Semantically-Enhanced Online Configuration of Feedback Control Schemes

Recent progress toward the realization of the ``Internet of Things'' has improved the ability of physical and soft/cyber entities to operate effectively within large-scale, heterogeneous systems. It is important that such capacity be accompanied by feedback control capabilities sufficient to ensure that the overall systems behave according to their specifications and meet their functional objectives. To achieve this, such systems require new architectures that facilitate the online deployment, composition, interoperability, and scalability of control system components. Most current control systems lack scalability and interoperability because their design is based on a fixed configuration of specific components, with knowledge of their individual characteristics only implicitly passed through the design. This paper addresses the need for flexibility when replacing components or installing new components, which might occur when an existing component is upgraded or when a new application requires a new component, without the need to readjust or redesign the overall system. A semantically enhanced feedback control architecture is introduced for a class of systems, aimed at accommodating new components into a closed-loop control framework by exploiting the semantic inference capabilities of an ontology-based knowledge model. This architecture supports continuous operation of the control system, a crucial property for large-scale systems for which interruptions have negative impact on key performance metrics that may include human comfort and welfare or economy costs. A case-study example from the smart buildings domain is used to illustrate the proposed architecture and semantic inference mechanisms

Exploring Semantic Mediation Techniques in Feedback Control Architectures

Modern control systems implementations, especially in large–scale systems, assume the interoperation of different types of sensors, actuators, controllers and software algorithms, being physical or cyber. In most cases, the scalability and interoperability of the control system are compromised by its design, which is based on a fixed configuration of specific components with certain knowledge of their specific characteristics. This work presents an innovative feedback control architecture framework, in which classical and modern feedback control techniques can be combined with domain knowledge (thematic, location and time) in order to enable the online plugging of components in a feedback control system and the subsequent reconfiguration and adaptation of the system

Semantic Mediation in Smart Water Networks

Water Distribution Networks (WDN) are the infrastructures responsible for delivering drinking water to consumers. The effective monitoring and control of these systems is of vital importance since malfunction may significantly affect the health, safety, security and/or economic well-being of people. The advancements in coupling WDN with the ICT infrastructure, combined with the more recent introduction of smart sensing and actuation technologies, have enabled the enhancement of "Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition (SCADA)"-based applications. These applications in current water systems assume pre-defined configuration and characteristics of the involved components (sensors, actuators, controllers, etc.). This work explores how semantic mediation techniques may contribute to the online configuration of the monitoring and control architectures by exploiting and reasoning over the capabilities of deployed devices

Semantically-enhanced Configurability in State Estimation Structures of Power Systems

The estimation of the states of an electric power system, that is, the magnitude and angle of the voltage at all buses, is a very critical input to many monitoring and control functions of power systems. The recently witnessed rapid deployment of synchronized measurement technology (SMT) in power systems, has led to research advancements in the state estimation technology that introduce the notion of hybrid state estimation. These techniques incorporate the synchrophasors provided by the Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) in the state estimation process, thus improving the state estimation accuracy. However, both the traditional as well as the hybrid techniques, assume a pre-defined configuration and characteristics of the measurement devices. This work explores how semantic modelling and reasoning techniques may contribute to the online configuration of the state estimation architectures given the available measurement capabilities at each moment

Digital beliefs and attitudes of adult educators in rehabilitation and training of adults with cognitive needs - proposal of a self-assessment tool

Abstract of the article "Digital beliefs and attitudes of adult educators in rehabilitation and training of adults with cognitive needs – proposal of a self-assessment tool" accepted in the proceedings of The 19th International Scientific Conference eLearning and Software for Education Bucharest, April 27-28, 2023 10.12753/2066-026X-23-000TRAINING OF EDUCATORS FOR TRANSFER OF TRANSVERSAL SKILLS - improving competences for real Social Inclusion of people with cognitive disabilities2021-1-BE02-KA220-ADU-00002691

Smart Water Management for Irrigation Purposes: The SWSOIP Pproject

It seems that the future scenarios for water resources management are characterized by increasing demand and by the short-term unsustainability of many reservoirs in the Mediterranean basin. To address these scenarios, improved management of water resources was needed for water economy, and water recycling policies. Furthermore, agriculture characterized as the largest water user worldwide and the monitoring of the agriculture via remote sensing techniques is an enormous subject where it used for special scientific applications such as irrigation, precision farming, yield prediction, estimation of evapotranspiration etc. The main objective of this paper is to present the current situation of water resources in the Mediterranean region and present the methodology and main objectives of the SWSOIP project which aims to develop a smart watering system for the irrigation process based on the estimation of evapotranspiration using both in-situ data (spectroradiometric, LAI, CH and meteorological) and Sentinel satellite data

Electrical Power Systems Protection and Interdependencies with ICT

The present chapter discusses the issue of protection of the electrical power systems, addressing all dimensions, from the need of protection to the identified faults and disturbances to the available protection schemes and further considerations, also looking at the challenges brought by recognizing the interdependent nature of the today’s electrical power systems

Remote monitoring as a tool in condition assessment of a highway bridge

The deterioration of civil infrastructure and their subsequent maintenance is a significant problem for the responsible managing authorities. The ideal scenario is to detect deterioration and/or structural problems at early stages so that the maintenance cost is kept low and the safety of the infrastructure remains undisputed. The current inspection regimes implemented mostly via visual inspection are planned at specific intervals but are not always executed on time due to shortcomings in expert personnel and finance. However the introduction of technological advances in the assessment of infrastructures provides the tools to alleviate this problem. This study describes the assessment of a highway RC bridge's structural condition using remote structural health monitoring. A monitoring plan is implemented focusing on strain measurements; as strain is a parameter influenced by the environmental conditions supplementary data are provided from temperature and wind sensors. The data are acquired using wired sensors (deployed at specific locations) which are connected to a wireless sensor unit installed at the bridge. This WSN application enables the transmission of the raw data from the field to the office for processing and evaluation. The processed data are then used to assess the condition of the bridge. This case study, which is part of an undergoing RPF research project, illustrates that remote monitoring can alleviate the problem of missing structural inspections. Additionally, shows its potential to be the main part of a fully automated smart procedure of obtaining structural data, processed them and trigger an alarm when certain undesirable conditions are met

A resource-based decision support tool for emergency response management

In an emergency event, the efficient and effective management of medical resources reduces response times and better meets the patient's needs. However, the heterogeneity of types of resources (e.g., crews and expertise levels, vehicles, hospital capacity) and needs of patients (e.g., trauma status and type, location) makes efficient management of resources a very challenging task. In an effort to improve the management of medical resources during emergencies, this work designs and proposes a decision support tool that can be used for efficient real-time resource allocation. First, a network model is derived to capture the resources' flow. Thereafter, a mathematical program is formulated so as to allow optimization of the resources' allocation, and an online algorithmic implementation is provided to enable real-time execution within, for example, a computer-aided decision support system. Extensive simulations are also conducted under various scenario settings to experiment with the proposed tool and to demonstrate the potentially achievable efficiency gains

On the complexities of interdependent infrastructures for WAMS-extended abstract

Electric power systems (EPS) evolved over years from local independent entities towards large interconnected networks monitored and controlled by sophisticated ICT technologies, and which, eventually will be transformed into Smart Grids where also distributed energy sources, storage, electric vehicles and appliances will be active components of the system. Thus, the scale of complexity involved in present and future power systems architectures is significantly greater than in the past. This paper aims to discuss the interdependency between electric power and communication systems under the system of systems concept. The nature and scale of interdependency between these two critical systems is then further analyzed using an example of disturbance on communications and observing the cascading effects on the power system's monitoring process. Specifically, the impact on the state estimation accuracy is investigated, as a result of a communication node failure, which is responsible for transferring Phasor Measurement Unit (PMU) data to the control center