The research is dedicated to the creation of the effective fuzzy algorithms hardware support for embedded microcontroller systems.
In the process was developed an algorithmic basis for creation of the effective hardware fuzzy calculator for embedded intelligent control systems; was developed the technique of performance comparison of different fuzzy algorithms implementation options; was carried out the operation on algorithm coding in the VHDL language.
Application of listed decisions will improve the quality of embedded modules design for intelligent control and monitoring systems, while reducing the complexity of its design labor input. The application of this complex in a laboratory practice will provide an in-depth study of methods and means of high-performance computation, the possibility of a detailed of the physical processes occurring at the same time will improve the quality of professional training.
The research is dedicated to the creation of the effective fuzzy algorithms hardware support for embedded microcontroller systems.
In the process was developed an algorithmic basis for creation of the effective hardware fuzzy calculator for embedded intelligent control systems; was developed the technique of performance comparison of different fuzzy algorithms implementation options; was carried out the operation on algorithm coding in the VHDL language.
Application of listed decisions will improve the quality of embedded modules design for intelligent control and monitoring systems, while reducing the complexity of its design labor input. The application of this complex in a laboratory practice will provide an in-depth study of methods and means of high-performance computation, the possibility of a detailed of the physical processes occurring at the same time will improve the quality of professional training.
An operating system is a software controlling the operation of a computer system and its resources. Nowadays almost all electronic devices that use a logical processing unit (MCU), i.e. microprocessor, microcontroller, are equipped with resource management programs. Analyzing the category of resource management programs according to the complexity, performance and ease of configuration, we end up with three subcategories.
- Simple Tasking Systems
- Embedded Systems
- Computer Systems
The first refers to the creation of simple programs to manage more than a Function using either the rules of Real-Time Operating Systems or (Scheduling) Normal Operating Systems. One example is the electronic thermometers which should operate the temperature recording and displaying the results.
An embedded operating system is an operating system for embedded computer systems. These operating systems are designed to be compact, efficient at resource usage, and reliable, forsaking many functions that non-embedded computer operating systems provide, and which may not be used by the specialized applications they run.
An operating system (OS) is a collection of software that manages computer hardware resources and provides common services for computer programs. Usually Computer System are Time-sharing operating systems which schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also include accounting software for cost allocation of processor time, mass storage, printing, and other resources.
ARM Cortex M3/M4 are used in embedded systems we are trying to develop a hybrid operating system with the principals of embedded systems but the functionality of computer operating systems. A simple and fast approach is the mix of RTOS and Time-sharing scheduled tasks under certain circumstances like system services (data acquisition) and applications(decisions)
As it is well known an embedded system is a computer system with a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electrical system, often with real-time computing constraints. Embedded systems range from portable devices such as digital watches and MP3 players, to large stationary installations like traffic lights, factory controllers, and largely complex systems like hybrid vehicles, MRI, and avionics. That means that we found them in almost everyday life electronics systems.
In an environment where change is continuous, success and survival itself depends critically upon the individual’s ability to rapidly adapt, and upon the ability of communities to adapt quickly. Adaptation depends upon the ability to learn, and to learn quickly – and where change is continuous, adaptation must be continuous therefore learning must be continuous.
The electronic and electrical engineers are among them who have to update their knowledge very often. Engineering educators interested in developing programs to meet the needs of professional engineers. In our Institutions, after a small survey among our graduates we found out that their knowledge in embedded systems is out of date and we decided to develop a training program for updating their knowledge.
In this paper we present the development and the organization of the course, the modules that it contains, the lecturers and the whole materials we plan to use as also the type of exams and the ECTS units we are going to award to the participants.
The whole program is funded from European Social Fund and the Greek Government under a project of reforming Lifelong Learning Education in Greece.
We would like to present a Multi-Robot Mixed-Reality System – a low-cost system which has been exclusively designed for teaching. Multi-Robot Systems are interesting to deal with for many reasons. We look especially at “multi-strategy learning” (machine learning algorithms), “sensor and information fusion”, and “planning and task allocation” (using on-line algorithms)
A wireless sensor network is described which provides information about the health status of active transformers in power distribution grids. Transformer diagnosis is performed with basis on the IEEE Standard C57.91 by determining the hot-spot temperature of the winding from measured values of temperatures at the external surface, and the corresponding load current. An alert sign associated with the identification of the transformer is sent from the node that is assigned to the transformer whenever the resulting health status condition so requires. The transformer monitoring node is comprised of a passive linear current sensor; temperature sensors connected to a local I2C network; a microcontroller-based management unit; an 802.15.4 stack based 2.4GHz/+18dBm radio module and a unique power management circuitry that uses the current induced through the passive current sensor to energize the whole unit as well.
Experimental results and a detailed description of the unique circuit developed for sensing and powering by induction are presented.
Thomas More is the largest University College in Flanders, offering over 50 bachelor and master degree programmes in the province of Antwerp. Thomas More was created by joining the strengths of
Katholieke Hogeschool Kempen, Lessius Antwerp and Lessius Mechelen. The University College wants to play an important strategic and international role in Flanders.
We give an overview of the didactic methods used in the Course Unit Embedded Systems of the Faculty of Technology & Design (Elektronics – ICT)
Embedded System as Black Box to test electronic components, Embedded Interfaces, Remote Lab, the software used will be discussed.
The XScopes are a combination of three electronic instruments: a mixed signal oscilloscope, an arbitrary waveform generator and a protocol sniffer. The XScopes can also be used as development boards for the AVR XMEGA microcontroller. The Xprotolab and Xminilab can be plugged directly on a breadboard.
The talk will deal with the possibilities and potentials of an industrial real time image processing application on digital signal processors of the family C6x by Texas Instruments. A system with the interface to integrate several image processing algorithms to be parallel executed on multi-core processors will be presented. At its heart the talk will contrast the modern object orientated approach on the one hand against the hardware-related highly optimized DSP-coding on the other hand. Structure and features of a real time operating system will be shown, concepts for an efficient memory management and to trade off the costs in development against the efficiency of the algorithms will close the talk.
BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) is an emerging low power wireless technology targeting the PAN (Personal Area Network) wireless sector. Due to its low power nature it can operate in the background on mobile devices like smart phones. It allows interactions based on proximity. Because it is already implemented in many mobile devices and has the previously mentioned features it is ideal for home automation purposes.
Home automation scenarios usually contain wireless sensors and actuators which are connected to a gateway wirelessly using technologies like ZigBee or Z-Wave. The gateway itself is typically connected to the Internet. But for context aware scenarios it could be required that the sensors are able to communicate with each other or at least with multiple gateways. Using BLE in complex networks comes with some challenges. BLE only supports star and peer to peer networks. And usually a BLE device is only connected to one central (gateway). To establish a context aware Home Automation networks there many devices might act as a gateways and many BLE peripherals devices might communicate with different gateways (smartphones and a main automation hub) the BLE limitations need to be tackled. To establish such kind of scatter Networks complex scheduling rules need to be implemented on the BLE application level.
WebSocket base interaction has gained popularity in browser based social media applications. Chats for example rely on fast data exchange, so that messages are received in realtime. The legacy way to realize that was long polling or comet base applications. But because of the delays of http requests applications like chats have been implemented in dedicated Desktop applications using TCP/IP or UDP instead. The WebSocket protocol in modern browsers enables a permanent connection so that data can be send in both directions without the http header overhead and establishing a connection with every massage.
WebSockets are not only a benefit for realtime web applications. Embedded hardware which in the past relied on dedicated drivers and desktop applications as user interfaces can now be connected over Ethernet or Wifi with a computer and exchange realtime data with a browser which is functioning as the GUI. This way products can become usable on multiple Operating systems without the requirement to develop drivers and Application for every OS.
Traction batteries for electric vehicles are expensive, heavy, bulky and have criticial safety aspects. They need a battery management system (BMS) in order to increase safty, reliability and life span and thereby minimize the overall lifetime costs of traction batteries. In this project a modularized BMS has been developed and implemented in several Light Electric Vehicles (LEV). For the development and evaluation of state of charge estimation algorithms measurements with single cells and batterymodules were performed throughout the project. The results will improve the quality of the online State-of-Charge determination inside the vehicle.
Abstract—In today’s world storage and exchange of information plays a significant role for research and development, business and private life. Emails, internet access and use as well as ecommerce are some of the essentials within a world that is very much dominated by the World Wide Web. Due to the technical possibilities of the Internet and everybody’s dependency on the Internet and information exchange, internet security gains more and more importance these days.
Due to the fact that Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) provides a high security level with comparably short key lengths in the order of a few hundred bits of key length, ECC is being used more and more in modern applications such as smart cards or for digital signatures.
The intention of this paper is to provide a motivation for the use Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) in modern cryptosystems and cryptographic protocols. The basic ideas and principles of ECC will be presented. In this context the discrete logarithm problem in finite groups will be extended to the generalized discrete logarithm problem applied to ECC. Furthermore an overview on known attacks against ECC will be given in order to show some limitations of ECC.
In the last few years there has been an increase in mobile app development especially on Android. Unfortunately, the rising app sales have been followed by an increasing number of piracies. Therefore Google has been forced to release the license verification library (LVL) to provide developers with basic copy protection for their apps. Not surprisingly, this copy protection was immediately cracked. Although Google tried to fix these problems by providing subsequent updates, we believe that there is still space for major improvements and that new and more secure solutions are possible for copy protection. In this paper we discuss the usage of secure elements to bind apps to their owners. It is part of our ongoing research and in an early stage.
Off-line algorithms have full information in advance so it can compute the optimal strategy to maximize their profits (or minimize its costs). On-line algorithms are strategies which have to decide at each point of time what to do – based only on past information and with no (or inexact) knowledge about the future. A great number of real-world problems can only be solved applying on-line algorithms. One important question is: “What is a <<good>> on-line algorithm for a given problem?” This talk introduces “competitive analysis” – a way to describe the performance of on-line algorithms – and gives some examples how to use on-line algorithms for complex systems.
Abstract—Several companies and research groups need to measure and control certain process parameters. However, the knowledge and expertise required to set up such a system is not trivial. During this project, research will be conducted how generic process measurement and control can be realized using embedded systems. This will lead to a generic solution whose operation and efficiency can be tested by a specific case.
Over the last decade there has been a steep gradient in the development of personal embedded devices. Smart phones and tablet PCs, mostly powered by multi-core ARM processors, have become part of the everyday life allowing for rich multimedia experiences anytime and anywhere for personal users. Embedded devices are very cost effective whilst offering an impressive amount of computing power and peripheral capabilities. For example, with the introduction of the Raspberry Pi in February 2012, an open source ARM-based embedded single-board computer has become available to the masses at the price of just 35US$.
openFrameworks (http://www.openframeworks.cc/) is a powerful openSource C++ toolkit allowing for a rapid creative process by providing an easy and intuitive API for experimentation. The framework wraps together several commonly used libraries such as OpenGL ES, rtAudio, OpenCV, etc. It is designed to be cross-platform and currently supports Windows, OSX, Linux and the embedded OSs Android, iOS and Linux ARM. Thus, openFrameworks can run on most embedded devices such as tablets, smart phones and, for example, the Raspberry Pi.
In this tutorial we introduce openFrameworks in conjunction with embedded devices to be used for creation of rich multimedia experiences, not limited to single-user, single-screen applications but touching upon networked multi-user, multi-screen application scenarios. The framework can be used to create impressive immersive media productions when combined with platforms such as the Raspberry Pi or Arduino. In addition, low-cost 3D camera systems such as the Kinect by Microsoft can be added to the setup opening up more possibilities for immersive media setups at a low cost.
The presentation gives an outlook regarding the changes in global energy, not only from a technology stand point and how the advance in the ICT sector will impact the Energy System with the introduction of the Smart Grid and Smart Power Generation, but will also consider the other aspects which are as important (if not more important) than the technology; such as renewable energy penetration, the economic growth, the population growth, the energy consumption, the environment and other challenges that the presentation will highlight. Just for illustration, according to the IEA (International Energy Agency), the world energy consumption in 2010 was 12 Billion Tonnes of Oil Equivalent (BTOE). In 2030 it is estimated to 17 BTOE. At the same time, conventional energy sources will decline, and renewable energy penetration will increase. The British Petroleum Energy Outlook reported that, today’s Oil share of world primary energy is approximately 32% and is estimated to decline by 10% in 2030. Renewables share of world primary energy will continue to increase and will reach approximately 10% worldwide. Energy Consumption by sector will not be the same as it used to be in the last decades. In the developing countries, the energy consumption for transport is in decline, for the industrial use the trend is slightly going down, but most of the increase in energy demand comes from households, agriculture and service sector. Other factors such as the policies to constrain carbon emissions from energy use and to increase the efficiency of energy systems will impose challenging problems that research and technology development is trying to overcome. These challenges have not been considered in the design process of most implemented technologies that are dedicated to control, monitor and supervise the energy system such as the traditional power plants, electric network infrastructure and related information system like SCADA, EDM, PLMS...etc. But the situation is changing thanks to the advances in Information Technology and the maturity of communication systems (ICT), politicians, industrial community and researchers are working for the same objective in order to integrate the ICT at all levels of the existing power grid infrastructure in order to provide end to end connectivity which will enable real time data not only for the electrical devices of the power system but will be extended to the end users and most importantly to the consumers too. The multilevel changes in the global energy system has motivated the EU policy maker and the industry in investing more in mega projects in order to make the Smart Grid a commercial reality in year 2020. According to the EURELECTRIC, most of the technology used today in the power system will be obsolete by the year 2020. Today many new innovations in the energy technology are under test through industrial scale pilot projects. Just to give an example, the green IT projects in Finland. In one project a datacenter of Helsinki is used to produce 30GWH of energy per year which is equivalent to the heating of 1500 family houses in Helsinki, another important project is the DigiEcoCityTM, a Finnish city concept which is now being implemented in China. The concept combines the innovation of Digital Technology with sustainable city development and near zero energy use. Another project is the SBIM (Smart Building Information Modeling) to assess the energy usage of building on the environment and the eco-efficiency of urban
development. More projects will be illustrated in the presentation. Even though a tremendous development has been achieved through these projects, but more is still to come, especially in the modeling of the electric grid that was not originally designed to handle the future challenges and yet need not to be physically changed and must respond to these challenges efficiently. Hence grid models are gaining interest in designing intelligent systems for the entire energy chain in order to improve decision making across the electric network, from market analysis and resource forecasting, to adaptive real time controls to online dynamics analysis. As a conclusion, energy challenges require interdisciplinary solutions not only from the ICT and power systems, but must be extended to economics, environment, as well as legislation and regulations.
The crucial challenge with genetic algorithms is to boost the evolutionary process by generating better individuals, avoiding stagnation at local optima and refreshing population in a desirable way. These objectives are normally achieved by genetic operators. On the other hand using operators can become a challenging task in itself if applying them requires setting many parameters through human intervention. Thus, it is very important to develop operators, which do not require human intervention and at the same time are capable of assisting the evolutionary process. In this work the performance of genetic algorithm has been boosted by adding a statistical mutation operator.
The statistical mutation operator generates three individuals during each generation based on statistical descriptors of the population. After creating these individuals they will be evaluated and go through selection procedure. Experimentation with 33 test functions and 11550 test runs proved that the statistical mutation operator can boost the performance of genetic algorithm and lead to much
better results.
The analysis of individual animal behavior shows a rising impact in modern dairy farming. Increasing stock sizes on each farm contribute to the fact that more technical systems are used to monitor the animals. For example accelerometers are used to monitor heat activity of dairy cows.
In this project a real time location system should be tested for suitability of use. Before using the System „Ubisense Series 7000“ inside the barn a laboratory experiment was done. Several influencing factors like static or dynamic use of the identification unit, Layout of the used Sensors and Interferences caused by steel or water where analyzed. A very high accuracy smaller than 30 cm in static and dynamic test was determined in the observation, mainly influencing factors where pointed out. The System is accurate enough to analyse the individual behavior of cows, but this has to be considered in comparison to Video.
Quadriplegic, also known as tetraplegic paralysis, entails a complete loss of limbs functions, i.e. limbs paralysation. The illness is caused by a spinal cord injury. Although people suffering this illness lose the movement of their limbs, the illness usually does not affect the functions of their sense organs, hence they keep the ability to move their eyes.
Many systems have been designed to help such people to communicate with their environment. However, neither of these systems has addressed the problem of limbs functions compensation, instead, most of these systems dealt with transforming the captured eye movement into commands, which are then processed and executed as «computer» actions such as mouse cursor movement or clicks.
In our work, a system that implements eye tracking is designed to be used by people with these disabilities; in addition of detecting and interpreting the eye movement, our system allows controlling a robot which compensates some functions of the paralyzed members ( an arm in our case).
The system is composed of three components: Eye Tracking, Command Interpretation , and Robot Arm Control components.
The eye movment tracking component receives and processes in real time the video streams captured by eight high resolution cameras. The cameras have been distributed in different positions inside the experimentation room in such a way that allow capturing different views. Consequently, the clearest view is chosen to be considered for command interpretation.
The detected eye movement is classified and interpreted according to a simplified, yet evolvable, set of commands. The output of this component is used to control a robot arm which has been designed and constructed from scratch to fit this application.
Nowadays there is an increasing interest in modern communication systems for the vast majority of industrial applications. The existence of powerful and intelligent communication systems will be even more important
in the future, as e.g. for intra- and inter-car-communication systems. However, current radio or wired communication systems suffer from a major drawback: Both require specific components to work in different locations. While radio communication systems do need specific antennas, wired communication systems make use of wires or fiber in addition to their power supply cables in order to connect different nodes with each other. This disadvantage may be eliminated by implementing a Powerline Communication (PLC). PLC systems make direct use of an electric grid within a building or industrial factory. Hence, one is not any more confronted with the effects of a mobile radio channel or additionally necessary wires between any two nodes.
The presented PLC system is a new and versatile approach for modern and universal Powerline Communication. It is capable of setting up a communication via AC as well as DC mains of different voltage, even for cable lengths in the order of several kilometers. Furthermore, this approach is not limited to the frequency range of 3 kHz upto 148,5 kHz as specified for European mains in the CENELEC standard, but may easily be adapted to higher frequency ranges as well.
The concept is based on an FPGA solution for a multi user communication scenario with one master and several slave units. The FPGA usage additionally provides the benefit that fast and reliable protocols may be implemented which are particularly needed in safety and security critical environments.
Signals are modulated with two different low-order PSK modulation schemes on the power line. These robust modulation schemes enable a reliable communication despite the channel effects on the power line.
Customer satisfaction is of utmost importance for all types of business. This is especially crucial when direct contact to the customer is required, as for example in restaurants where a good customer–waiter relation can make the difference.
Waiting for service is common and often depends on an unspecified communication attempt, to get attention for placing order, paying bills, etc. Obviously an optimization of this work flow is desirable and will have a direct impact on client satisfaction and sales.
In this paper we discuss how this problem can be solved using state-of-the-art wireless microcontroller technology. The project employs a wireless sensor network as a table-based bidirectional communication and alert system, allowing the guests to ask for service and to receive a short feedback message.
The presented solution covers the table (desk) devices and an Android application to handle requests, manage orders, and optimize service. It also includes a server for the system configuration, the communication between the devices and for showing the restaurant performance.
For maximum flexibility, the desk devices are based on Arduino microcontroller boards and the ZigBee wireless standard. The server runs on an ARM architecture Raspberry Pi using HTML5, Ajax and WebSockets for system configuration and service management. The client application supports the Android 4.0+ platform, using a clear and intuitive visual interface.
Institutions of higher education have to develop new infrastructures and expertise to cope with changing student requirements and shifting demands from industry and government? New educational approaches are needed to keep up with globalisation and technological advances.
This paper outlines a new innovative approach to allow students to get both – international experience and practical, project-oriented know-how. The ISPS – International Study and Project Semester defines a study period fully integrated into a bachelor's or master's study program during which students will spend a study-abroad semester at a selected partner institution. Participating students will get actively involved in a multidisciplinary team-oriented project strongly related to university or industry based research and development. Additionally they will study a predefined number of subjects related to their study focus. The ISPS will be discussed in the framework of international academic cooperation.