Fabio Leccese

Remote-Control System of High Efficiency and Intelligent Street Lighting Using a ZigBee Network of Devices and Sensors

The proposed remote-control system can optimize management and efficiency of street lighting systems. It uses ZigBee-based wireless devices which enable more efficient street lamp-system management, thanks to an advanced interface and control architecture. It uses a sensor combination to control and guarantee the desired system parameters; the information is transferred point by point using ZigBee transmitters and receivers and is sent to a control terminal used to check the state of the street lamps and to take appropriate measures in case of failure.

A Smart City Application: A Fully Controlled Street Lighting Isle Based on Raspberry-Pi Card, a ZigBee Sensor Network and WiMAX

A smart city application has been realized and tested. It is a fully remote controlled isle of lamp posts based on new technologies. It has been designed and organized in different hierarchical layers, which perform local activities to physically control the lamp posts and transmit information with another for remote control. Locally, each lamp post uses an electronic card for management and a ZigBee tlc network transmits data to a central control unit, which manages the whole isle. The central unit is realized with a Raspberry-Pi control card due to its good computing performance at very low price. Finally, a WiMAX connection was tested and used to remotely control the smart grid, thus overcoming the distance limitations of commercial Wi-Fi networks. The isle has been realized and tested for some months in the field.

Intelligent wireless street lighting system

We propose an innovative wireless street lighting system with optimized management and efficiency. Wireless communication uses ZigBee-based wireless devices which allow more efficient street lamp system management, thanks to an advanced interface and control architecture. It uses many sensors to control and guarantee the optimal system parameters; the information is transferred point-by-point using ZigBee transmitters and receivers and is sent to a control terminal used to check the state of the street lamps and to take appropriate measures in case of failure. The system allows substantial energy savings with increased performance and maintainability.

A New Acquisition and Imaging System for Environmental Measurements: An Experience on the Italian Cultural Heritage

A new acquisition system for remote control of wall paintings has been realized and tested in the field. The system measures temperature and atmospheric pressure in an archeological site where a fresco has been put under control. The measuring chain has been designed to be used in unfavorable environments where neither electric power nor telecommunication infrastructures are available. The environmental parameters obtained from the local monitoring are then transferred remotely allowing an easier management by experts in the field of conservation of cultural heritage. The local acquisition system uses an electronic card based on microcontrollers and sends the data to a central unit realized with a Raspberry-Pi. The latter manages a high quality camera to pick up pictures of the fresco. Finally, to realize the remote control at a site not reached by internet signals, a WiMAX connection based on different communication technologies such as WiMAX, Ethernet, GPRS and Satellite, has been set up.

Power quality measurements in telecommunication exchanges

This work shows an example of power quality (PQ) data of four important telecommunication sites placed in Rome, Italy. The data are collected, elaborated and analyzed by four self made instruments developed for this purpose and inserted in four automatic telecommunication exchanges kindly at our disposal by TELECOM, the most important Italian telecommunication company. The analysis shows the active and reactive power consumption and, for one site, the harmonic distortion.

Orthonormal Gas-Chromatography Sets of Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Starting from gas-chromatograms of extra virgin olive oil samples, choosing the most significant peaks, authors try to define a standard ortho-normal base to be deposited for quality valuation.

Power consumption scheduling for residential buildings

The increasing growth of electricity usage in buildings points out the significant role of residential users in the programs for the efficient control and management of electrical energy. The shaving of consumption peaks in household is becoming an integral part of the national energy strategies to reduce the risk of blackouts and ensure environmental sustainability of new urban context. This paper investigates the use of the paradigm of swarm intelligence to scheduling the operation of household appliances in order to reduce to smooth the variation and reduce the peak-to-average ratio of total electricity demand at home. Simulation results confirm the proposed approach.

A New Dusts Sensor for Cultural Heritage Applications Based on Image Processing

In this paper, we propose a new sensor for the detection and analysis of dusts (seen as powders and fibers) in indoor environments, especially designed for applications in the field of Cultural Heritage or in other contexts where the presence of dust requires special care (surgery, clean rooms, etc.). The presented system relies on image processing techniques (enhancement, noise reduction, segmentation, metrics analysis) and it allows obtaining both qualitative and quantitative information on the accumulation of dust. This information aims to identify the geometric and topological features of the elements of the deposit. The curators can use this information in order to design suitable prevention and maintenance actions for objects and environments. The sensor consists of simple and relatively cheap tools, based on a high-resolution image acquisition system, a preprocessing software to improve the captured image and an analysis algorithm for the feature extraction and the classification of the elements of the dust deposit. We carried out some tests in order to validate the system operation. These tests were performed within the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Museums, showing the good performance of the proposed sensor in terms of execution time and classification accuracy.

Rome, a first example of perceived power quality of electrical energy: The telecommunication point of view

A monitoring of power quality parameters it is been effected inside four medium/low voltage transformer rooms of telecommunication power substations of the biggest Italian telecommunication society. The measurements have been realized by means of an appropriate self-made instrument that samples the three-phases with neutral lines of the mains for a total period of about two years. By the analysis of the parameters it is possible to determine which are the power quality parameters which the society is more sensible, so to suggest which are the parameters to monitor and to ask with more quality to the energy supplier society.

Progress in carbon dioxide sequestration via carbonation of aqueous saline wastes

In this article we report the progress made in CO 2 sequestration research via formation of synthetic carbonates and explore the engineering aspects of the proposed methodology. The approach to synthesize the carbonates involves the reaction of a flux of CO 2 with Mg chloride solution at room temperature. The kinetics of the carbonation reactions demonstrate that: a) in the experiments performed in solutions having both 7 and 16 g L −1 of Mg the rapid formation of nesquehonite occurred; b) in experiments with 32 g L −1 of Mg an initial precipitation of chlorartinite was followed by nesquehonite with a minor amount of lansfordite. Carbonation via magnesium chloride aqueous solutions at standard conditions, here reported, represents a simple and permanent method of trapping CO 2 in solid form. It could be applied at point-sources of CO 2 emission and could involve rejected brines from desalination plants and other saline aqueous wastes. Other various aspects such as the influence of the salinity of the solution on the efficiency of carbonation and the kinetics of the reaction are also discussed.