews and a workshop with 40 professionals in the domain. Many elements of this ConOps may also be applied to a variety of other swarm robotics operations than only wildfire management. Finally, as the development of the ConOps is still in its first stage, several further avenues for research and development are proposed

System of information output to electronic maps about vessels and aircrafts movement

The article is devoted to actual problem of development and introduction of the replay system of the current location and direction of movement, in real time vessels and aircrafts, intended for continuous monitoring and obtaining data on the characteristics of vessels

SIMULATION AND SELECTION OF A PROTECTION TYPES IN THE DESIGN STAGE OF SHIPS AND OFFSHORE STRUCTURES

The requirements of the rules and regulations of the Classification Societies are based on the assumption that during the construction and operation of ships the hull corrosion protection measures are implemented according to the standards and other regulatory documents currently in force. For the purposes of designing the ship hull structures, the load components for different corrosion protection types have been obtained in the paper. There have been collected the data on the relationship between the corrosion protection weight load and the ship displacement, which enables to select the lowest corrosion protection type by weight. Technical and economic parameters of corrosion protection of ship hull structures have been analyzed. To achieve the objective of the paper a cumulative simplified approach of economic feasibility of selecting the corrosion protection type for ship hull structures has been employed. It has been determined that a total cost of protection from stress-corrosion fractures decreases for the ships with a displacement of more than 6000 [t] in the case of usage of the impressed current cathodic protection instead of the sacrificial anode cathodic one. The results of the investigation can be used by shipbuilders at the ship design stage, which enables to make a correct selection of a corrosion protection type and decreases its total cost

Smart-fish system for fresh fish cold chain transportation - Overall approach and selection of sensor materials

This paper gives and overview of Cold Chain temperature measuring solutions available on a commercial market and introduces an approach of building a smart system for fresh fish transportation, called Smart-Fish. The system measurement ability ranges beyond a temperature measurement. It also features a GPS-based tracking and may be equipped with other types of sensors. A great domain-specific applicability for real-time measures and potentially low production cost stands the system out of crowd of similar solutions. Printed electronics technologies were utilised for temperature sensor, the key element of the system. The paper describes a set of requirements, results of material tests and final selection of material for this element

Unmanned Aircraft Systems - Education Activities in Finland, UCNDrone Perspective

Non peer reviewe

Smart Living - Personal and Service Drones

This paper introduces concepts of Personal Drone and Service Drone and describes four scenarios showing how personal drones and service drones may be used. Both concepts are mapped to the concept of Smart Living since their relationship is essential. The overview of Personal Drone and Service drone concepts and use cases preceded by an analysis of drone state of the art and future trends collected from the most recently published commercial reports. The future development of state-of-the-art along with user perception, legislation and policies will form a solid ground for both concepts to be implemented in the future

A Concept of services delivery to modern households: linked data approach

Ageing of population in many countries brings many challenges to researchers and opens new research fields. The number of systems and applications that affect to human living is enormously huge, and more are to come. Among the challenges that are subjects of research domains relevant to Ambient Assisted Living (AAL), interoperability between the systems is one of the most important. Regardless of a great number of implementations of Smart Homes – home platforms and solutions, developed in research circles and available on markets – and the fact that the interoperability aspects were addressed in a number of ways during the last decades, real-world solutions are still well fragmented. In addition, they may contain proprietary elements, and require relatively high development effort to achieve interoperability. Those are limiting factors that affect the appearance of new AAL services. The research objectives of this Master’s theses are the following: to research a state-of-the art service provisioning; to define relevant notions, to specify appropriate details and to identify best practices; and to propose a concept of service provisioning that is independent on existing AAL systems. The research boundaries of this work are determined by the AAL services domain, where stakeholders assist an independent living of domestic users by maintaining a high quality of their lives. An extensive theoretical research on all relevant aspects as well as practical experiments, including a user-driven research, an early inclusion, and field trials were performed. The proposed Decentralised Service Architecture and the refined Smart Living concepts are the major outcomes of the work. The idea of the architecture is to abstract whenever it is possible from the low-level technical interoperability to knowledge-based interoperability via such a high-level medium as the Web, using the Linked Data approach – in order to facilitate the minimum or no development effort for service provisioning. The HoviMestari system is utilising the Decentralised Service Architecture framework that is designed based on needs of elderly people. Some aspects of human living, such as education, work, cultural and social life, range beyond those living environments where Smart Homes operate. The concept of Smart Living is better suitable since it essentially assumes all the aspects of human living being affected with technologies. Technological challenges are similar regardless of a smart space and its domain. Understanding that may bring to a development of generic, unified solutions that could be reusable across smart spaces and domains.Monissa maissa väestön ikääntyminen tuo paljon uusia haasteita tutkijoille sekä avaa uusia tutkimusalueita. Elämiseen vaikuttavien systeemien ja ohjelmien määrä on valtava, ja lisää on tulossa. Ambient Assisted Living -ohjelmassa (AAL) tutkittavista haasteista systeemien yhteentoimivuus on tärkein. Älykotien sovellusten suuresta määrästä huolimatta – tutkimuslaitoksissa kehitettyjen ja markkinoilta saatavien – sekä useista viittauksista yhteentoimivuuden aspekteihin viimeisten vuosikymmenten aikana, oikean elämän ratkaisut ovat hyvin osittuneet. Lisäksi ne voivat sisältää sovelluskohtaisia elementtejä ja vaatia suhteellisen suurta kehitystoimintaa jotta yhteentoimivuus saavutettaisiin. Ne ovat rajoittavia osia jotka vaikuttavat uusien AAL palveluiden ulkomuotoon. Tämän maisterityö tutkimustavoitteet ovat seuraavat: tutkia uusimpia palveluvarustuksia; määritellä oleelliset käsitteet ja tarkentaa asiaankuuluvia yksityiskohtia sekä tunnistaa parhaat työkeinot; esittää käsite joka on itsenäinen olemassa olevista AAL-systeemeistä. Rajoitteet tutkimustyössä määrittää AAL-palvelualue, jolla osakkeenomistajat auttavat käyttäjiä itsenäisessä elämässä pitämällä heidän korkeaa elämänlaatuaan yllä. Aiheesta on tehty laaja teoreettinen tutkimus kaikista oleellisista näkökohdista, sekä käytännön kokeita jotka sisälsivät käyttäjälähtöisen tutkimuksen, aikaisen lisäyksen sekä kenttäkokeilun. Ehdotetut Hajautettu Palveluarkkitehtuuri ja kehitetty Älykäs Eläminen käsitteinä ovat työn suurimmat tulokset. Arkkitehtuurin idea on tiivistää matalatasoista teknistä yhteentoimivuutta korkeatasoiseen tietoon pohjautuvaan yhteentoimivuuteen korkeatasoisen välittäjän, kuten Internetin kautta, linkitettyä dataa käyttäen aina kun se on mahdollista helpottaakseen palveluvarustusten matalaa tai olematonta kehitystyötä. HoviMestari-ohjelma hyödyntää Hajautettua Palveluarkkitehtuurirunkoa joka on suunniteltu iäkkäiden ihmisten tarpeita ajatellen. Jotkut elämän osat, kuten koulutus, työ, kulttuurillinen ja sosiaalinen elämä ulottuvat älykotien hallitseman ympäristön ulkopuolelle. Älykkään asumisen konsepti on sopivampi koska se olettaa että teknologiat vaikuttavat kaikkiin elämän osiin. Tekniset haasteet ovat samankaltaisia riippumatta älykkäästä tilasta tai alueesta. Sen ymmärtäminen voi auttaa kehittämään yleisiä ja yhtenäisiä ratkaisuja joita voisi käyttää uudelleen älykkäiden tilojen ja alueiden kesken

UAS (drone) Arctic Challenges : Next Steps

This paper develops further the overview of technical and operational challenges associated with Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) operations in the Arctic. Essentially, many weather-relevant challenges are similar in other climate zones. Due to the lack of research on the Arctic particularities, the overview of included references to generic UAS challenges and considerations. Both collections of challenges, technological and operational, are revised and updated. For most of the listed challenges, the appropriate researches are introduced as entry points to the more specific research areas relevant to the given challenges.

UAS (drone) in Response to Coronavirus

This paper presents the result of an investigation how Unmanned Aviation Systems were applied in the first half of 2020 in response to the coronavirus COVID-19 challenges. The application cases collected and referenced in this paper are pandemic specific only even though many of them may be considered as typical. An important discovery was that the majority of limitations preventing the high spread of UAS applications are not technological. Nevertheless, innovative technologies, application cases and services that have originated during the pandemic period are expected to evolve and adapt to other situations and shape the future markets