Solar Powered WSN for monitoring environment and soil parameters by specific app for mobile devices usable for early flood prediction or water savings

This paper describes the design and realization of a smart electronic system, based on a Wireless Sensor Network, for wide-area monitoring of availability level and rapid changes of the water presence in the monitored soil in order to guarantee flood prediction, water savings in the optimized farmland irrigation, waste reduction and optimal use of water resources where its availability is low. The designed sensor node, by means of the different embedded sensors, is capable of detecting environmental parameters, the solar radiation level and soil temperature and moisture (i.e. water volume content) values. The sensors communicate with a central processing unit located on board, used both as data processing unit and as Wi-Fi transceiver to receive/transmit the sensors data. The user near a sensor node, by a tablet or smartphone with an appropriate app, can collect information provided from sensors and share them with all users who use the same app on the Cloud, through peer to peer Wi-Fi or other internet connection

photo induced ignition phenomenon of carbon nanotubes by xenon pulsed light ignition tests analysis automotive and new potential applications future developments

Abstract The possibility to use carbon nanotubes (CNTs) enriched with a certain amount of metal nanoparticles for photo-inducing the combustion of liquid fuel sprays, gaseous and solid fuels was investigated in different research works. CNTs photo-ignition phenomenon has been used to trigger the combustion of different fuel typologies, demonstrating better features compared with those obtained by employing a traditional spark-plug. These improvements are due to the presence of distributed ignition nuclei inside the combustion chamber, so obtaining better values of the peak pressure, ignition delay and combustion duration. In this work, the CNTs photo-ignition phenomenon has been analyzed in order to find the minimum energy values needed to trigger the ignition, by varying the light pulse parameters and the nanoparticles concentration, Multi Wall CNTs (MWCNTs) – ferrocene, by weight. Afterwards, the results of combustion processes, triggered by using the nanoparticles, are shown comparing them with those obtained by means the spark plug and with results already published related to other fuel typologies. Hence, an overview of the possible applications of this photo-ignition phenomenon, beside that of the automotive field, is presented, also considering the disadvantages of the Xe-lamp based triggering system. Therefore, after a critical discussion on the light source typology until now used (Xenon lamp), by reporting the possible contraindications deriving from the use of this light source in most of the applicative fields, a solution is here proposed. It involves the substitution of the Xe lamp with LED sources, showing also the related experimental setup. This solution is also strengthened by the our experimental observations of CNTs photo-ignition by using high-power white LEDs as light source, never reported up to now in the literature, and by better characteristics of adaptability, robustness, easy driving and benefits provided by the LEDs rather than the Xenon lamp

Editorial for Special Issue on “Electronic Systems and Energy Harvesting Methods for Automation, Mechatronics and Automotive”

none3noElectronic apparatus have become essential components of civil and industrial systems, including the automotive, home and building automation, Industrial IoT (Internet of Things) and control applications, and playing an essential role in improving security, efficiency, manageability, and rapid feedback [1–3]. Indeed, the increasing demands of electronic systems have led to innovations and findings in electronic networks for automotive and automation plants, replacing efficiently and securely mechanical and hydraulic sections [4]. Also, the researchers have focused their attention on meeting the increasing power demand of vehicles equipment, developing 42-V automotive systems. Moreover, smart buildings and homes represent a very actual research topic in the scientific community, aimed to improve energy conservation and the liveability of everyday life environments, thanks to IoT solutions [5]. In fact, smart homes and buildings comprise innovative solutions enabling communication between users and the infrastructure, as well as performing advanced monitoring tasks, like surveillance, light and water management, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system management, smart energy monitoring and elderly care. IoT technology employs sensors to detect the environmental temperature for the HVAC system, water and energy consumption, and health monitoring and decision-making systems to assist elderly people and detect fires [6,7]. The scientific community is concentrating their efforts to design innovative infrastructures, management models as well as operating scenarios to make production activities simpler and more efficient [8]. In this field, IoT is one of the key elements triggering this revolution, enabling communications between machines (M2M), thus creating a manufacturing environment human-free. The combination of M2M, IoT and CPS (cyber physical systems) makes the manufacturing systems more robust, reliable and efficient. Besides, cloud computing constitutes a powerful tool, promising to solve several difficult issues with previous productive architectures. For instance, in [9], a novel architecture integrating cloud computing, IoT, and smart devices, was presented. The model uses modern manufacturing technologies, allowing highly configurable, flexible manufacturing processes involving human and robotic participants. This Special Issue aimed to cover a wide range of disciplines and application fields, collecting innovative studies on advanced sensing and energy harvesting technologies and applications in automotive, automation and mechatronics fields. The introduced innovations could mitigate the impact of human activities on the environment and revolutionize the production process by employing eco-sustainable production models, preventing climate change and natural resources waste. A total of 5 papers have been published in this special issue; the paper covers a wide range of topics but is deemed relevant to the topics covered by the special issues. The authors are from geographically distributed countries such as Italy, Mexico, Spain, and China. This reflects the great impact of the proposed topic and the effective organization of the guest editorial team of this special issue.openPaolo Visconti, Nicola Ivan Giannoccaro, Roberto de FazioVisconti, Paolo; Giannoccaro, NICOLA IVAN; DE FAZIO, Robert

Image-based Automated Width Measurement of Surface Cracking

The detection of cracks is an important monitoring task in civil engineering infrastructure devoted to ensuring durability, structural safety, and integrity. It has been traditionally performed by visual inspection, and the measurement of crack width has been manually obtained with a crack-width comparator gauge (CWCG). Unfortunately, this technique is time-consuming, suffers from subjective judgement, and is error-prone due to the difficulty of ensuring a correct spatial measurement as the CWCG may not be correctly positioned in accordance with the crack orientation. Although algorithms for automatic crack detection have been developed, most of them have specifically focused on solving the segmentation problem through Deep Learning techniques failing to address the underlying problem: crack width evaluation, which is critical for the assessment of civil structures. This paper proposes a novel automated method for surface cracking width measurement based on digital image processing techniques. Our proposal consists of three stages: anisotropic smoothing, segmentation, and stabilized central points by k-means adjustment and allows the characterization of both crack width and curvature-related orientation. The method is validated by assessing the surface cracking of fiber-reinforced earthen construction materials. The preliminary results show that the proposal is robust, efficient, and highly accurate at estimating crack width in digital images. The method effectively discards false cracks and detects real ones as small as 0.15 mm width regardless of the lighting conditions

High-performance AES-128 algorithm implementation by FPGA-based SoC for 5G communications

In this research work, a fast and lightweight AES-128 cypher based on the Xilinx ZCU102 FPGA board is presented, suitable for 5G communications. In particular, both encryption and decryption algorithms have been developed using a pipelined approach, so enabling the simultaneous processing of the rounds on multiple data packets at each clock cycle. Both the encryption and decryption systems support an operative frequency up to 220 MHz, reaching 28.16 Gbit/s maximum data throughput; besides, the encryption and decryption phases last both only ten clock periods. To guarantee the interoperability of the developed encryption/decryption system with the other sections of the 5G communication apparatus, synchronization and control signals have been integrated. The encryption system uses only 1631 CLBs, whereas the decryption one only 3464 CLBs, ascribable, mainly, to the Inverse Mix Columns step. The developed cypher shows higher efficiency (8.63 Mbps/slice) than similar solutions present in literature

Controllo Cycle-Resolved delle Emissioni nei Motori a Combustione Interna Mediante un Innovativo Sensore Ottico

PRIN 2005 Il programma di ricerca si propone di sviluppare un innovativo sistema per la misura cycle-resolved delle emissioni di NOx e CO nei motori a combustione interna e del relativo sistema di controllo. Attraverso la misura cycle-resolved delle emissioni nei gas di scarico si intende effettuare il controllo retroazionato e l’adeguamento in tempo reale dei parametri che regolano il processo di combustione, quali per esempio la pressione di iniezione, il numero delle iniezioni per ciclo ed il loro posizionamento, il livello di EGR, ecc., al fine di ottimizzare, anche in regime transitorio, il consumo di carburante e le emissioni. Grazie al monitoraggio on line delle emissioni sarà, inoltre, possibile compensare eventuali perdite di prestazioni dovute all’usura dei componenti installati. Il sistema che si intende sviluppare consiste di un elemento sensibile a base di nitruro di gallio e alluminio (Alx-Ga-Nx) in grado di rilevare la variazione dello spettro emesso da una sorgente luminosa al variare della concentrazione dei gas combusti, da una sorgente luminosa che emetta nella regione spettrale dell’UV e da un sistema di controllo motore in grado di sfruttare il segnale del sensore. Il principale problema che ha impedito l’uso di sensori ottici per la rilevazione delle emissioni in campo automobilistico è che essi tendono a sporcarsi a seguito della deposizione di particelle di carbonio e di altre sostanze organiche provenienti dal combustibile in uso e dagli oli necessari per la lubrificazione. Nell’ambito del presente progetto tale problema sarà risolto per la parte sensibile mediante l’uso di nitruri di gallio e alluminio che consentono la realizzazione di un sensore in grado di lavorare ad una temperatura di esercizio superiore a quella di ossidazione del carbonio e delle altre sostanze organiche presenti nei gas di scarico impedendo così lo sporcamento del sensore stesso. Invece, per evitare lo sporcamento della sorgente luminosa si utilizzerà come sorgente UV un arco voltaico che verrà fatto scoccare fra due elettrodi opportunamente posizionati rispetto al sensore. Per il sensore e la sorgente luminosa, verrà, quindi, studiato un opportuno packaging che ne consenta la facile installazione nei condotti di scarico di un motore alternativo ed un rapido collegamento con la parte di controllo e acquisizione del segnale. Infine, con questo progetto si svilupperà un sistema di controllo motore in grado di utilizzare il segnale del sensore per effettuare un controllo cycle-resolved del motore

Light-Induced ignition of Carbon Nanotubes and energetic nano-materials: a review on methods and advanced technical solutions for nanoparticles-enriched fuels combustion

Abstract Aim of the present manuscript is to provide an overview of all possible methods and light source typologies used by the different research groups for obtaining the energetic nano-materials' photo-ignition, showing the latest progress related to such phenomenon employing, also, alternative radiation sources to the common Xe lamp. In fact, the employment of a different source typology can open new usage prospects respect to those enabled by the Xe lamp, mainly due to its technological limitations. Therefore, several studies are faced to test light sources, such as lasers and LEDs, for igniting the nano-energetic materials (as CNTs mixed with metallic catalyzers, Al / CuO nano-particles, etc); these nano-materials are usefully employed for starting, in volumetric and controlled way, the combustion of air-fuel mixtures inside internal combustion engines, leading to significant benefits to the combustion process also in terms of efficiency, reliability, and emissions of pollutants. Several research works are presented in literature concerning the ignition of liquid / gaseous fuels, without nano-particles, employing laser sources (i.e laser-based plugs in place of the common spark plugs); therefore, an innovative solution is proposed that employs multi-point laser-plugs for inducing the ignition of nano-materials dispersed into the air-fuel mixture inside the cylinder, so further improving the combustion of the fuel in an internal combustion engine

A stake-out prototype system based on GNSS-RTK technology for implementing accurate vehicle reliability and performance tests

none4noThere are many car tests regulated by European and international standards and carried out on tracks to assess vehicle performance. The test preparation phase usually consists of placing road cones on the track with a specific configuration defined by the considered standard; this phase is performed by human operators using imprecise and slow methods, mainly due to the huge required distances. In this paper, a new geolocation stake-out system based on GNSS RTK technology has been realized and tested, supported by a Matlab-based software application to allow the user to quickly and precisely locate the on-track points on which to position the road cones. The realized stake-out system, innovative and very simple to use, produces negligible average errors (i.e. 2.4-2.9 cm) on the distance between the staked-out points according to the reference standards (distance percentage error 0.29-0.47%). Furthermore, the measured average angular error is also very low, in the range 0.04-0.18°. Finally, ISO 3888-1 and ISO 3888-2 test configurations were re-produced on the proving ground of the Porsche Technical Center by utilizing the realized stake-out system to perform a double lane-change manoeuvre on car prototypes.Special Issue "Electronic Systems and Energy Harvesting Methods for Automation, Mechatronics and Automotive 2021" Article Number: 4885openP. Visconti; F. Iaia, R. de Fazio, I. GiannoccaroVisconti, P.; Iaia, F.; de Fazio, R.; Giannoccaro, I

Sensors Allocation and Observer Design for Discrete Bilateral Teleoperation Systems with Multi-Rate Sampling

This study addresses sensor allocation by analyzing exponential stability for discrete-time teleoperation systems. Previous studies mostly concentrate on the continuous-time teleoperation systems and neglect the management of significant practical phenomena, such as data-swap, the effect of sampling rates of samplers, and refresh rates of actuators on the system’s stability. A multi-rate sampling approach is proposed in this study, given the isolation of the master and slave robots in teleoperation systems which may have different hardware restrictions. This architecture collects data through numerous sensors with various sampling rates, assuming that a continuous-time controller stabilizes a linear teleoperation system. The aim is to assign each position and velocity signals to sensors with different sampling rates and divide the state vector between sensors to guarantee the stability of the resulting multi-rate sampled-data teleoperation system. Sufficient Krasovskii-based conditions will be provided to preserve the exponential stability of the system. This problem will be transformed into a mixed-integer program with LMIs (linear matrix inequalities). These conditions are also used to design the observers for the multi-rate teleoperation systems whose estimation errors converge exponentially to the origin. The results are validated by numerical simulations which are useful in designing sensor networks for teleoperation systems

Features, operation principle and limits of SPI and I2C communication protocols for smart objects: a novel SPI-based hybrid protocol especially suitable for IoT applications

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an expression, sometimes abused by companies given the absence of an unambiguous meaning, that indicates the upcoming evolution of Internet as it has been known so far. In fact, all objects will have network capabilities which will be exploited to overcome, in certain situations, human intervention. Thanks to the direct cooperation of new class of devices, aware of their operating scenario and interconnected in subnetworks, our life style will be strongly enhanced and simplified. IoT, however, is not yet the “El Dorado” of technology, capable of revolutionizing everyday life: some aspects and open issues have to be carefully analyzed. The huge complexity of this new technology forces companies to select a specific research field: for this reason, they focus only on some features that an IoT device should have to guarantee fulfillment of requirements. In this context, this research work concerns an analysis of features, operation principle and limits of SPI and I2C communication protocols followed by the proposal of a new hybrid protocol suited for embedded systems, named FlexSPI, thought as an evolution of the classic SPI. Thanks to a robust software architecture, it is able to provide many features that can be used by smart objects to enhance their capabilities. In this way, sensors and actuators or, more in general, subsystems, can quickly exchange data and efficiently react to malfunctioning; moreover, number of devices on bus can be safely increased even while smart object is performing operations