Santiago Otero

Electronics in Automotive Engineering: A Top–Down Approach for Implementing Industrial Fieldbus Technologies in City Buses and Coaches

The electrical circuits and their electronic control units in city buses and coaches are essential for good performance. Drive, braking, suspension, door opening, security, and communication devices must be integrated in a reliable and real-time information system. The industrial communication networks or fieldbuses are a good solution to implement networked control systems for the onboard electronics in the public transport buses and coaches. Also, this trend of automotive electronics is being encouraged in the current European Union Framework Program (FP) (seventh FP), which is devoted to intelligent transportation systems, for facing the worlds new challenges in environmental care and efficient fuel consumption among others. The authors are working in the design of multiplexed solutions based on fieldbuses to integrate the body and chassis functions of city public transport buses. An example for the EURO5 model of the Scania manufacturer is reported in this paper.

An Experimental Ad-Hoc WSN for the Instrumentation of Biological Models

Biological research in agriculture requires a wide range of electronic sensors to fulfill different goals, such as climate monitoring, soil and fruit assessment, control of insects and diseases, chemical pollutants, identification and control of weeds, crop tracking, and so on. This research must be supported by consistent biological models able to simulate diverse environmental conditions to advice on the needed human actions before risky biological damage could become irreversible. In this paper, an experimental agrometeorological sensor-based wireless distributed network is described. Its purpose is to provide real measurements to validate the different biological models used for viticulture applications.

Distributed Sensors Network Applied to the Rain Impairment Study on Radiocommunication Systems

The performance of millimetre wavelength wireless access network technologies are significantly impaired by rain effects. To evaluate the rain effects over a communication system, it is essential to know the temporal and spatial evolution of rainfall rate. For this reason it is necessary to develop an experimental network that provides sufficient data to study and establish means to prevent and compensate for the detrimental effects of rain. In this paper, an experimental rain gauge network is presented. This network comprises weather stations capable of measuring rainfall rate, temperature and humidity. The paper describes first the experimental network for automatic data acquisition as a system based in a distributed process. The design of the experimental network is explained in detail and finally the interest for millimetre wavelength applications is pointed out.

Reconfigurable Industrial Sensors for Remote Condition Monitoring and Modeling

The objective of this paper is the development of a software architecture to ease access and management of data for applications with variable and configurable data sources. The purpose of this architecture is to build a configurable and flexible system where acquisition tasks are decoupled from data-access tasks. To accomplish this, the authors have implemented what they have called virtual acquisition cards , which provide a reconfigurable and dynamic view during runtime of the data required by the user applications. These data can be used by different kind of applications from diverse knowledge areas (meteorological, industrial, medical, and so on) for the analysis of behavioral models or condition monitoring. This paper introduces the architecture of the system proposed with its involved parts. Then, it details the most important parts of the system and how they work. Next, several real working applications, using the proposed architecture, are shown. A discussion about other existing commercial systems is made, and finally, future works and conclusions are presented.

Hybrid Distributed Instrumentation Network for Integrating Meteorological Sensors Applied to Modeling RF Propagation Impairments

Rainfall rate is the main cause of fades in the frequency bands above 10 GHz. To optimize the planning of satellite and terrestrial radio communication systems operating on these frequency bands, it is essential to have a detailed knowledge of the temporal and spatial distributions of the rainfall rate. For this reason, it is necessary to develop experimental networks, which provide adequate data to study, prevent, and compensate the rain fade. In this paper, an experimental instrumentation network is presented. This network comprises weather stations that are capable of measuring rainfall rate, temperature, and humidity; a weather radar; and three radio links. This paper first introduces the rationale and the state of the art in meteorological sensors and describes the experimental network for automatic data acquisition as a distributed process system. The design of the experimental network is explained in detail. Finally, the interest in millimeter wavelength for broadband applications is outlined, and some research lines from the collected data are presented.

Deployment and Implementation of an Agricultural Sensor Network

Biological research in agriculture needs a lot of specialised electronic sensors in order to fulfill different goals, like as: climate monitoring, soil and fruit assessment, control of insects and diseases, chemical pollutants, identification and control of weeds, crop tracking, and so on. That research must be supported by consistent biological models able to simulate diverse environmental conditions, in order to predict the right human actions before risky biological damage could be irreversible. In this paper an experimental distributed network based on climatic and biological wireless sensors is described , for providing real measurements in order to validate different biological models used for viticulture applications. First, the experimental network for field automatic data acquisition is introduced , as a system based in a distributed process. Following, the design of the wireless network is explained in detail, with a previous discussion about the state-of-the-art, and some measurements for viticulture research are pointed out. Finally future developments are stated.

University-enterprise technology transfer for education and training about industrial processes

The authors present a multidisciplinary project called PROPYME, which is a team effort of the University of Vigo (Spain) and the FEUGA autonomous government foundation (Galicia, North West of Spain), both supported by several industrial enterprises from the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) market. The main purpose of PROPYME project was to accomplish an innovative technology-transfer task from university industrial researchers, to Small and Medium Enterprises (SME), for enhancing their productivity by the automation of their industrial and management processes. This involves a SMEpsilas effort not only by a financial point of view, but adaptation, knowledge acquisition and organizational changes. Moreover, embedding ICTpsilas involves adapting Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools to integrate vertically process and systems, owned by the SME itself, facing to decision challenges based on economic value, knowledge and communication concepts. The PROPYME first phase is a portal Web with a demonstration multimedia tool, text, graphics, animations, audio and video, that shows fifteen industrial processes based on diverse technologies frequently used for industrial enterprises.

Communication Networks for Vehicular Electronic Devices

The electrical circuits and their electronic control units (ECUs) in buses and coaches are essential for their good working. Drive, braking, suspension, opening door, security and communication devices must be integrated in a reliable and real time information system. The industrial communication networks or fieldbuses are a good solution to implement networked control systems for the onboard electronics in the public transport buses and coaches. The authors are working in the design of multiplexed solutions based on fieldbuses to integrate the body and chassis functions of city public transport buses. An example for the EUR05 model of the Scania manufacturer is reported in this paper. The authors are also working in the implementation of new modules based on FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) that can be used in these networked control systems.

Industrial Communication Systems in Technology Control for Public Transport Vehicles

The electrical circuits and installations in buses and coaches are essential for their good working. Drive, braking, suspension, opening door, security and communication systems depend on the electrical system of the vehicle. The disproportionate length of cable (about 4 Km of cables and 100 Kg of weight in a conventional installation), with more of 2,000 connections per vehicle, generates great difficult and the point-to-point links are not an effective solution. The industrial communication networks or fieldbuses are a multiplexed solution for onboard electronics in the public transport buses and coaches. The authors are working in the design and implementation of new modules based on FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) to integrate body and chassis functions in the multiplexed solutions from manufacturers

Wireless network implementation for viticulture information systems

Biological research in agriculture needs a lot of specialized electronic sensors in order to fulfill different goals, like as: climate monitoring, soil and fruit assessment, control of insects and diseases, chemical pollutants, identification and control of weeds, crop tracking, and so on. That research must be supported by consistent biological models able to simulate diverse environmental conditions, in order to predict the right human actions before risky biological damage could be irreversible. In this paper an experimental distributed network based on climatic and biological wireless sensors is described, for providing real measurements in order to validate different biological models used for viticulture applications. First, the experimental network for field automatic data acquisition is introduced, as a system based in a distributed process. Following, the design of the wireless network is explained in detail, with a previous discussion about the state-of-the-art, and some measurements for viticulture research are pointed out. Finally future developments are stated.