Michael Jensen

Smart Waste Collection System Based on Location Intelligence

Abstract Cities around the world are on the run to become smarter. Some of these have seen an opportunity on deploying dedicated municipal access networks to support all types of city management and maintenance services requiring a data connection. This paper practically demonstrates how Internet of Things (IoT) integration with data access networks, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), combinatorial optimization, and electronic engineering can contribute to improve cities’ management systems. We present a waste collection solution based on providing intelligence to trashcans, by using an IoT prototype embedded with sensors, which can read, collect, and transmit trash volume data over the Internet. This data put into a spatio-temporal context and processed by graph theory optimization algorithms can be used to dynamically and efficiently manage waste collection strategies. Experiments are carried out to investigate the benefits of such a system, in comparison to a traditional sectorial waste collection approaches, also including economic factors. A realistic scenario is set up by using Open Data from the city of Copenhagen, highlighting the opportunities created by this type of initiatives for third parties to contribute and develop Smart city solutions.

Upper bound performance estimation for copper based broadband access

Around 70% of all broadband connections in the European Union are carried over copper, and the scenario is unlikely to change in the next few years as carriers still believe in the profitability of their copper infrastructure. In this paper we show how to estimate the performance upper bound of copper based access connections at a household level by using Geographical Information System data. This can be combined with different configurations of DSLAMs distributions, in order to calculate the required number of active equipment points to guarantee certain QoS levels. This method can be used to define the limitations of copper based broadband access. A case study in a municipality in Denmark shows how the estimated network dimension to be able to provide video conference services to the majority of the population might be too high to be implemented in reality.

Comparison of Cost for Different Coverage Scenarios between Copper and Fiber Access Networks

As the demand for bandwidth in broadband Internet connections to private households are increasing, the current copper network in Denmark is facing a considerable upgrade to meet the governments goal of equal access to everyone. In this paper an analysis is presented concerning the coverages of households for a variety of xDSL technologies. A cost estimation has been made when expanding the current copper infrastructure to provide VDSL connections to all households in a municipality in Denmark. This is compared to the price of providing fiber to the home (FTTH) in the same area. Furthermore, the prices of providing FTTH to the coverage areas of those comparable with VDSL are estimated

Investigation of Cost Reductions through Synergy Effects when Deploying Commercial WANs

The incitement for this paper is the increasing considerations related to ICTs growing role in society. This paper contributes with an investigation of the cost reductions possible because of synergy effects in the deployment of WANs for commercial companies. An analysis of the current utilization and development in the use of ICT determines the need for a new ICT-infrastructure. A sample of usage groups and scenarios is used to estimate the cost of the deployment. From the results it is concluded that a substantial cost reduction is possible if obtaining the full effect of the synergies. Redundancy is briefly discussed and it is concluded that the relative reduction in cost is increased

Phase Planning for Overall Copper-Fiber Switch-over

This paper introduces a phase planning concept to the imminent copper-fiber switch-over action. Traditional copper loops are to be replaced by modern fiber lines in order to keep up with the current evolution of data communications. This work proposes two novel approaches of how to schedule this transition by systematically selecting the most attractive areas, in terms of economic efficiency, to be upgraded first. These are alternatively based on 1) distance to the access point and 2)population density, and the overall plan is divided into three phases. In both cases the final network solution is the same, but the different prioritization on what areas to upgrade first implies a different distribution of the investment over the deployment period. Two case studies using real geographical data in Denmark show these differences, and the results suggest that planning the phases based on population density is more favourable in terms of economic efficiency.

Analyzing Broadband Divide in the Farming Sector

Agriculture industry has been evolving for centuries. Currently, the technological development of Internet oriented farming tools allows increasing the productivity and efficiency of this sector. Many of the already available tools and applications require high bandwidth in both directions, upstream and downstream connection. The main constraint is that farms are naturally located in rural areas where the required access broadband data rates are not available. This paper studies the broadband divide in relation to the Danish agricultural sector. Results show how there is an important difference between the broadband availability for farms and the rest of the households/buildings the country. This divide maybe slowing down the potential technological development of the farming industry, in order to keep their competitiveness in the market. Therefore, broadband development in rural areas could be one of the points to focus in a near future broadband access plans.

Vehicle data activity quantification using spatio-temporal GIS on modelling smart cities

Smart Cities are often defined as systems of systems, where a heterogeneity of digital services oriented to the well-functioning of metropolises converge. It is essential to understand where, when and how much digital data is generated, since upstream traffic is progressively growing, in volume and share. One of the main challenges is how to work with continuous time digital communication services for mobile entities. It may become impractical or even infeasible to work in continuous time, when dealing with a large number of data generating entities. Moreover, it is unclear how to integrate the contribution of these services into a common framework, together with other Smart City oriented services. This integration would contribute to understand distributed digital data activity in cities in a holistic way. Consequently, we analyze how different ways of discretizing services to work with a large number of vehicles perform, compared to the continuous time case. We also integrate them into a common framework for quantifying digital activity in metropolitan areas. The experiments are carried out using empirically collected spatio-temporal vehicle positioning data in a real geographical scenario.

Algorithmic PON/P2P FTTH access network design for CAPEX minimization

Due to the emergence of high bandwidth-requiring services, telecommunication operators (telcos) are called to upgrade their fixed access network. In order to keep up with the competition, they must consider different optical access network solutions with Fiber To The Home (FTTH) as the prevailing one. It provides an obvious advantage for the end users in terms of high achievable data rates. On the other hand, the high initial deployment cost required exists as the heaviest impediment. The main goal of this paper is to study different approaches when designing a fiber access network. More concretely, two different optimizations are alternatively evaluated, fiber and trenching minimization, over two of the most typical fiber access architectures, Point-to-Point (P2P) and Passive Optical Network (PON). These are applied to a real geographical scenario and the best returned output in terms of minimum trenching and fiber length is highlighted. Finally, a physical topology that fits best in one of these architectures will be chosen with regards to minimum total capital expenditure (CAPEX).

Green Network Planning Model for Optical Backbones

Communication networks are becoming more essential for our daily lives and critically important for industry and governments. The intense growth in the backbone traffic implies an increment of the power demands of the transmission systems. This power usage might have a significant negative effect on the environment in general. In network planning there are existing planning models focused on QoS provisioning, investment minimization or combinations of both and other parameters. But for designing green optical backbones there is a lack of a model. This paper presents novel ideas to be able to define an analytical model to consider environmental aspects in the planning stage of backbones design.

Overall Plan for Copper-Fiber Infrastructure Switchover: Why, Where, and When

AbstractNowadays, broadband plays an important role in our society. Countries around the world are pursuing initiatives to provide high-speed broadband as a universal service. Currently, digital subscriber line technologies (xDSL) dominate the broadband market, covering more than half of the subscriptions in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. However, these technologies are unlikely to keep up with these ambitious broadband goals; consequently, traditional copper carriers should need to undertake a costly transition in their access infrastructure sooner or later by moving from copper- to fiber-based lines. It is crucial to study, understand, and evaluate different ways of performing this transition to take advantage of the required investment. This paper presents an overall strategy for a copper-fiber switchover, transitioning from the analysis of current copper access, including its limitations, to systematic methods for planning the fiber upgrade and evaluating its ...