Abstract:

Airborne chemical and biological substance release in atmosphere is of major concerns in environment monitoring, anti-terrorist, and disaster and emergence management. Instead of using sensor networks, this talk focuses on cognitive search of unknown sources using mobile sensor platforms (e.g. ground robots or unmanned aerial vehicles). The whole system consists of chemical sensors, mobile sensor platforms, and cognitive search and parameter estimation algorithms. By utilising the current and previous chemical sensor readings, reasoning algorithms developed in a Bayesian framework estimate key parameters associated with the release and environment conditions. Based on that, at each step, the decision for the next move of the sensor platform is optimised in order to maximise the chance of finding the source and reduce uncertainty in parameter estimation. Driven by the search algorithm and informative based planning, the sensor platform is able to approach unknown sources under an unknown environment condition while estimating the key parameters of the release and environment. The Bayesian inference algorithms are implemented through the particle filtering technique. Experimental tests of the complete system were successfully conducted, which overcome the challenges of intermittent sensor readings due to air turbulent conditions, unknown release including location and release rate, unknown environment conditions (e.g. wind direction and speed) and a high level of noise in chemical sensors. The autonomous search systems could be widely used for environment protection and monitoring, oil and gas industry, and disaster or emergency management and keep the first responders out of harm.

Short Bio:

Wen-Hua Chen holds Chair in autonomous vehicles in the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering at Loughborough University, UK, where he is also heading the Controls and Reliability Research Group. Before joining Loughborough in 2000 as Lecturer in Flight Control Systems, Dr. Chen was a Research Fellow and then a Lecturer in Control Engineering in the Centre for Systems and Control at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Dr Chen has a considerable experience in advanced control, signal processing and computational intelligence and their applications in aerospace and automotive engineering. In the last 15 years, he has been spending most of his effort in developing autonomous system technologies and their applications in agriculture, environment and defence. Prof Chen is a Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of IEEE, the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UK. He has published about 250 papers with about a total of 9,000 citations.

Abstract:

The Internet of Things (IoT) is emerging as a ubiquitous and dense ecosystem in which novel devices and smart objects interoperate to establish smart cities, smart buildings, etc. In such application contexts, a plethora of innovative services are expected to stand out, deeply impacting our daily routine. In particular, real IoT drivers will be cyberphysical, collective, highly dynamic and contextualised services, called in the following Opportunistic IoT Services. This keynote proposes a full-fledged approach for their development, based on (i) a technology-agnostic yet detailed modelling phase, which allows opportunistic properties to emerge since the preliminary service analysis; and (ii) the implementation and further simulation of IoT services through Aggregate Computing, a distributed computing paradigm and engineering stack able to to harness, in practice, the dynamic, collective and context-driven nature of Opportunistic IoT Services. Several case studies will be first considered that are well suited to be supported by the new introduced paradigm. In particular, the focus will be posed on a mass event case study, related to the real-world scenario of a large scale urban crowds detection and steering, provides evidence of the huge potential of the approach: indeed, simulation results highlight the effectiveness, flexibility, scalability and resilience of the Edge- and Aggregate Computing- based approach to the design of Opportunistic IoT Services.

Short Bio:

Giancarlo Fortino (SM'12) is Full Professor of Computer Engineering at the Dept. of Informatics, Modeling, Electronics and Systems (DIMES) of the University of Calabria (Unical), Rende (CS), Italy. He has a Ph. D. degree and Laurea (MSc+BSc) degree in Computer Engineering from Unical. He is High-end Foreign Expert of China (term 2015-2018), Adjunct and Guest Professor at the Wuhan University of Technology (China), High-end Expert of HUST (China), CAS PIFI Visiting Scientist at Shenzhen (2019-2021), and Associated Senior Research Fellow at the Italian National Research Council - ICAR Institute. He has been also Visiting Researcher and Professor at the International Computer Science Institute (Berkeley, USA, 97-99) and at the Queensland University of Technology (Australia, 2009), respectively. He is in the list of Top Italian Scientists (TIS) by VIA-academy, with h-index=38 and 5700+ citations according to GS. He is the director of the SPEME (Smart, Pervasive and Mobile Systems Engineering) Lab at DIMES, Unical and co-director of two joint-labs on IoT technologies established with Wuhan University of Technology and Shanghai Maritime University, respectively. His main research interests include Internet of Things computing and technology, agent-based computing, body area networks, human-machine systems, wireless sensor networks, pervasive and cloud computing, multimedia networks, and mobile health systems. He participated to many local, national and international research projects and currently is the deputy coordinator and scientific & technical project manager of the EU-funded (8Meuro) H2020 INTER-IoT project. He authored about 400 publications in journals, conferences and books. He chaired about 100 Int'l conferences/workshops as co-chair, organized about 50 special issues in well-known ISI-impacted Int'l Journals, and participated in the TPC of about 500 conferences. He is the founding editor in chief of the IEEE Book Series on "Human-Machine Systems" and of the Springer Book Series on "Internet of Things: Technology, Communications and Computing", and currently serves (as associate editor) in the editorial board of IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing, IEEE Transactions on Human-Machine Systems, IEEE IoT Journal, IEEE Sensors Journal, IEEE Access, IEEE SMC Magazine, Journal of Networks and Computer Applications, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, Information Fusion, and others. He is the recipient of the 2014 Andrew P. Sage SMC Transactions Paper award. He is co-founder and CEO of SenSysCal S.r.l., a spin-off of Unical, developing innovative IoT-based systems for e-health and domotics. He is the Chair of the IEEE SMC Italian Chapter, Member-at-large of the IEEE SMCS BoG, Member of the IEEE Press Board of Directors, and founding chair of the IEEE SMC Technical Committee on "Interactive and Wearable Computing and Devices".

Abstract:

This talk will discuss design of fast charging infrastructures and their planning in smart cities and communities to support autonomous transportation. Recent development of fast charging infrastructures using hybrid energy systems will be presented. The talk will discuss aspects of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAV) and their integration within transportation networks and city infrastructures. The talk will elaborate on challenges and opportunities for autonomous transportation including connected and autonomous vehicles, shuttles, and their technology development and deployment within smart communities. Intelligent control strategies, architectures, and systems will be presented along with intelligent data center to ensure effective transportation networks in normal and emergencies. Planning strategies will be presented to demonstrate the resilient transportation infrastructures. Optimized performance will be discussed in view of performance indicators and requirements specifications, as well as regulations and standards.

Short Bio:

Dr. Gabbar is a full Professor in the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) in the Faculty of Energy Systems and Nuclear Science, and cross appointed in the Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science, where he has established both the Energy Safety and Control Lab (ESCL) and Advanced Plasma Engineering Lab. He is the recipient of the Senior Research Excellence Aware for 2016, UOIT. He is leading national and international research in the areas of smart energy grids, smart and autonomous transportation, intelligent safety and control systems, advanced plasma systems and their applications on nuclear and clean energy systems. Dr. Gabbar obtained his B.Sc. degree in 1988 with first class of honor from the Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University (Egypt). In 2001, he obtained his Ph.D. degree from Okayama University (Japan) in the area of Safety Engineering. From 2001 till 2004, he joined Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan). From 2004 till 2008, he joined Okayama University (Japan) as a tenured Associate Professor, in the Division of Industrial Innovation Sciences. From 2007 till 2008, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto. He has more than 220 publications, including patents, books / chapters, journal and conference papers. He been invited and participated in world-known conferences and delivered plenary talks on number of scientific events and invitations to international universities. He has supervised and hosted undergraduate, graduate, postdocs, visiting researchers and scholars from different countries including: Japan, India, Qatar, Egypt, Mexico, Malaysia, China, Brazil, Chile, UAE, and Colombia.

He participated and led several large scale national and international projects, in Japan, China, Middle East, and Canada, related to connected autonomous vehicles, fast charging infrastructures for smart transportation, smart energy grids, intelligent control systems and safety design and operation synthesis and optimization of energy systems, micro energy grids, and integrated gas-power grids, plasma-based waste-to-energy. He proposed new integrated energy storage system based on hybrid energy storage including flywheel and battery technologies, and applied on power substations, transportation electrification, and urban infrastructures. He is the founding general chair of the annual IEEE Smart Energy Grid Engineering Conference, SEGE.