Paolo Bellagente

Enabling PROFINET devices to work in IoT: Characterization and requirements

The rise of Internet of Things (IoT) has impacted the industrial automation world. Traditional fleldbus and new fieldbus based on Real Time Ethernet (as PROFINET) have been challenged to include IoT solutions, whose real possibilities are still under evaluation. On the other hand, there are properties of industrial automation devices (e.g. robustness, “proven in use”, explosion proof) that may be useful also in typical IoT scenarios (e.g. building automation). Therefore, the paper proposes a reversed approach, where a new architecture enables the use of existing, legacy, industry-grade devices (e.g. PROFINET Sensors, actuators, and Programmable Logic controllers - PLC) to be used across the Internet. In the proposed system, the PROFINET network can be put into work by means of transparent proxies that use IoT paradigms. The paper presents and discusses a set of basic requirements and a preliminary performance evaluation of a sample application. The results show that the 99-percentile of the transfer time (from proxy to proxy) in the proposed system is less than 100ms, and it is stable even varying the PROFINET cycle time.

Exploiting Internet of Things and building information modeling framework for management of cognitive buildings

Technologies for the acquisition, storage and mining of big data are increasingly affecting the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry, modifying the way buildings are conceived and developed. Indeed, they will be no longer designed and managed only as financial products, but also as service providers to support the needs of the occupants. This is a great challenge in the building sector, that is experiencing a period of various (r)evolution concerning products, technologies and processes. This research defines a digitally enabled framework for operating cognitive buildings, presenting a case study by which it has been possible to analyze how information collected during operations could inform end-users (i.e. administrators, owners, facility managers and occupants) about the behavior of both buildings and occupants. Focusing on building in-use stages, advantages in tracking the behavior of occupants and in satisfying the needs of users should be derived through the availability of real-time information, i.e. collected by sensors. In this way, not only the behavior of users could be taken into account, but also predicted performance could be correlated with real measurement and, consequently, the building performance gap should be estimated and filled. A connection between as-designed virtual models (resulted from a BIM - Building Information Modeling - process) and as-delivered physical assets (monitored in real-time, i.e. through BMS - Building Management Systems) could be established to explore how BIM practices and technologies could improve a data-driven asset management, by enriching building information in operation. The results should allow pointing out how data and information gathered along building life cycle could provide services to users.

Adopting IoT framework for Energy Management of Smart Building: A real test-case

The wide penetration of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) is causing a progressive decrease of the quality of energy provided by Distribution Service Operator (DSO). The management of the DERs requires improvement in control of distribution grid, which can take the advantage of ICT technologies. In literature, the integration of communication infrastructure, distributed control and distribution grid is called Smart Grid (SG). However, an optimal grid management should take into account the behavior of the customers, which are playing a more and more active role in the distribution grid. An abstraction layer is required to simplify the management of each active customer. The Energy Management System (EMS) of Smart Building provides this abstraction layer, by means of which is possible to schedule energy consumption and generation. In the paper, the Internet of Thing (IoT) approach has been applied in the deployment of an Energy Management System (EMS), designed for monitoring and supervise the distribution grid of the campus of the University of Brescia. This approach is able to provide the required flexibility, since new services can be easily implemented over the deployed framework. Preliminary results are showing the integration of a meteorological station within the system with services suitable both for humans as well as machines interactions opening the opportunity of new, independent applications.

Virtual Respiratory Rate Sensors: An Example of A Smartphone-Based Integrated and Multiparametric mHealth Gateway

In the last few years, several wearables appeared in the market, for fitness and healthcare applications. Such smart devices have been proposed as a possible solution for lowering the costs of healthcare, leading to the mHealth revolution. In the typical scenario, each wearable, embedding sensors, processing units and communication modules, adopts a smartphone for data collection, data displaying, and remote communication. In this paper, authors modify this paradigm simplifying the wearables (e.g., relying only on simple analog front ends and communication interfaces) and exploiting the (relatively large) computational capability of the smartphone, not only for implementing gateway features but also for processing raw biosignals as well. Several experiments verify the feasibility of the proposed approach and demonstrate that “local” biosensor virtualization is possible, expanding possibilities of mHealth. In particular, tests have been carried out to evaluate the performance of hearth rate computation and respiratory rate virtual sensor, starting from a single-lead electrocardiogram signal.

Data Management Challenges for Smart Living

An information infrastructure for modern Smart Cities must be able to integrate data from multiple heterogeneous sources such as private and public energy consumption, garbage collection and environmental conditions (pollution, citizens’ safety and security). In this context, citizens themselves become providers of data, in the form of comments, opinions and suggestions that should be integrated within the infrastructure. A vast amount of data must be collected, organized and analysed to extract useful insights that can be transformed into actions aimed at improving the quality of life in the city. In this paper, we discuss data management issues to be addressed for bringing benefits to different categories of stakeholders in a Smart City, ranging from citizens to the Public Administration and energy providers.

Kalman-Based Approach to Bladder Volume Estimation for People with Neurogenic Dysfunction of the Urinary Bladder

People with neurogenic dysfunction of urinary bladder often require daily catheterism because of their impairment. This issue is particularly critical for those that have not the urinary stimulus, because they have not the ability to understand when the bladder is full or not. From user’s point of view, the absence of a urinary conscious stimulus can cause refluxes, damaging patient’s health and his psychological status. For such necessities, most patients require professional nursing, increasing the work of the staff and the overall medical costs. Furthermore, catheterism itself applied every day for a long period can cause infection in the urinary tract. The authors propose a non-invasive bladder monitoring system based on real-time bioimpedance measurement. A Klaman filter was developed in order to estimate the bladder volume due to the intrinsic-uncertainly of the model itself and to remove the artifacts due to patient’s movements by using accelerometer by monitoring it’s activity. Theoretical analysis, in-system measurements and experimentations prove the effectiveness of the proposed solution.