Programa práctico de una asignatura de Ingeniería del Software Distribuido

En esta contribución describimos de manera detallada el programa práctico de la asignatura Ingeniería del Software III, del plan de estudios implantado en 1996 en ESIDE (Universidad de Deusto). Esta asignatura es troncal y se impartirá por primera vez a los alumnos de 5° durante el primer cuatrimestre del curso 2000-2001. Mediante su docencia, nuestra intención es acercar a los alumnos los conceptos involucrados en el desarrollo de software distribuido, así como afianzar algunos de ellos mediante las clases de laboratorio que describimos

Influence of substrate types and reflector proximities over a NDTC antenna

The influence of dissimilar substrates and reflector proximities over a newly developed Non-uniformly Distributed-Turns Coil (NDTC) antenna for High-Frequency (HF) Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) applications is presented. In the study, the performance of the HF-RFID NDTC antenna over various substrates with deposited conductor thicknesses is conducted. In addition, the effect over a conceivably encountered reflector in the proximity of the antenna is considered. Insensitive reflection coefficient (S11) responses for different substrate permittivities were experienced and the diverse conductor types and thicknesses contributed to a compromised magnetic-field (H-field) and recalculated matching network. The matching network additionally preserves resonance when the antennas is in close proximity to the reflector and a predictable H-field response for the separation range is shown

Influence of Managing the Number of Tag Bits Transmitted on the Query Tree RFID Collision Resolution Protocol

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is increasingly becoming popular, for its widespread use and more sophisticated applications. The coexistence of tags sharing the communication channel requires solutions to message collisions, which degrade bandwidth, and increase the number of transmitted bits. A new methodology called ‘window’ is presented to manage the number of bits transmitted by a tag. The aim is show how the query tree (QT) protocol is influenced by this feature, and how the performance of the novel protocol, query window tree (QwT), improves when the tag ID distribution is correlated. Therefore, we have performed a fair comparison of the Query Tree and the new proposed QwT protocol for various tag ID distributions. Simulations show that the QwT positively decreases the total number of bits that are transmitted by tags

Channel-based antenna synthesis for improved in-vehicle UWB MB-OFDM communications

Ultra-wide band (UWB) is an attractive technology for innovative in-vehicle wireless communications requiring high data rates and multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MB-OFDM) a suitable scheme for the accomplishment due to its high performance, low-power and low-cost characteristics. To contribute toward improved UWB MB-OFDM communications inside vehicles, a channel-based antenna synthesis technique to customise in-vehicle UWB antennas that reduce ‘blind spots’ in the communication channel is proposed and presented. For the realisation, a comprehensive analysis was utilised and comprised an in-car channel evaluation including bit-error-rate (BER) estimations and radiation pattern-and-source syntheses. The channel was measured using a standard antenna to set up the base of the experiments and the distribution of the impulse responses and signal-to-noise ratios in the vehicle's passenger plane shown. The currently available IEEE 802.15.3a channel models were perceived unrealistic for the in-vehicle application and the reason for measuring the channel practically. Using these specific channel measurements, the synthesised pattern is unveiled and consequently the channel-based antenna synthesis technique used to predict the antenna source. The antenna with optimised pattern-and-source showed an improved BER performance compared with the standard antenna in this application; that is, a figure of merit of 37.73% minimised ‘blind spots’

A Hybrid Method for Short-Term Traffic Congestion Forecasting Using Genetic Algorithms and Cross Entropy

This paper presents a method of optimizing the elements of a hierarchy of fuzzy-rule-based systems (FRBSs). It is a hybridization of a genetic algorithm (GA) and the cross-entropy (CE) method, which is here called GACE. It is used to predict congestion in a 9-km-long stretch of the I5 freeway in California, with time horizons of 5, 15, and 30 min. A comparative study of different levels of hybridization in GACE is made. These range from a pure GA to a pure CE, passing through different weights for each of the combined techniques. The results prove that GACE is more accurate than GA or CE alone for predicting short-term traffic congestion. Document type: Articl

IVAN: Intelligent van for the distribution of pharmaceutical drugs

This paper describes a telematic system based on an intelligent van which is capable of tracing pharmaceutical drugs over delivery routes from a warehouse to pharmacies, without altering carriers' daily conventional tasks. The intelligent van understands its environment, taking into account its location, the assets and the predefined delivery route; with the capability of reporting incidences to carriers in case of failure according to the established distribution plan. It is a non-intrusive solution which represents a successful experience of using smart environments and an optimized Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) embedded system in a viable way to resolve a real industrial need in the pharmaceutical industry. The combination of deterministic modeling of the indoor vehicle, the implementation of an ad-hoc radiating element and an agile software platform within an overall system architecture leads to a competitive, flexible and scalable solution.This work has been funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of Spain under INNPACTO funding program (RailTrace project, IPT-370000-2010-036)

Band-pass filter-like antenna validation in an ultra-wideband in-car wireless channel

Ultra-wide band (UWB) is a very attractive technology for innovative in-car wireless communications requiring high data rates. A designated antenna, which presents a reflection coefficient (S11) matched band comparable to the Band Pass Filters (BPF) normally required at the transducers, plays a positive contribution in this in-car application and was validated for the scenario. The inherited BPF-like response of the antenna relaxes the specification of the front-end BPF components of the transceivers. The in-car propagation channel was modelled and used to validate the BPF-like antenna. For the modelling, a comprehensive set of well-defined measurements (using a standard antenna) were used to set-up the in-car channel simulator and simulated results were used to validate the BPF-like antenna. Additionally, the performance of the UWB radio system is studied and the probability of errors over the communication channel compared using the standard and the BPF-like antenna by predictions

A discrete firefly algorithm to solve a rich vehicle routing problem modelling a newspaper distribution system with recycling policy

A real-world newspaper distribution problem with recycling policy is tackled in this work. In order to meet all the complex restrictions contained in such a problem, it has been modeled as a rich vehicle routing problem, which can be more specifically considered as an asymmetric and clustered vehicle routing problem with simultaneous pickup and deliveries, variable costs and forbidden paths (AC-VRP-SPDVCFP). This is the first study of such a problem in the literature. For this reason, a benchmark composed by 15 instances has been also proposed. In the design of this benchmark, real geographical positions have been used, located in the province of Bizkaia, Spain. For the proper treatment of this AC-VRP-SPDVCFP, a discrete firefly algorithm (DFA) has been developed. This application is the first application of the firefly algorithm to any rich vehicle routing problem. To prove that the proposed DFA is a promising technique, its performance has been compared with two other well-known techniques: an evolutionary algorithm and an evolutionary simulated annealing. Our results have shown that the DFA has outperformed these two classic meta-heuristics