Studio e implementazione di soluzioni WSN avanzate per l’IoT e applicazioni a sistemi reali

Il tema di ricerca sviluppato durante i tre anni del corso di dottorato è principalmente focalizzato sullo studio e sviluppo di soluzioni Internet of Things per il monitoraggio ed efficientamento energetico. Tali soluzioni sono costituite da reti di dispositivi wireless intelligenti, sui quali, vengono installati opportuni trasduttori per il campionamento delle grandezze elettriche. Nell’ambito del tema di ricerca, non ci si é solo limitati al monitoraggio energetico, ma anche al monitoraggio di parametri ambientali quali: illuminazione, temperatura, umidità, parametri costruttivi e strutturali. I dati misurati dai diversi tipi di trasduttori vengono inviati dalla rete verso una designata piattaforma Cloud, che si occupa della loro memorizzazione e fruizione tramite un sistema gestionale sviluppato nell’ambito del tema di ricerca. Mentre per lo sviluppo della rete di monitoraggio sono state studiate le più recenti tecnologie e protocolli relativi all’Internet of Things. Partendo dal livello fisico e di collegamento dello stack protocollare ISO/OSI, implementati con lo standard IEEE 802.15.4, si procede con il livello di rete utilizzando il protocollo IPv6, poi con il livello di trasporto descritto dai protocolli TCP e UDP, fino al livello applicazione dove vengono utilizzati i protocolli HTTP e CoAP. Utilizzando il sistema di monitoraggio sviluppato, sono state condotte delle sperimentazioni sul campo in diversi scenari applicativi, non solo nel contesto monitoraggio energetico industriale ma anche in quello dell’illuminazione e strutturale. Al fine di valutare il sistema Internet of Things realizzato, sono stati condotti dei test specifici per l’analisi delle prestazioni ottenute.The research topic carried out during the three years of the PhD course is mainly focused on the study and development of Internet of Things solutions for monitoring and energy efficiency. These solutions consist of networks of smart wireless devices, on which appropriate sensors are installed for sampling electrical quantities. The research topic, is not only limited to energy monitoring, but also to monitoring environmental parameters such as: lighting, temperature, humidity, construction and structural parameters. Data measured by the different types of sensors are sent by the network to a designated cloud platform, which takes care of their storage and use through a management system developed within the research period. The latest technologies and protocols related to the Internet of Things have been studied and implemented for the development of the monitoring network. Starting from the physical and data link layer of the ISO/OSI protocol stack, implemented with the IEEE 802.15.4 standard, proceed with the network layer using the IPv6 protocol, then with the transport described by the TCP and UDP protocols, up to application layer where HTTP and CoAP protocols are used. Using the developed monitoring system, experiments on the field were conducted in different application scenarios, not only in the context of industrial energy monitoring but also in the lighting and structural monitoring context. In order to evaluate the realized Internet of Things system, specific tests were conducted to analyze the performance obtained

Sensing Light with LEDs: Performance Evaluation for IoT Applications

The Internet of Things includes all the technologies allowing the connection of everyday objects to the Internet, in order to gather measurements of physical quantities and interact with the surrounding environments through telecommunication devices with embedded sensing and actuating units. The measurements carried out with different LEDs demonstrate the possibility of using these devices both as transmitters and as optical sensors, in addition to their ability to discriminate incident wavelengths, thus making them bi-directional transceivers for Internet of Things (IoT) applications, particularly suitable in the context of Visible Light Communication (VLC). In particular, a methodological tool is provided for selecting the LED sensor for VLC applications

IoT Network for Industrial Machine Energy Monitoring

The need to reduce energy consumption and make industrial machines more efficient and the need to reduce energy cost by the optimization of industrial processes can be satisfied by the use of Internet of Things networks for energy monitoring. Internet of Things nodes are constrained devices with internet connectivity and limited computational resources. This paper presents an IPv6 wireless sensor network used to acquire electrical quantities related to the consumption of industrial machines. To test that system was measured the consumption of a hydraulic pump for the actuation of an MTS machine for tensile tests. The sensor node connected to the pump can be reached via its own IPv6 address, and the measured energy quantities are made available through CoAP server resources on the node itself or by the web application of the edge node. This system represent a first stage of the monitoring and control of energy consumption of Industry 4.0 processes for smart energy solutions

Code-based physical layer secret key generation in passive optical networks

To guarantee secure transmissions is an important target of passive optical networks (PONs). Modern standards for PONs, however, impose the adoption of symmetric encryption algorithms in downstream but do not do the same in upstream, where the secret keys may be transmitted in clear. Because of non- ideal optical network components, this exposes the PON to the risk of eavesdropping. In this paper, a novel technique for securely generating and sharing secret keys in passive optical networks is proposed. It exploits randomness at the physical layer and key distillation based on coding techniques. The main attack strategies are considered and the design parameters of the proposed protocol are discussed, both in analytical terms and through numerical examples. The cost in terms of complexity with respect to standard approaches affected by possible vulnerabilities is also assessed

The Scrovegni Chapel Moves Into the Future: An Innovative Internet of Things Solution Brings New Light to Giotto's Masterpiece

This paper presents a complete architecture of an innovative wireless sensor network able to real-time monitor and control complex lighting systems such as the newly installation at the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy, representing the first world example in cultural heritage field. The realization effectively creates the Internet of Things paradigm, since all its components are directly connected to the Internet and each other thanks to global IPv6 addresses. The new IoT lighting system represents a “restoration of perception” project because the luminaries can be controlled in intensity and color temperature based on natural light and the desired rendering. In the initial phase, specifically designed sensors measure indoor lighting variations and this monitoring will be extended for a sufficient time to determine the proper control actions. Furthermore, besides adjusting the illuminance and color temperature for aesthetic and perceptual purposes, the system can also real-time monitor and control a variety of environmental parameters, fundamental for cultural heritage conservation, providing long-term studies of correlations between artificial light, natural light, and lighting performance, and also to evaluate over time the conservative aspects correlating them with any other critical environmental condition. The control of exposure to artificial light is also important in other contexts because light can interfere with biological processes controlled by endogenous circadian rhythms, with possible negative consequences for health results. Finally, this architectural solution can be extended to a complete Smart City system that integrates cultural heritage as one of the countless elements to be monitored and controlled in the city

A Cross-Protocol Proxy for Sensor Networks Based on CoAP

Smart technologies able to support people during their daily life, such as those linked to the Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) world, are gaining importance in today's context. In this regard, solutions to problems arising from the need to connect constrained networks with the internet are essential. In fact, constrained network, being a particular wireless network made of devices that have limited computational power and limited storage capacity, strongly differ from the internet network. Communication protocols try to overcome the issues related to the interconnection of smart devices in our smart world with the internet. A lot of efforts have been made in this direction, ending up with the creation of several different protocols and among them, in the applications context, the CoAP (Constrained Application Protocol) one is becoming increasingly relevant. The emergence of new protocols forces the need for developing proxying systems able to intermediate between the two kind of networks and to translate between the relative protocols. In this paper we are going to present a cross-protocol proxy able to broker among the HTTP, MQTT and CoAP protocols and also able to implement the caching function, that as we will deepen, is an essential contributor for the timeliness of communications. The proposed cross-protocol proxy has been tested under four operating conditions, in terms of Throughput and Round Trip Time. The results show excellent performances for both metrics taken into account, especially when the caching feature is enabled

Telecommunications in the ICT Age: From Research to Applications

The human society in the information age deeply relies on digital information processing, communication and storage. Photonic routing and switchingis expected to be exploited in future all-optical networks. Channel coding is needed in order to protect information against natural disturbances, and modern coding schemes are able to reach the ultimate limits predicted by Shannon. On the other hand, postquantum cryptography is necessary for assuring security against cyber attackers, possibly provided with quantum computers. Source coding, especially in video data compression, is recommended for optimizing the bandwidth usage. Spread spectrum systems can solve the problem of radio transmissions over common frequency bands. These technologies are of crucial importance for the evolution of networks and of the whole Internet, allowing people to interact each other and access information in the web. Nowadays, the conventional Internet of people has moved into the pervasive Internet of Things providing innovative services in a variety of application fields. In this respect, domotic systems, based on ambient and wearable sensors, appear of dramatic importance in the design of future assisted living protocols