Marco Gaspardone

A Cloud Based Service for Management and Planning of Autonomous UAV Missions in Smart City Scenarios

Cloud Robotics is an emerging paradigm in which robots, seen as abstract agents, have the possibility to connect to a common network and share on a complex infrastructure the information and knowledge they gather about the physical world; or conversely consume the data collected by other agents or made available on accessible database and repositories. In this paper we propose an implementation of an emergency-management service exploiting the possibilities offered by cloud robotics in a smart city scenario. A high-level cloud-platform manages a number of unmanned aerial vehicles (quadrotor UAVs) with the goal of providing aerial support to citizens that require it via a dedicated mobile app. The UAV reaches the citizen while forwarding a real-time video streaming to a privileged user (police officer),connected to the same cloud platform, that is allowed to teleoperate it by remote.

A cloud-based framework for risk-aware intelligent navigation in urban environments

Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) are being widely studied and developed due to their mission flexibility, reconfigurable architecture and low cost. In this paper, a novel Cloud-based framework for intelligent navigation of RPAS in urban environments is proposed, toward achieving fully-autonomous missions without compromising safety. The advantages of the proposed approach reside in the flexibility in designing and implementing complex systems and algorithms with partial independence of the specific flying and control hardware. Thanks to the real-time use of Cloud-based algorithms, advanced control ability and risk-aware navigation and planning can be implemented, without increasing the flying pay-load. The proposed framework is structured in stacked logical layers, distributed between the Cloud and the RPAS, implementing the tasks of autonomous flying, processing information and decision-making. The architecture comprises five layers, including map and risk-aware path planning generation, and control layers. Important novelty elements are: (i) the definition of a dynamical risk-map, and (ii) an On-board Control System able to perform emergency maneuvers, if communication with the Cloud is poor or missing.

Optimal energy management of TLC plants using low cost Wireless Sensor Network based monitoring system and a simulation model for data analysis

A Wireless Sensor Network based monitoring system was set-up, tested and is being deployed in 250 Telecom Italia Central Offices, in order to monitor and manage energy consumptions and to support energy saving policies. A thermodynamic model of the plants, based on a grey box approach, has been proved effective in supporting data analysis and in planning Energy Saving.

Energy management of telecommunication plants using Wireless Sensor Network

In order to face electricity consumption of a big telecommunication operator, a monitoring system to keep under control power absorption is needed. In this paper is presented a whole management platform based on Wireless Sensor Network, built by Telecom Italia, specifically focusing on lessons from the field learnt in two-year trial and trying to highlight business model standing behind the scene.