Limited Energy Resources Research Articles

Nanomaterials for Energy Conversion

Nanomaterials have emerged as a cornerstone in advancing energy conversion technologies, offering unparalleled potential for improving efficiency and sustainability. Their unique properties—such as high surface area, tunable electronic structure, and quantum effects—enable superior performance in applications like solar cells, fuel cells, thermoelectric devices, and batteries. By manipulating nanoscale architectures, researchers can enhance energy harvesting, storage, and conversion processes. This study explores the role of nanomaterials in energy conversion, focusing on their design, synthesis, and application in cutting-edge technologies. The integration of nanomaterials with advanced energy systems has shown significant potential to address challenges such as limited energy resources and environmental concerns. Special emphasis is placed on nanostructured semiconductors, quantum dots, and graphene-based materials for their contributions to photovoltaic and catalytic processes. Despite their advantages, challenges remain, including scalability, stability, and cost-efficiency. This research aims to provide a comprehensive overview of recent advancements, evaluate existing challenges, and highlight future directions for nanomaterials in energy conversion, ultimately contributing to a sustainable energy future.

User preferences in ride-sharing mathematical models for enhanced matching

Ride-sharing services have attracted significant interest due to overcrowding, limited energy resources, and environmental concerns. This study proposes a mathematical programming model that integrates user preferences into the ride-sharing problem with transfer. Passenger transfer in ride-sharing problems addresses the limitations of the matching process, especially in less-populated areas. It allows passengers to be dropped off at meeting points and continue with another driver. Moreover, considering user preferences in ride-sharing systems is crucial for enhancing efficiency and user satisfaction. Accordingly, we propose a Preference-Driven Matching Algorithm for the matching process. Our proposed algorithm captures user preferences and provides potential matches. In addition, we introduce an Iterative Enhance-and-Optimize Algorithm capable of producing high-quality solutions within short computational times. We evaluate the efficiency of these approaches across various instances, focusing on real-scale scenarios. Based on the results, the model with preferences demonstrates effective performance compared to other methods. Our findings underscore the importance of user preferences in optimizing ride-sharing problems and highlight the trade-off between efficiency and user satisfaction. By incorporating user preferences, our approach results in higher user satisfaction, a more responsive and efficient system with reduced response times, and increased demand and revenue by servicing more users.

Improving the performance of IoT devices that use Wi-Fi

<p>Providing quality service to users of the internet of things (IoT) entails addressing two crucial aspects: one related to security and the other concerning the limited resources of IoT devices. We will face a challenge while using timesensitive applications within a network that utilizes a high-performance Wi-Fi technology with exceeding energy consumption. Due to this research challenge, we propose a new algorithm, IoT-quality of service (QoS), designed to achieve a true balance between enhancing the security aspects of IoT devices and improving network-hardware performance. Thus, the algorithm efficiently manages the limited energy resources by monitoring energy levels, communication quality, and queuing delay at access points. This is accomplished by utilizing a streamlined identity management system capable of achieving authentication and access authorization with reduced loading for IoT devices. The research hypothesis underwent validation through a comparative analysis of its performance against the conventional model of a Wi-Fi-based IoT device. This evaluation was conducted utilizing the NS3 simulator and was based on a predetermined set of parameters influencing the examined performance metrics, including power consumption, throughput, delay, and response time. The findings exposed the superiority of the proposed algorithm.</p>

Enhancing IOT Security: Investigating Lightweight Encryption Algorithms for Resource-Constrained Devices

Abstract: In this work, we examine three LWCs: namely AES-128, SPECK, and ASCON, considering their presentation on resource-constrained IoT devices. With the large-scale deployment of IoT in all areas of industry, ensuring the security and efficiency of cryptographic implementations has become highly critical because typical IoT devices are usually characterized by limited memory, processing power, and energy resources. The study ascertains the memory usage, throughput, energy efficiency, and strength of security in the chosen algorithms by highly popular resource-constrained boards such as Arduino Nano and Arduino Micro. The benchmarks have shown that SPECK has the highest throughput, which is much efficient for constrained environments. One of the significant features of ASCON is that it has minimized memory usage and high energy efficiency. Therefore, it suits for long-term usage in IoT. AES-128 is secure but resource-intensive, so its usage may be irrelevant in very constrained environments. The results are of great value for IoT developers as a contribution to the selection of cryptographic algorithms based on the conditions and resource restrictions of the IoT devices involved so that optimized security solutions are achieved.

Development of the Separation Column’s Temperature Field Monitoring System

Oil is one of the main resources used by all countries in the world. The ever-growing demand for oil and oil products forces oil companies to increase production and refining. In order to increase net profit, oil producing companies are constantly upgrading equipment, improving oil production technologies, and preparing oil for further processing. When considering the elements of primary oil refining in difficult conditions, such as hard-to-reach or in remote locations, developers face strict limitations in energy resources and dimensions. Therefore, the use of traditional systems causes a number of difficulties, significantly reducing production efficiency. In this study, the authors solve the problem of improving the characteristics of the oil separation process. In their work, the authors analyzed the separation columns of primary oil distillation, identified the shortcomings of the technological process, and searched for technological solutions. Having identified the lack of technical solutions for monitoring the state of the temperature field of the separation column, the authors developed their own hardware–software complex for monitoring the separation column (RF patents No. 2020665473, No. 2021662752 were received). The complex was tested and successfully implemented into production. The study provides an assessment of the economic efficiency of implementation for a year and a forecast of the economic effect for 10 years.

Elliptic curves cryptography for lightweight devices in IoT system

The Internet of Things (IoT) is revolutionizing industries by connecting billions of devices, ranging from home appliances to industrial machines, to the internet. This transformation enables unprecedented automation, data collection, and process optimization. However, the widespread adoption of IoT also introduces significant security challenges, especially for lightweight devices with limited computational power and energy resources. Ensuring secure communication and data integrity in such constrained environments is critical. This paper explores and compares the performance of implemented algorithms within IoT devices. A comparison between Rivest-Shamir-Adleman (RSA) and Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) implementations is made to identify a lightweight, secure, and efficient solution for IoT environments. Our results indicate that ECC outperforms RSA in terms of memory requirements, overall energy consumption, key sizes, signature generation time, key generation and execution time, and decryption time in a resource-constrained environment. However, RSA performs better in signature verification and encryption.

IoT-based framework for optimizing energy efficiency and reliability in acoustic sensor networks using mobile sinks

In today’s world, there is an increasing demand for environmental monitoring, surveillance, and oceanographic research, which poses challenges in improving energy efficiency and data transfer reliability in Acoustic Sensor Networks. Existing methods face hurdles due to limited energy resources and unreliable data transmission. We propose a Reliable and Energy-Efficient Framework with Sink Mobility (REEFSM) to address these issues. This framework optimizes energy consumption and enhances data reliability by incorporating advanced energy management strategies such as adaptive duty cycling and efficient data transmission mechanisms by minimizing forwarding nodes. Simulation results demonstrate that REEFSM reduces energy consumption by up to 43% and increases data reliability by 35% compared to protocols like EERBCR and DEADS. REEFSM ensures zero dead nodes, minimizes packet drops, and maintains high data accuracy throughout the simulation. This research outcome provides a sustainable and reliable solution for energy-efficient data collection in underwater environments. The future research directions, including integrating autonomous path planning, energy harvesting, and machine learning techniques, hold great potential for further advancements in the field.

Energy Constrained Depth First Search

AbstractDepth first search is a natural algorithmic technique for constructing a closed route that visits all vertices of a graph. The length of such a route equals, in an edge-weighted tree, twice the total weight of all edges of the tree and this is asymptotically optimal over all exploration strategies. This paper considers a variant of such search strategies where the length of each route is bounded by a positive integer B (e.g. due to limited energy resources of the searcher). The objective is to cover all the edges of a tree T using the minimum number of routes, each starting and ending at the root and each being of length at most B. To this end, we analyze the following natural greedy tree traversal process that is based on decomposing a depth first search traversal into a sequence of limited length routes. Given any arbitrary depth first search traversal R of the tree T, we cover R with routes $$R_1,\ldots ,R_l$$ R 1 , … , R l , each of length at most B such that: $$R_i$$ R i starts at the root, reaches directly the farthest point of R visited by $$R_{i-1}$$ R i - 1 , then $$R_i$$ R i continues along the path R as far as possible, and finally $$R_i$$ R i returns to the root. We call the above algorithm piecemeal-DFS and we prove that it achieves the asymptotically minimal number of routes l, regardless of the choice of R. Our analysis also shows that the total length of the traversal (and thus the traversal time) of piecemeal-DFS is asymptotically minimum over all energy-constrained exploration strategies. The fact that R can be chosen arbitrarily means that the exploration strategy can be constructed in an online fashion when the input tree T is not known in advance. Each route $$R_i$$ R i can be constructed without any knowledge of the yet unvisited part of T. Surprisingly, our results show that depth first search is efficient for energy constrained exploration of trees, even though it is known that the same does not hold for energy constrained exploration of arbitrary graphs.

WAOA: A hybrid whale-ant optimization algorithm for energy-efficient routing in wireless sensor networks

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are vital for collecting data from remote environments. Nevertheless, the limited energy resources of sensor nodes render energy-efficient routing a critical concern for the successful operation of WSNs. To address these concerns, clustering, and routing are essential tasks in WSNs; clustering aims to organize sensor nodes into groups or clusters to minimize energy usage and prolong the network's lifespan. On the other hand, routing involves determining the optimum paths for transmitting data from the source nodes to the destination nodes. Nonetheless, it has been established that the current energy-efficient routing problem is an NP-hard, requiring a trade-off between energy and overall network performance. In this paper, we proposed a Hybrid Whale-Ant Optimization Algorithm (WAOA) for energy-efficient routing in WSNs. The proposed WAOA utilizes the Whale Optimization Algorithm (WOA) to find the suitable cluster head in the predefined search space, while the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) searches the optimal route from the source cluster sensors to the cluster head within its predefined space. Linear programming construction is employed to formulate optimization problems for cluster head selection and search for the optimal route. The performance analysis demonstrates that the proposed WAOA performs better than MOORP, MMABC, and AZEBR by 5.78 %,16.11 %, and 18.52 %, respectively, in terms of network lifetime.

The role of the energy dimension in tourism safety and security

Security, having a multilateral character – as a state of the social system, a complex process, a function of the state, etc. – reflects the level of satisfaction of the fundamental national interests of a country, as well as the actions taken, on a single ideological basis, to promote those interests and defend them against aggression, dangers, threats and risks of any kind. The tourism sector is an important economic sector globally and locally and offers real prospects for sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Safety is one of the most important criteria in supporting the tourism industry. Diplomatic channels, negotiation, cooperation and exchange of experience have always been and remain the most viable ways for a state to achieve its foreign policy objectives in relation to its domestic needs, especially for the Republic of Moldova with limited energy resources and infastructure still in the present.

FloatingBlue: A Delay Tolerant Networks-Enabled Internet of Things Architecture for Remote Areas Combining Data Mules and Low Power Communications.

Monitoring vast and remote areas like forests using Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) presents significant challenges, such as limited energy resources and signal attenuation over long distances due to natural obstacles. Traditional solutions often require extensive infrastructure, which is impractical in such environments. To address these limitations, we introduce the "FloatingBlue" architecture. This architecture, known for its superior energy efficiency, combines Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology with Delay Tolerant Networks (DTN) and data mules. It leverages BLE's low power consumption for energy-efficient sensor broadcasts while utilizing DTN-enabled data mules to collect data from dispersed sensors without constant network connectivity. Deployed in a remote agricultural area in the Amazon region, "FloatingBlue" demonstrated significant improvements in energy efficiency and communication range, with a high Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR). The developed BLE beacon sensor achieved state-of-the-art energy consumption levels, using only 2.25 µJ in sleep mode and 11.8 µJ in transmission mode. Our results highlight "FloatingBlue" as a robust, low-power solution for remote monitoring in challenging environments, offering an energy-efficient and scalable alternative to traditional WSN approaches.

An approximate method of estimating the depth of objects using wavelet-based transformation

Modern three-dimensional computer vision technologies are actively developing, offering new solutions based on the analysis of environmental details. One of the key tasks is to determine the depth of location of objects in images, which requires efficient and fast methods of their processing. This study proposes a new depth estimation method for 3D computer vision based on wavelet transform optimization. Solutions are offered to simplify the disparity calculation, which is traditionally used for the construction of depth maps, with the possibility of describing contours with adjustable detail based on the wavelet transform. The main advantage of this method is the increase in performance due to the allocation of the Haar wavelet carrier length in the extremum search area. The simulation confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed approach for constructing depth maps, which allows us to recommend it for use in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in conditions of limited computing and energy resources.

A novel mass integration cogeneration system: Working fluid selection model and multi-criteria decision analysis

As the globe faces major difficulties such as climate change, environmental pollution, and limited energy resources, improving energy efficiency and decreasing the environmental effects of energy systems have become research priorities. A novel mass integration cogeneration (MICHP) system is proposed in this paper. In addition, a mathematical model relating the basic physical properties of the working fluid to the system's performance has been developed. R1233zd(E), R1224yd(Z), R601a, R245fa, and acetone have been chosen to be applied to the MICHP to confirm the model's accuracy. By utilizing the technique for order preference by similarity to an ideal solution, the entropy weight method, and energy, exergy, economic, and environmental analyses of the MICHP, the general efficiency of the working fluid is further explored. The results show that the intermediate heat exchanger is the largest exergy destruction equipment in the system. R601a has the highest return on investment of 0.53, and the annual operating cost is found to be proportional to the latent heat of the working fluid. R1233zd(E) has the lowest environmental impact, with a total equivalent warming impact of −4.89 × 106 kgCO2eq. The multi-criteria decision analysis of the working fluid agrees with the order of the proposed mathematical model's results, proving the model's accuracy. Consequently, the mathematical model can provide a helpful technique guide for working fluid selection in cogeneration systems.

Energy efficient routing protocol for enhancing the network lifetime in wireless sensor network

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) confront significant challenges related to battery capacity, as sensor nodes operate on limited energy resources. To address this issue, low energy adaptive clustering hierarchy (LEACH) protocol is commonly employed for power management in WSNs. LEACH is commonly used for power management. Here, sensing region is divided into clusters and sectors, placing a gateway node at the center to minimize energy consumption during data transmission. It employs one-hop, two-hop, or three-hop pathways based on node proximity to the base station (BS) to optimize energy usage. Network performance is assessed using rounds, throughput, and energy usage. MATLAB simulations compare the proposed approach with dual layer LEACH (DL-LEACH) and LEACH, showing significant improvements in network lifetime. The proposed scheme outperforms LEACH by 515% and 347% for 20% and 50% node depletion, respectively. Compared to DL-LEACH, it extends network lifetime by 27% and 59% under similar scenarios. Sectoring, clustering, and multi-hop communication reduce energy consumption, enhancing network lifetime and addressing WSN challenges effectively.

Node Localization Method in Wireless Sensor Networks Using Combined Crow Search and the Weighted Centroid Method.

Node localization is critical for accessing diverse nodes that provide services in remote places. Single-anchor localization techniques suffer co-linearity, performing poorly. The reliable multiple anchor node selection method is computationally intensive and requires a lot of processing power and time to identify suitable anchor nodes. Node localization in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) is challenging due to the number and placement of anchors, as well as their communication capabilities. These senor nodes possess limited energy resources, which is a big concern in localization. In addition to convention optimization in WSNs, researchers have employed nature-inspired algorithms to localize unknown nodes in WSN. However, these methods take longer, require lots of processing power, and have higher localization error, with a greater number of beacon nodes and sensitivity to parameter selection affecting localization. This research employed a nature-inspired crow search algorithm (an improvement over other nature-inspired algorithms) for selecting the suitable number of anchor nodes from the population, reducing errors in localizing unknown nodes. Additionally, the weighted centroid method was proposed for identifying the exact location of an unknown node. This made the crow search weighted centroid localization (CS-WCL) algorithm a more trustworthy and efficient method for node localization in WSNs, with reduced average localization error (ALE) and energy consumption. CS-WCL outperformed WCL and distance vector (DV)-Hop, with a reduced ALE of 15% (from 32%) and varying communication radii from 20 m to 45 m. Also, the ALE against scalability was validated for CS-WCL against WCL and DV-Hop for a varying number of beacon nodes (from 3 to 2), reducing ALE to 2.59% (from 28.75%). Lastly, CS-WCL resulted in reduced energy consumption (from 120 mJ to 45 mJ) for varying network nodes from 30 to 300 against WCL and DV-Hop. Thus, CS-WCL outperformed other nature-inspired algorithms in node localization. These have been validated using MATLAB 2022b.

Secured and energy aware cluster‐based routing in cross‐layer–cross‐domain WSN

SummaryWireless sensor networks (WSNs) are becoming increasingly important and well liked for delivering pervasive computing environments for a range of applications. Extending the networking life lifetime in WSNs is an important issue that must be addressed. Effective techniques for conserving the WSN's limited energy resources must be developed. Cross‐layer protocols are employed in WSNs to solve network lifespan difficulties. This paper proposes a new cross‐layer–cross‐domain routing scheme with stages such as “(1) network association stage, (2) nearer node detection phase, and (3) consistent state phase.” In the consistent stage, the optimal cluster head selection (CHS) is carried out by taking into account risk, delay, energy, trust, and distance. A new model called manta ray collided dwarf mongoose optimization (MRC‐DMO) is introduced to help with this. Furthermore, the routing is accomplished by dependable data communication. The results obtained establish the effectiveness of the MRC‐DMO scheme for SEACRCLCD in WSN over varied methods.

Efficient Management of Containers for Software Defined Vehicles

Containerization technology, such as Docker, is gaining in popularity in newly established software-defined vehicle architectures (SDVA). However, executing those containers can quickly become computationally expensive in constrained environments, given the limited CPU, memory, and energy resources in the Electric Control Units (ECU) of SDVA. Consequently, the efficient management of these containers is crucial for enabling the on-demand usage of the applications in the vehicle based on the available resources while considering several constraints and priorities, including failure tolerance, security, safety, and comfort. In this paper, we propose a dynamic software container management approach for constrained environments such as embedded devices/ECUs in SDVA within smart cars. To address the conflicting objectives and constraints within the vehicle, we design a novel search-based approach based on multi-objective optimization. This approach facilitates the allocation, movement, or suspension of containers between ECUs in the cluster. Collaborating with our industry partner, Ford Motor Company, we evaluate our approach using different real-world software-defined scenarios. These scenarios involve using heterogeneous clusters of ECU devices in vehicles based on real-world software containers and use-case studies from the automotive industry. The experimental results demonstrate that our scheduler outperforms existing scheduling algorithms, including the default Docker scheduler -Spread- commonly used in automotive applications. Our proposed scheduler exhibits superior performance in terms of energy and resource cost efficiency. Specifically, it achieves a 35% reduction in energy consumption in power-saving mode compared to the scheduler employed by Ford Motor Company. Additionally, our scheduler effectively distributes workload among the ECUs in the cluster, minimizing resource usage, and dynamically adjusts to the real-time requirements and constraints of the car environment. This work will serve as a fundamental building block in the automotive industry to efficiently manage software containers in smart vehicles considering constraints and priorities in the real world.

A reliable cluster-based opportunistic routing protocol for underwater wireless sensor networks

Underwater Acoustic Sensor Networks (UASNs) have gained significant popularity and application in various marine engineering exploration scenarios, driven by the global evolution of the ocean ecosystem. However, UASNs face numerous challenges arising from the unique characteristics of the underwater environment and acoustic channels, such as limited energy resources, unreliable communication, and dynamic network topology in uncertain environments, all of which impact the network lifetime and transmission reliability. To address these challenges and enable efficient underwater data packet transmissions, this paper proposes a reliable cluster-based routing method called RCRP. The RCRP organizes sensor nodes into clusters, where cluster heads transmit the fused data to the sink node through multi-hop forwarding. To overcome routing voids caused by node failures during packet transmission, a prediction model based on the Markov chain is introduced to identify void nodes and inform neighboring nodes about the routing holes. Furthermore, a connection prediction mechanism is developed to tackle changes in the uncertain network topology, taking into account node mobility and the received SNR. For packet transmissions, a waiting mechanism inspired by the opportunistic routing (OR) paradigm is proposed, which determines the optimal forwarding route based on the calculated probability of successful connection between nodes. Simulation results demonstrate that RCRP outperforms existing routing protocols in terms of packet delivery ratio, surviving time, and energy consumption, highlighting its effectiveness in enhancing the performance of UASNs.

Provision for Energy: A Resource Allocation Problem in Federated Learning for Edge Systems

The article explores an energy-efficient method for allocating transmission and computation resources for federated learning (FL) on wireless communication networks. The model being considered involves each user training a local FL model using their limited local computing resources and the data they have collected. These local models are then transmitted to a base station, where they are aggregated and broadcast back to all users. The level of accuracy in learning, as well as computation and communication latency, are determined by the exchange of models between users and the base station. Throughout the FL process, energy consumption for both local computation and transmission must be taken into account. Given the limited energy resources of wireless users, the communication problem is formulated as an optimization problem with the goal of minimizing overall system energy consumption while meeting a latency requirement. To address this problem, we propose an iterative algorithm that takes into account factors such as bandwidth, power, and computational resources. Results from numerical simulations demonstrate that the proposed algorithm can reduce energy consumption compared to traditional FL methods up to 51% reduction.

Design of an optimized sensor fault identification within the limited computing, memory, and energy capabilities

The main goal of this work is to design an optimized sensor-fault identification and diagnostic system for the Internet of Things (IoT) and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The challenge is to accomplish this task within the sensors’ limited computing, memory, and energy capabilities. More importantly, identifying errors is time-sensitive, even though the diagnosis does not have to be made quickly. This project aims to provide an enhanced sensor-fault detection and diagnostic system for the IoT and CPS with constrained energy, memory, and computation resources. The system’s goals are to promptly detect defects, lessen the computing burden on sensors, and enhance the recall and accuracy of fault detection. This study used a hybrid approach that combined principal component analysis, autoencoder, and gated recurrent unit to create an optimal sensor-fault detection and diagnostic system. There were 1001 sensor readings in the dataset; 112 were defective, while the remaining 888 were normal. The investigation showed that the suggested method, which detected faults with an accuracy of 95% and recall of 92%, achieved high accuracy and recall in recognizing defects in IoT and CPS. With significantly shorter processing times, the system’s potential to reduce computational strain on sensors was also proved. The findings of this study indicate that the suggested optimized sensor-fault detection and diagnosis system successfully detects faults in IoT and CPS with limited computation, memory, and energy resources. The system’s ability to reduce the computing burden on sensors while improving accuracy and recall makes it an appealing choice for industrial and commercial applications.