TC-37 Special Sessions at I2MTC

SPS5 - Beyond Smart Sensors Networks: Characterization and Applications of Emerging Wireless Communications for IoT/CPS System

Organizer: Emiliano Sisinni, University of Brescia, Italy
Organizer: Gianfranco Miele, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Italy

The Internet of Things paradigm, complemented by the existence of digital twins in so-called Cyber-Physical Spaces, is changing our lives. Indeed, most, if not all, application fields, from aerospace to automotive, from environmental monitoring to industry, from smart cities to healthcare, have been affected. The “smart” things of IoT are nothing but a collection of sensors, metadata, signal and data processing module, and network communication capability. In particular, wireless communications are a must due to the flexibility they offer. Unfortunately, legacy solutions are not well suited for addressing the many requirements of IoT/CPS systems, as dense and harsh environments, scalability, availability, timeliness and low-power and low-cost.

For all these reasons, new approaches emerged in the recent past, most notably the advent of standard approaches like Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) and the 5G specifications family for mobile communications.

A plethora of innovative services and applications have been devised that leverage on the new capabilities offered by these technologies.

However, the more demanding the requirements, the more complex the overall system complexity. As a consequence, testing these communication solutions can be cumbersome, e.g. due to the lack of widely accepted and well-defined metrics, standardized measurement procedures and lack of real-world testbeds offering a large number of devices.

This special session aims to bring together academic and industry professional to a session in which the most recent studies, implementations and, proposal about the above-mentioned technologies can be presented.

Fields of interest include, but are not limited to:

Characterization of IoT and CPS applications leveraging on wireless communication technologies
Development of testing procedures and methodologies for IoT and CPS wireless communication technologies
Wireless sensor/actuator networks for Industrial Internet of Things
Short-range wireless technologies measurements and applications for Industrial Internet of Things
Bluetooth and BLE technologies measurements and applications to Industrial Internet of Things
5G/4G technologies measurements and applications to Industrial Internet of Things
LPWAN technologies measurements and applications for Industrial Internet of Things
Connected Industrial Vehicle equipped with sensors systems
Distributed mobile IIoT wireless systems
Wireless sensor/assessment localization in Industrial IoT applications
Large scale deployment of wireless devices in the industrial context
Security of wireless sensor/actuator networks in Industrial Internet of Things
Applications of wireless IoT sensors and systems to large industrial plants
Measurement for coexistence and interference analysis in wireless networks in IIoT.

The special session is promoted and supported by TC-37 “Measurement & Networking” of the IEEE IMS (Chair: prof. Domenico Capriglione).

Invited Paper/Presentation Details
Proposed Title: “Advanced distributed measurement platform for vehicle fleet using IIoT wireless technologies”
Authors and their affiliation: Paolo Ferrari, Emiliano Sisinni, Alessandro Depari, Alessandra Flammini, Marco Pasetti, Stefano Rinaldi, Department of Information Engineering, University of Brescia.

Abstract: The advent of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is deeply changing the industrial world. The capability to acquire digitalized data by smart devices ubiquitously connected can benefit any manufacturing process and production lines, increasing efficiency, capacity, safety and better return on investment when compared to legacy industrial approaches. After the advent of the Industry 4.0 paradigm, that strongly depends on the IIoT technologies as wireless communications, cloud computing and big data analysis, companies and organizations are moving toward smart factories, smart workforce, integrated machines and intelligent operations. In this work, authors address the distributed measurement platform for vehicle fleet management, showing how already available technologies can improve the management latency of vehicle fleet. In particular, a commercially available solution has been considered as a reference platform and real-world use cases are identified, showing obtainable performance.

SPS13 - Smart Measuring Systems and Measures for the Management of Emergencies: The case of COVID2019 pandemic, and beyond

Organizer: Federico Tramarin, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Organizer: Stefano Cattini, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Organizer: Alberto Ferrari, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

The management of emergencies, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, emphasized a set of requirements and unprecedented problems for measurement systems. Such a task definitely imposes to provide answers in a short time, often directly operating in the field and with the need to integrate information from multiple sources. In-accurate, or incomplete information can lead to inappropriate choices, with potentially severe consequences in emergency situations. Smart sensors and effective measuring systems become hence essential, and in such a scenario, they should provide for high level of reliability and robustness, fast response times, self-standing capabilities, and preferably, ease of use even by unskilled personnel.

Indeed, a relevant example is the surge, in early 2020, of requests for face masks and other Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), that was before limited to healthcare personnel, whereas their use by the general population is fundamental to limit the spread of Sars-Cov-2. However, while requirements for healthcare professionals are well established, facing the increased demand from the population lead to issues for the lack of specific knowledge and regulations. Several Universities and laboratories responded to the request and brought into operation, in a very short time, the necessary facilities and the relative procedures for measurement, management, and reporting tests, to the aim of assessing PPE efficacy and biocompatibility. This new use allows to provide an overview of the performance of the various PPE prototypes and products that producers or importers intended to test according to the ISO standard, and in turn revealed unexpected limitations and inadequacies, also in terms of procedures and standard specifications that need further investigation.

Analogously, yet in a different direction, the need of integration of information from different sources imposes the adoption of new solutions for remote sensing and measuring systems. It is the case, as an example, of UV disinfection systems, whose wide-spread diffusion due to COVID-19 is leading to an ever-increasing pervasiveness of medium-to-small O3 sources that can be found, even inadvertently, in several diverse locations – workplaces, homes, hospitals, restaurants, and pubs. Since the exposure to O3 may potentially harm human health, emergency management highlighted the need for innovative and distributed monitoring systems for the measurement of O3 exposure. On the one side, there is the need to design and test innovative smart sensors, able to accurately provide meaningful measurement data, and to share data with other smart sensors and measuring systems. On the other side, new solutions, particularly exploiting the opportunities provided by the technology related to Internet of Things (IoT) need hence to be deployed, to allow an effective wide-area monitoring and real-time collection, integration, and analysis of data.

The aforementioned examples should be representative of a broader set of issues and unprecedented needs related to the management of emergencies. In this scenario, research contributions dealing with smart sensors, measuring instruments and monitoring solutions based on IoT technologies, as well as research related to the shortcomings of current standards are particularly welcome.

Topics of interest for this Special Session includes, but are not limited to:

Innovative Smart sensors and measuring systems for the management of emergencies
Design, characterization and testing of smart sensors and measuring systems for the management of emergencies
Applications of IoT sensors and measuring systems to the management of emergencies
Wireless Internet of Things solutions for smart sensors in emergencies management
Bluetooth and BLE technologies for IoT measurements applications
Long and Short-range wireless solutions, and LPWAN technologies for IoT measurements applications
Large scale deployment of IoT sensors for monitoring applications
Localization systems based on wireless sensor and IoT technologies
Testing of face masks with respect to performance parameters related to breath- ability and bacterial filtration efficiency
Testing of face masks with respect to biocompatibility parameters according to ISO 10993-1
Testing of performance for others PPE

SPS-2: Smart Sensors in the Context of Industry 4.0

Organizer: Vincenzo Paciello - Univ. Cassino, Italy ([email protected])
Co-Organizer: Marco Carratù - Univ. Salerno, Italy; Reza Abrishambaf , Univ. Miami, USA; Antonio Espirito-Santo - Univ. of Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal; Victor Huang - Sage Technologies, USA

"Wireless sensor networks are essential components to support Industry 4.0 operations in factories for process monitoring and control. Associated technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), and edge technologies such as IEEE 1451 smart sensors and actuators make the concept of smart factory a reality. This is a multidisciplinary research field, through which it is possible to achieve significant progress. The availability of information enables manufacturers to optimize their processes quickly and efficiently. Through intelligent sensor networks, it is possible to acquire the necessary information for collaboration in various production processes. In this scenario, the adoption of wireless networks with a high number of nodes and some of them with energy usage restrictions, has given rise to the development of new energy harvesting methods and associated energy management mechanisms. On the other hand, the cooperation of various elements in the network is only possible if standards are adopted to promote device and system integration and interoperability. This special session aims to provide a forum for discussion that will attract scholars and industry practitioners to share and discuss latest advances in this scientific field.

Topics in this session include, but are not limited to:

Smart Sensor Digital Twin
Measurements for sensor networks
Smart sensors and transducers
Low power wireless sensors
Testing and simulation techniques for sensors
Smart sensor modelling and design techniques
Security issues in Sensor Networks
Digital Calibration, E‐calibration and auto‐traceability
Signal processing for Sensor Networks
Parallel and distributed measurement systems
Sensor reliability and maintenance
New educational technologies for wireless sensing in Industry 4.0
Standards, test, and certification in Sensor Networks - edge computing
Smart Communication

The special session is promoted and supported by Domenico Capriglione TC-37 “Measurement & Networking” of IMS. The special session is promoted and supported by Kang Lee of TC-9 “Sensor Technology” of IMS. "

SPS-4: Measurements for Demanding Communications: Broadband and Industrial Networking

Organizer: Gianfranco Miele, University of Cassino and Southern Lazio, Italy - Emiliano Sisinni - Univ. Brescia, Italy ([email protected])
Co-Organizer: Mikael Gidlund, MidSweden University, Sundsvall ([email protected])

Invited Speaker: Alessandro Depari, Paolo Ferrari, Alessandra Flammini, Emiliano Sisinni, Stefano Rinaldi
Invited Speech: Evaluation of the impact of Cloud Database services on Industrial IoT Applications"

The fundamental principles of "connectivity to all" and "connectivity with all" pose new and demanding challenges to communication systems and technologies. In a world where the possibility to have a broadband ubiquitous connection is a fundamental need, Countries where this possibility is not warranted risk to have many problems for their development. For instance, despite the very different application scenarios, broadband communication systems and industrial networks, both playing a very important role in the modern society, have compelling needs in terms of data, level of reliability, security and resilience.

To satisfy these requests, several solutions have been proposed, especially for wireless and large scale communications, like 4/5G mobile systems, IoT and-IIoT solutions, LPWANs and THz communications, just to mention few of the advanced technologies in the design and test stage.

Well-defined measurement methodologies are fundamental to avoid for example congestion and coexistence problems, resource usage efficiency issues and electromagnetic interference to ensure a very good Quality of Service (QoS) to the users. Therefore, measurements performed at different layers from physical to application of ISO/OSI stack and cross-layer analyses become fundamental for developers, testers, and users of such technologies and services. Furthermore, the pervasiveness of these emerging communication technologies make the human exposure to generated electromagnetic fields another impelling requirements, and well-accepted measurements procedure are required.

Unfortunately, accurate performance evaluations in real-world scenarios are often quite limited, if not missing at all.

This special session aims to bring together academic and industry professional to a session in which the most recent studies, implementations and proposal about the above-mentioned issues can be presented.

Fields of interest include, but are not limited to:

Measurements on 5G;
Measurements on IIoT networks;
Measurements for THz and millimeter wave communications;
Measurements for computer and communication networks;
Simulation, RF measurements, modeling and case studies in the Industrial Internet of Things;
Analysis and monitoring of industrial communication traffic;
Performance characterization of industrial distributed systems;
Integration and coexistence of heterogeneous networks;
IIoT architectures, protocols, and algorithms;
Data management in IIoT;
Cognitive radio development and measurements;
Measurement for coexistence and interference analysis in wireless networks;
Measurement on RF telecommunication systems, cellular networks and mobile terminals;
Evaluation and assessment of human exposure to electromagnetic fields.

SPS-8: Sensors and Sensing System for Assistive Technology

Organizer: Vincenzo Marletta - Univ. Of Catania, Italy ([email protected])
Co-Organizer: Ramiro Velázquez, Universidad Panamericana, Aguascalientes, Mexico.

Invited Speaker: Edwige Pissaloux, Univ. Of Rouen, France
Invited Speech: Force-Feedback Tablet : a new ICT device for 2D data display

Assisted Technologies is a hot area having an everyday increasing strategic relevance given its impact on the economy and on the society. In this sector, sensors and sensing systems assume a role of primary importance. There is, in fact, an extremely vivid interest on this subject both in the scientific and in the industrial community. In spite of the numerous results available, there is still a large need for further research efforts and for novel solutions. In particular, multi-sensor platform and Wireless Sensors Networks hold the promise of being able to bring innovative contribution to this area being able to collect and transfer large sets of measurement data from several points thus realizing distributed and flexible measurement systems. We invite therefore original research papers on this subject with the goal to contribute to this area through a vibrant arena where novel ideas on converging subjects for the general topic of “Sensors and sensing system for Assistive Technology” will be confronted and exchanged between prominent actors in this field.

Submissions are welcomed on but not limited to:

Review on the State of the Art on "Measurement systems and sensing solutions for Assistive Technology".
Measurement methodologies and algorithms for Assistive Technologies, with particular regards to “Well Being” and “Active Ageing”.
Multi-sensor architectures for Fall detection and Postural Instability monitoring.
Multi-sensor systems for Ambient Assisted Living and Activities of Daily Living monitoring.
Smart textile solutions for AAL.
Measurement strategies for the assessment of Assistive Technologies.

"Measurements For Modern Networks and Telecommunication Systems"

In a world where the possibility to have a broadband connection is a fundamental need, countries where this possibility is not warranted risk to have many problems for their development. For this reason, communication systems and technologies involved in computer and telecommunication networks play a very important role in a society that needs to be more and more connected at very high data rates.

To satisfy these requests, several technologies have been developed, especially in wireless and cellular communications, like 3G and 4G systems and more advanced technologies are under design and test, as 5G.

Thanks to these technologies, we can use (i) wireless sensor networks for many applications, (ii) access to advanced services like Video streaming, VoIP and so on. They have given the possibility to make real the idea of Internet of Things (IoT). To give a very good Quality of Service (QoS) to the users, it is fundamental to execute several measurements to avoid for example spectrum usage efficiency issues, electromagnetic interference and coexistence problems. In particular, in such contexts, measurements performed at different layers from physical to application of ISO/OSI stack and cross-layer analyses become fundamental for developers, testers, and users of such technologies and services.

As an example, the metrological characterization of transmitters and receivers chain operating at even more increasing frequencies (with particular reference to 5G) imposes new measurement challenges to be adequately faced by defining suitable measurement procedures and measurement setup able to warrant accuracies suitable for the purposes.

As computer networks regard, Quality of Experience (QoE) and Quality of Service (QoS) are interleaved concepts which enable to estimate the degree of satisfaction or annoyance of the user of an application or service. Objective measurements of QoS are today correlated to QoE to achieve an objective estimation of user’s perspective of the overall quality of the provided service. In such context, the metrological characterization of such indexes is required to provide a confidence level to such important quantities.

Furthermore, the advent of new wireless communication technologies unveils the current spectrum scarcity problem due to the static frequency allocation policy. A possible solution to this increasing demand for spectrum usage is the development of dynamic spectrum access paradigms that can be easily implemented with Cognitive radio devices. This technology surely represents a possibility to improve the spectrum usage efficiency for many applications (civil, military, vehicle to vehicle communications, to cite a few). In such a context, measurements are fundamentals for designing and developing new methods to improve the capability and accuracy of cognitive radio terminals in spectrum sensing also under critical Signal-to-Noise ratio.

In such scenario, the topics of interests for this special session include, but are not limited to:

Measurements on 5G;
Measurements for computer networks;
Methods and techniques for networks performance assessment;
QoE and QoS assessment in computer networks;
Cognitive radio development and measurements;
Measurement for coexistence and interference analysis in wireless networks;
Measurement on RF telecommunication systems;
Measurements on cellular networks and mobile terminals.

The special session is promoted and supported by TC-37 “Measurement & Networking” of IMS.

Postion Paper:
Title: RF Measurements in a 5G World
Author: Michael D. Foegelle, Ph.D. ETS-Lindgren, Inc.