A flexible platform for intermodal transportation and integrated logistics

This paper proposes an application of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools and Internet of Things to support intermodal transport and integrated logistics. In particular, the design and development of a new ICT platform is presented in order to facilitate the connectivity of the logistics systems, applications or objects from stakeholders to any logistics collaborative environment. The proposed platform aims to i) provide technological solutions to enhance and simplify collaboration among actors along the supply chain; ii) adopt and provide core functionalities to improve, optimise and automate transport and logistics operations within supply collaborations; iii) simplify information exchange within an integrated security framework. Finally, we show a case study in order to enlighten the effectiveness of the proposed ICT platform

Advances on Smart Cities and Smart Buildings

Modern cities are facing the challenge of combining competitiveness on a global city scale and sustainable urban development to become smart cities [...

A Novel Application Based on a Heuristic Approach for Planning Itineraries of One-Day Tourist

Technological innovations have revolutionized the lifestyle of the society and led to the development of advanced and intelligent cities. Smart city has recently become synonymous of a city characterized by an intelligent and extensive use of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) in order to allow efficient use of information. In this context, this paper proposes a new approach to optimize the planning of itineraries for one-day tourist. More in detail, an optimization approach based on Graph theory and multi-algorithms is provided to determine the optimal tourist itinerary. The aim is to minimize the travel times taking into account the tourist preferences. An Integer Linear Programming (ILP) problem is introduced to find the optimal outward and return paths of the touristic itinerary and a multi-algorithms strategy is used to maximize the number of attractions (PoIs) to be visited in the paths. Finally, a case study focusing on cruise tourist in the city of Bari, demonstrates the efficiency of the approach and the user interaction in the determination of the itinerary

A Distributed Consensus Algorithm for Task Allocation in Supply Chain Management

Worldwide competition originated the development of integrated supply chains (SCs) that are distributed manufacturing systems integrating international logistics and information technologies with production. This paper develops a decision-making model based on discrete consensus in order to assign tasks to each actor of the SC at the operational level. In particular, some actors of the SC generate tasks that other actors, localized in a downstream stage, have to complete. We provide a novel distributed algorithm that aims to minimize the task costs assuming that each actor can perform a subset of the available tasks and can communicate with a subset of actors. In order to show the effectiveness of the distributed algorithm, a case study is considered. The problem is formalized as a distributed consensus algorithm, i.e., as a procedure using which the agents of the SC can exchange messages and update autonomously and iteratively their assigned tasks. Some results prove that the convergence to a task assignment consensus is reached in finite time and a stopping criterion is provided

A Distributed Fault Detection Approach for Industrial Systems

The paper addresses the fault detection problem for large discrete event systems that can be modelled by a set of interacting Petri Net (PN) modules. Each system module is monitored by a PN diagnoser that has local information on the module structure and shares information by some places that are coupled with the other modules of the system. Each diagnoser works on-line: it waits for the firing of an observable transition and employs an algorithm based on the definition of some integer linear programming problems to decide whether the system behaviour is normal or exhibits some possible faults. A case study presented in the related literature shows the distributed fault detection strategy and points out the efficiency of the proposed approach

Fleet sizing for electric car sharing system via closed queueing networks

This paper addresses the problem of determining the optimal fleet size of electric car sharing systems. We model the system as a Discrete Event System in a closed queueing network framework considering the specific requirements of the electric vehicle utilization. Hence, we describe the asymptotic behavior of the vehicles and develop an optimization problem for maximizing the system revenue by determining the optimal fleet size. The large-scale of real-world systems results in computational difficulties in obtaining the exact solution, and so an approximate formulation is provided. Some numerical results illustrate and validate the solution method. \ua9 2014 IEEE

Decentralized deadlock-free control for AGV systems

This paper proposes a decentralized control strategy to assign tasks to Autonomous Guided Vehicles (AGV) and coordinate their paths to avoid deadlock and collisions. We consider a zone-controlled guidepath network where a set of intelligent vehicles (agents) has to autonomously reach a consensus about the distribution of a set of tasks, i.e., a set of zones to be reached. To this aim the agents apply a discrete consensus algorithm in order to locally minimize the global cost for reaching the destination zone. Moreover, we present a decentralized coordination protocol that is based on a zone-controlled approach with the aim of avoiding deadlock and collisions. \ua9 2015 American Automatic Control Council

An Improved Freeway Traffic Model in a First Order Hybrid Petri Net Framework

The paper presents a model for traffic state estimation and management of the freeways. The model is based on First-Order Hybrid Petri Nets (FOHPNs), a hybrid Petri net formalism including continuous places holding fluid, discrete places containing a non-negative integer number of tokens and transitions, which are either discrete or continuous. The paper improves a previous model in order to suitably describe the dynamics of the freeway traffic flow. To this aim we modify the dynamics of the FOHPN and we allow updating the transition firing speed as a function of the markings modeling the freeway traffic. The use of FOHPNs offers several significant advantages with respect to the model existing in the related literature: the graphical feature enables an easy modular modeling approach and the mathematical aspects efficiently allow simulating and optimizing the system. The obtained model is a linear discrete-time, time-varying state variable model and is suitable to describe a hybrid system such as a freeway subject to unpredictable events (i.e., accidents or bottlenecks). The effectiveness of the FOHPN formalism is shown by applying the proposed modeling technique to a stretch of a freeway in the North-East of Italy. Some simulation studies illustrate how the proposed model is able to provide a support to analyze the strategies to react to accidents and lane blockings