LoRaWAN: Lost for Localization?

Nowadays, the flexible localization solution for various devices for work safety is one of the most demanding research questions. Notably, it is expected to provide an acceptable level of precision in different types of environments empowered by wearable technology and the Interent of Things (IoT) devices. Existing leading localization technologies are adapted for certain conditions, e.g., Wi-Fi, BLE, UWB are used for indoor areas and various GNSS-based ones for outdoor. This work focuses on investigating the LoRaWAN (868 MHz band) as a potential candidate to bridge this gap, being one of the most reliable and recognized communication technologies for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). In the past, the research community had a lot of critics with respect to the applicability of LoRaWAN for localization, while the vision is facing a tremendous change over the past two years. The purpose of this work is to assess the feasibility of LoRaWAN as a localization solution for work safety applications in the industrial scenario from different angles. The work is based on two measurement campaigns conducted at the Brno University of Technology (BUT), Brno, Czech Republic, and University Politechnica in Bucharest (UPB), Bucharest, Romania. The campaigns cover both indoor and outdoor scenarios, provide the practical limitations of the positioning in standalone and k-NN powered localization systems. According to the results, LoRaWAN-based localization with relatively dense gateways deployment allows for achieving a meter-level accuracy, which may be suitable for the localization of workers

Wearables for Industrial Work Safety: A Survey

Today, ensuring work safety is considered to be one of the top priorities for various industries. Workplace injuries, illnesses, and deaths often entail substantial production and financial losses, governmental checks, series of dismissals, and loss of reputation. Wearable devices are one of the technologies that flourished with the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0, allowing employers to monitor and maintain safety at workplaces. The purpose of this article is to systematize knowledge in the field of industrial wearables’ safety to assess the relevance of their use in enterprises as the technology maintaining occupational safety, to correlate the benefits and costs of their implementation, and, by identifying research gaps, to outline promising directions for future work in this area. We categorize industrial wearable functions into four classes (monitoring, supporting, training, and tracking) and provide a classification of the metrics collected by wearables to better understand the potential role of wearable technology in preserving workplace safety. Furthermore, we discuss key communication technologies and localization techniques utilized in wearable-based work safety solutions. Finally, we analyze the main challenges that need to be addressed to further enable and support the use of wearable devices for industrial work safety

New Energy Efficient Multi-Hop Routing Techniques for Wireless Sensor Networks: Static and Dynamic Techniques

The performance of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) faces a number of challenges. Of these challenges, energy consumption is considered a hot research area. Most WSN energy is used in transmitting the data from the sensor nodes either among each other or to a Base Station (BS). For this reason, many routing protocols have been developed to facilitate the data dissemination in the WSNs. One of these protocols, Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) has provided a distinctive hierarchical approach that efficiently forwards the nodes data to the BS, but it suffers from increased energy consumption and a significant decline in the network performance in the case of large-scale networks. This paper aims to present a new approach for splitting the whole sensor network into several levels. Thus, every node will be acting accordingly on its position and status. Further, two techniques, a static one and a dynamic one, have been developed to route the data between the levels. The simulation results demonstrated that the proposed techniques prolong the lifespan, improve the stability and raise the throughput of the network compared with the LEACH, the Improved MHT-LEACH (IMHT-LEACH), and the Enhancing DMHT-LEACH (EDMHT-LEACH) protocols

High Capacity Ethernet Radio Relay Networks in Mobile Communications

The present paper studies the main characteristics of digital radio relays used by the largest mobile network operator (MNO) in Romania in order to develop a network supporting the newest technologies available on the market. The main contribution is the design of a high capacity Ethernet radio relay network in an area around Bucharest, Romania. The location was chosen on the criterion that it is a high-density traffic area where high-capacity radio links are in operation and use the newest digital radio relay features that are explained in this paper: high modulation scheme, adaptive radio modulation, radio traffic aggregation and cross-polarization interference cancellation. The network contains PDH and SDH links to transport the entire traffic in the area. We analyse several links between different sites that present particularities in the mobile operator's network. Finally, the most suitable parameters are chosen and the designed radio relay network is presented and analysed. It has been implemented in the MNO's network since 2015

Drone Detection and Defense Systems: Survey and a Software-Defined Radio-Based Solution

With the decrease in the cost and size of drones in recent years, their number has also increased exponentially. As such, the concerns regarding security aspects that are raised by their presence are also becoming more serious. The necessity of designing and implementing systems that are able to detect and provide defense actions against such threats has become apparent. In this paper, we perform a survey regarding the different drone detection and defense systems that were proposed in the literature, based on different types of methods (i.e., radio frequency (RF), acoustical, optical, radar, etc.), with an emphasis on RF-based systems implemented using software-defined radio (SDR) platforms. We have followed the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) guidelines in order to provide a concise and thorough presentation of the current status of the subject. In the final part, we also describe our own solution that was designed and implemented in the framework of the DronEnd research project. The DronEnd system is based on RF methods and uses SDR platforms as the main hardware elements

Evaluation of Real-Life LoRaWAN Localization : Accuracy Dependencies Analysis Based on Outdoor Measurement Datasets

Modern outdoor localization is commonly dependent on various Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSSs). On the other hand, they are known to be power-hungry and not suitable for resource-constrained devices currently flooding the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Nonetheless, some of those devices may be equipped with Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) communication chip that could be utilized for positioning. Current work examines two outdoor datasets collected using LoRaWAN in Brno, Czech Republic, to assess the possibility of applying technology for localization solutions for industrial outdoor scenarios. The main localization approach applied in this is work is k-NN fingerprinting. For the first dataset gathered over the whole city, the minimal mean localization error turned out to be not stable, while accuracy for the second one covering a small rectangular area 8.5 x 70 m is 6.42 m that sounds promising in terms of LoRaWAN-based localization. Moreover, by analyzing data collected in two independent measurements campaigns, this work provides some derivations related to the accuracy dependencies on parameters of the measurement campaign (gateways (GWs), coverage area, the average distance between measurement points). It makes a step towards comparing the results of published papers in this area obtained for different datasets.Peer reviewe

ODIN112–AI-Assisted Emergency Services in Romania

The evolution of Natural Language Processing technologies transformed them into viable choices for various accessibility features and for facilitating interactions between humans and computers. A subset of them consists of speech processing systems, such as Automatic Speech Recognition, which became more accurate and more popular as a result. In this article, we introduce an architecture built around various speech processing systems to enhance Romanian emergency services. Our system is designed to help the operator evaluate various situations with the end goal of reducing the response times of emergency services. We also release the largest high-quality speech dataset of more than 150 h for Romanian. Our architecture includes an Automatic Speech Recognition model to transcribe calls automatically and augment the operator’s notes, as well as a Speech Recognition model to classify the caller’s emotions. We achieve state-of-the-art results on both tasks, while our demonstrator is designed to be integrated with the Romanian emergency system

Measurements of LoRaWAN Technology in Urban Scenarios: A Data Descriptor

This work is a data descriptor paper for measurements related to various operational aspects of LoRaWAN communication technology collected in Brno, Czech Republic. This paper also provides data characterizing the long-term behavior of the LoRaWAN channel collected during the two-month measurement campaign. It covers two measurement locations, one at the university premises, and the second situated near the city center. The dataset’s primary goal is to provide the researchers lacking LoRaWAN devices with an opportunity to compare and analyze the information obtained from 303 different outdoor test locations transmitting to up to 20 gateways operating in the 868 MHz band in a varying metropolitan landscape. To collect the data, we developed a prototype equipped with a Microchip RN2483 Low-Power Wide-Area Network (LPWAN) LoRaWAN technology transceiver module for the field measurements. As an example of data utilization, we showed the Signal-to-noise Ratio (SNR) and Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) in relation to the closest gateway distance