Open Communication Protocol Research Articles

Spatiotemporal Moisture Field

For monitoring capillary moisture conduction, the most important parameter is the moisture conductivity coefficient, which is a material characteristic; however, its use in practical calculations is not very common. For further development in the field of liquid moisture propagation, an automated measuring apparatus has been developed and granted a European patent. Its essence lies in detecting the liquid water content based on a well-known physical phenomenon: electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range. The determination of the spatiotemporal moisture field is the first and fundamental step for describing transportation phenomena. The moisture field thus created allows for the viewing of the moisture conductivity coefficient, which is one of the most important parameters in describing transportation phenomena as a function of moisture. The presence of water in building materials can significantly affect their physical properties, such as mechanical or thermal–technical characteristics. This may lead to unacceptable consequences, which might only manifest after a certain period of time. In the case of multi-layered structures, moisture can transfer from one material to another. Therefore, it is essential to address this process. The advantage of the software solution described by the methodology is the use of an open communication protocol in the form of a synchronized array, which is not common in typical applications of this type. The principle of separating hardware modules is also unusual for devices of this type, as it requires the independent communication of each module with the control software. Mutual communication is handled exclusively at the software level, making it possible to modify, optimize, or parameterize the procedures as needed. Upon closer examination of the wetting curves of various materials, anomalies were revealed in some of their structures. This can be advantageously utilized in the research of newly developed composite materials. The assembled system of measuring instruments, their software integration, and control provide a foundation for the practical application of the described procedures and methods for determining the moisture field of building materials. The parameterization of individual processes, as well as the open access to data, allows for the optimization of the methodology, as materials of entirely different characteristics may require an individual approach, which will certainly contribute to the advancement of science and research in this area. Currently, this work is being followed by further extensive studies, not yet published by the authors, focusing on the application of the described moisture field to evaluate the moisture conductivity coefficient as a function dependent on the material’s mass moisture content. Their application requires specific mathematical and programming approaches due to the significant volume of data involved.

An Open Expandable Data Protocol for Multipolar Stimulation in Cochlear Implants.

Cochlear implants (CI) have restored hearing to many deaf patients. It is the most successful neuroprosthetic in the field. However, in past decades technical improvements have plateaued and the market has solidified among 3 manufacturers. Proprietary software, and know-how are some of the barriers to innovation and disruption in CIs. In this paper we propose an open data communication protocol for cochlear implants that supports multipolar stimulation, accommodates an expandable number of channels, and minimizes the transmission of redundant information. We also present a method for implementing multipolar stimulation in single supply stimulators with a bridge-type switch matrix through pulse-polarity modulation. This combines the advantages of lower voltage (lower power) operation with more targeted stimulation.Clinical Relevance- In addition to enabling the development of new tools for research and clinical deployment, the presented data communication protocol will promote clinical research in more advanced auditory coding strategies.

Brain–Computer-Interface-Based Smart-Home Interface by Leveraging Motor Imagery Signals

In this work, we propose a brain–computer-interface (BCI)-based smart-home interface which leverages motor imagery (MI) signals to operate home devices in real-time. The idea behind MI-BCI is that different types of MI activities will activate various brain regions. Therefore, after recording the user’s electroencephalogram (EEG) data, two approaches, i.e., Regularized Common Spatial Pattern (RCSP) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), analyze these data to classify users’ imagined tasks. In such a way, the user can perform the intended action. In the proposed framework, EEG signals were recorded by using the EMOTIV helmet and OpenVibe, a free and open-source platform that has been utilized for EEG signal feature extraction and classification. After being classified, such signals are then converted into control commands, and the open communication protocol for building automation KNX (“Konnex”) is proposed for the tasks’ execution, i.e., the regulation of two switching devices. The experimental results from the training and testing stages provide evidence of the effectiveness of the users’ intentions classification, which has subsequently been used to operate the proposed home automation system, allowing users to operate two light bulbs.

OPIIoT: Design and Implementation of an Open Communication Protocol Platform for Industrial Internet of Things

The industrial internet of things (IIoT) is an intelligent network of industrial components that can communicate with each other to enhance the performance of manufacturing and industrial processes. For the many advantages, such as less no contracts, free to develop and high interoperability, in this work we propose using open-source technologies to develop IIoT platforms for information integration and data analysis. To realize the development and deployment of open source IIoTs, we present our framework OPIIoT (Open Communication Protocol Platform for Industrial Internet of Things) with the system construction cycle to solve various integration problems of operational technology and information technology. Moreover, we describe the underlying design principles and the implementation details of the proposed framework are given to make it more understandable and applicable to the IIoT platform developers. To verify the proposed framework, we have conducted both qualitative and quantitative evaluations. We have compared the important features of our OPIIoT and several commercial platforms for industry, performed trials on data communication and analytics for information supports, and demonstrated the web interface for system implementation. The results prove the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed framework.

Analysis of Key Generation Methods for Enable Secured Communication in the IoTs System

The open stack communication protocol of the internet of things always in security threats. The vulnerability of protocol faces a problem of man in middle attacks and loss of integrity of communication. Cryptography plays a vital role in security authentication on IoT based enable communication system. IoT devices' limited resource constraints cannot offer any security mechanism on the physical level and network level. The key generation methods uplift the security provision in IoT enables communication model. The process of key generation applied three types of cryptography algorithm, symmetric, asymmetric and hybrid algorithm. The complexity of key generation methods needs more computational time and memory; this is the limitation of IoT devices. So various authors proposed a lightweight key generation algorithm for security and authentication. This paper analyzed the performance of key generation methods based on different cryptography approaches and measured their security strength. For the analysis process, use MATLAB software and sample text data file for the communication of two parties. Some ADHOC methods apply to measure protocol weakness during the communication network compromised with a man in the middle attack. The variable key size also reflects the security strength of IoTs enable devices.

Open source machine vision platform for manufacturing and robotics

Abstract The paper describes the design and implementation of an open source machine vision platform for visual robot guidance and automated product inspection in manufacturing, based on OpenCV library. Using this platform, the rigid, industry-specific organization of material flows can be relaxed, shop floor resources becoming reality-aware. The main functionalities are: acquisition of video streams from multiple sources, image analysis at scene level, part recognition, locating and interaction with industrial equipment using standard, open communication protocols. The paper describes design aspects: system architecture, data acquisition and standardization of the image representation used by the analysis algorithms and object recognition module and input/output interaction protocols for a set of predefined cases. Results are reported for an implementation of the platform using a commercial image acquisition device and an industrial robot.

SCADA Vulnerabilities and Existing Security Approaches Towards Industrial Protection

Attackers, spread all around the world, have become a major threat to SCADA systems, since they started using opened-standard networks, integrated to corporate networks and accessing the Internet. It is true that there are also many different security solutions and techniques available, such as firewalls, encryption, network traffic analysis and a few others, though, intruders still managed to gain access and control delicate systems. Pointed as a non-invasive solution, intrusion detection systems (IDS) are able to monitor and report activities of any anomaly or strange patterns. However, due to the lack of SCADA network traffic data, such IDS solutions are still primitive and based on just well-known vulnerabilities and attacks, where a dedicated IDS is necessary to properly protect SCADA in water distribution systems. This study highlights SCADA vulnerabilities and security issues, through a qualitative approach, using known attacks and examples in security as case studies and aiming to present scenarios on this issue, as well, an overview of today’s SCADA vulnerabilities and main threats. Results show that the identification of Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS), with their approaches and types, also widely implemented in regular IT networks, help on providing a higher security level and identifying abnormal traffic data. Such systems have indeed shown a good success rate on identifying malicious traffic in SCADA networks, mainly because of their evolution to Ethernet and open communication protocols. Based on these singular characteristics, studying SCADA networks and their communication protocols is seen as a major factor to properly develop robust security mechanisms and tolls.

RAMWS: Reliable approach using middleware and WebSockets in mobile cloud computing

Abstract The widespread usage of mobile applications with the limited resources of mobile devices pushed towards the investment in Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). In MCC, web services are available on the cloud server and are invoked by mobile applications whenever and wherever needed via a hybrid wired and wireless networks. One of the most important issues in the mobile experience is the web service request Time-out problem. This problem is tightly coupled with the increase in the service response size, database query time, and the required computations on the server, which occurs because of the increased application usage. This paper proposes a Reliable Approach using Middleware and WebSockets (RAMWS) that overcomes the Time-out problem and achieves reliable web service consumption. The enhanced architecture is a hybrid between the middleware approach and the WebSocket open connection communication protocol. The RAMWS reduces the network usage time up to 7 times better than the direct-cloud approach (Invoking the cloud service directly from the mobile device), by using the shortest time response from two expected responses, and accordingly, enhances the mobile experience.

Scalable IoT Platform for Heterogeneous Devices in Smart Environments

The Internet of Things (IoT) is envisioned as a ubiquitous computing infrastructure in which everything becomes connected, enabling gigantic information exchange among Things and people. These connected smart Things generate an enormous amount of data which need to be efficiently managed to form a unified global IoT. Unfortunately, due to the lack of acceptable open standards, communication protocols, and support for device/service discovery, the recent IoT deployments in smart environments (e.g., smart home, smart building, smart city) are posing imperative challenges related to interoperability, discovery, and the configuration of deployed objects, since the number of objects is expected to grow over time. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to provide open and scalable solutions for the discovery of devices (i.e., Things), their configuration, and data management. This paper introduces an open and scalable IoT platform by adopting the modular characteristics of edge computing for smart environments. This paper: (i) performs a systematic literature review of IoT-based infrastructures and analyzes the scalability requirements; (ii) proposes a layered IoT platform for smart environments that fosters heterogeneity, interoperability, discovery, and scalability; and (iii) demonstrates the applicability of the proposed solution by relying on a comprehensive study of a Vare smart building use case at Aalto University.

BIM assisted Building Automation System information exchange using BACnet and IFC

Smart buildings are the trend of the next generation's commercial buildings that link different building systems together with the Building Automation System (BAS). Building information modeling (BIM) assists in data exchange and information flow. Previous research has explored BAS and BIM integration for energy management, building design optimization and operation, and building fault detection and diagnostics. However, it is rarely seen to design BAS or exchange BAS information in different project stages using BIM tools. The current design of the BAS system is either using 2D drawings based on AutoCAD or vendor customized tools. Unlike the other building systems, BAS seldom participates in design-build BIM cycle but blends into facility management in the later stage. To tackle this issue, this research aims to set a fundamental step to facilitate information exchange for BIM assisted BAS design and operation using one of the BAS open communication protocol named Building Automation and Control Networks (BACnet) and open BIM standard Industry Foundation Class (IFC). This paper leverages Information Delivery Manual (IDM) and Model View Definition (MVD) methodologies to define an IFC subset schema (a BACnet MVD) so that BAS information conforming to the BACnet protocol can be represented in IFC data model for information exchange throughout various project stages with BIM tools. Revit and a web browser were used to demonstrate the implementation of the BACnet MVD for BAS information exchange. In this way, BAS information represented in the open BIM standard can unlock the potential of future smart building information exchange and integration.

Designing a building automation system with open protocol communication and intelligent electronic devices

Building Automation System (BAS) is a microprocessor-based control network setup for controlling a building’s technical service systems such as air conditioning, ventilation, lighting, and hydraulics. BAS main microcontroller automatically handles all electronics in the building. To control the liked devices to suit the needs of the buildings’ occupants, the controller needs to be smart or intelligent. The system will be very flexible if the communication network between control and device used an open communication protocol. In this paper, we present a miniature BAS solution implemented using intelligent electronic devices (IED) as controlling devices. The system is built using 8-bit microcontrollers, sensors, and actuators. There are three IED in use, each handling lighting, air conditioning, and water pumps respectively. Communication between the devices and the human-machine interface (HMI) used the free and open Modbus TCP protocol.

Open IoT Architecture for Continuous Patient Monitoring in Emergency Wards

Due to multiple reasons, emergency wards can become overloaded with patients, some of which can be in critical health conditions. To improve the emergency service and avoid deaths and serious adverse events that could be potentially prevented, it is mandatory to do a continuous monitoring of patients physiological parameters. This is a good fit for Internet of Things (IoT) technology, but the scenario imposes hard constraints on autonomy, connectivity, interoperability, and delay. In this paper, we propose a full Internet-based architecture using open protocols from the wearable sensors up to the monitoring system. Particularly, we use low-cost and low-power WiFi-enabled wearable physiological sensors that connect directly to the Internet infrastructure and run open communication protocols, namely, oneM2M. At the upper end, our architecture relies on openEHR for data semantics, storage, and monitoring. Overall, we show the feasibility of our open IoT architecture exhibiting 20–50 ms end-to-end latency and 30–50 h sensor autonomy at a fraction of the cost of current non-interoperable vertical solutions.

An OCARI-Based Wireless Sensor Network for Heat Measurements during Outdoor Fire Experiments.

This study presents a new wireless measurement system for outdoor fire experiments based on an OCARI wireless sensor network (WSN). The open-source radio communication OCARI stack (‘Open Communication Protocol for Ad Hoc Reliable Industrial Instrumentation’) allows to overcome the limitations of the previous wireless solutions for fire measurements, especially those based on proprietary systems, such as Zigbee, wherein users cannot control energy consumption and timestamping. This paper presents the design of an Atmel/ARM-based platform compatible with the wireless OCARI stack, adapted to record and communicate data from heat transducers—namely, a K-type thermocouple and heat fluxmeter. A 5-node WSN using heat sensors faces a 10 m natural fire of excelsior (pine wood) in outdoor conditions. Measurements from the OCARI-WSN were compared with the same measurements simultaneously recorded on a datalogger, a standard wired solution in fire science. Thus, six fire experiments were performed for different fuel loads, and the incident heat radiation varies with the fire size under variable wind conditions. The technological breakdown of timestamping identified in previous low-energy consumption and low-cost wireless systems is overcome by the present solution.

AMASP (ASCII Master Slave Protocol): a Lightweight MODBUS Based Customizable Communication Protocol for General Applications

In this paper, we describe AMASP, a proposal for an open standard communication protocol / model whose objective is providing a novel and lightweight solution to the problem of communication between small computers acting in particular on embedded systems, but not limited to them. The protocol establishes addresses for computers or peripherals, allowing them to send messages directly to these addresses. It is based on message interchanging, being the messages composed by ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) text or binary streams, according to the user customization. AMASP is very customizable using four different packets to send the messages and manage a master / slave communication model. The protocol is designed to work where a direct communication link is established or a bus architecture is available - by serial, USB connections, etc - and it supports to many error checking algorithms that can be used in unsafe links. Due to the focus on simplicity, low overhead and metadata, it is a connectionless protocol and does not support routing.

Climify.org: an online solution for easy control and monitoring of the indoor environment

Real energy performance of new and retrofitted buildings often consistently differs from expectations. While occupants might complain about poor indoor climate, the energy use in such buildings is often higher than expected, leading to the well-known phenomenon called “Energy Performance Gap”. In the past years, monitoring of buildings, both in terms of energy use and indoor climate conditions, was realised mostly for office buildings only, and at high financial costs. However, the exponential growth in availability of IoT devices, over the last years, opens now new scenarios for low-cost monitoring and control solutions of buildings. Yet, modern IoT devices are often only accessible online through the vendors’ software, although some devices make use of open communication protocols and can, therefore, be connected to open platforms such as openHAB. However, the use of open platforms is still connected to a big efforts for many final users. We, therefore, propose climify.org, an open platform for plug and play connection of IoT sensors and actuators, for easy monitoring and controlling of buildings and buildings’ HVAC systems. The platform climify.org offers, at time of writing, three main applications. The first application is an IoT device installation app, to be used on portable devices (e.g. mobile phones or tablets of system administrators): this app allows easily installing and locating a sensor or an actuator, within a building. The second application is an online service for data visualisation and HVAC control: while the monitoring data can be plotted, the service offers several data evaluation methods; moreover, the settings of the connected actuators can be modified and controlled. The third application can be installed on portable devices (mobile phones and tablets of buildings’ occupants) and allows occupants to provide feedback on their perception of the indoor climate through several questionnaires’ formats. Through the three applications developed within climify.org, we aim at providing the best indoor climate and the lowest energy use through a low-cost solution.

Achieving web services reliability in mobile cloud computing

Web services are highly requested in mobile communications to provide seamless connectivity between mobile devices and the cloud server. Web service reliability becomes the most demanding feature, which provides low communication overhead and ensures retrieving the appropriate response to avoid the duplicate request execution problem. In addition, it overcomes the request timeout problem that is one of the most affected issues in the mobile experience. This paper proposes two approaches to achieve the reliable web services consumption, Reliable mobile agent and WebSocket approach (MAWS) and reliable middleware and WebSocket approach (MWS). The two approaches are hybrid between the mobile agent and middleware approaches with WebSocket open connection communication protocol. These approaches recover the data loss because of the intermittent connections, overcomes the timeout problem. Moreover, it enhances the mobile experience by achieving web service consumption reliability.

Achieving web services reliability in mobile cloud computing

Web services are highly requested in mobile communications to provide seamless connectivity between mobile devices and the cloud server. Web service reliability becomes the most demanding feature, which provides low communication overhead and ensures retrieving the appropriate response to avoid the duplicate request execution problem. In addition, it overcomes the request timeout problem that is one of the most affected issues in the mobile experience. This paper proposes two approaches to achieve the reliable web services consumption, Reliable mobile agent and WebSocket approach (MAWS) and reliable middleware and WebSocket approach (MWS). The two approaches are hybrid between the mobile agent and middleware approaches with WebSocket open connection communication protocol. These approaches recover the data loss because of the intermittent connections, overcomes the timeout problem. Moreover, it enhances the mobile experience by achieving web service consumption reliability.

Verification of on-demand medical device networks

Abstract We propose a novel method for the automated formal analysis of on-demand medical device networks communicating via an open communication protocol. The resulting toolbox aims at assisting operators of cross-vendor medical device networks in the complex process of conformity assessment. The method is based on the notion of timed, extended finite automata and employs existent TCTL model checking techniques by use of MATLAB and UPPAAL. We evaluate our methodology in a real-life application similar to a user experience published by the U.S. Food and Drug Admninistration. The method revealed a flaw in the connector design for the Surgical Real Time Bus of the OR.Net project.

GPS-Disciplined Analog-to-Digital Converter for Phasor Measurement Applications

This paper presents a data acquisition unit which synchronously samples multiple channels in a manner such that the time of day at which each sample is taken is known. This allows measurements taken at multiple locations to be compared with confidence. The intended application is wide area electrical power system measurements, in particular phasor measurement units (PMUs). The novelty of the authors’ design is the application of an open hardware development platform to discipline a commodity analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to a broadcast time signal, usually but not exclusively GPS. The methodology used creates a driver layer for the ADC to achieve real-time sampling in a nonpreemptive Linux environment. The use of open hardware and software addresses the need for a transparent instrument for use in research and development of PMU technology. Through a choice of either a software or hardware phase-locked loop, the ADC is controlled to acquire exactly 256 samples per nominal power system cycle (i.e., 50/60 Hz), precisely time synchronized to GPS, at 16-b resolution and 94.2-dB SNR. The design of a printed circuit board expansion board featuring all necessary components is provided. The performance of the system is evaluated. Interoperability and data exchange with other systems is achieved by use of open schemas and communication protocols. This allows rapid integration with popular numerical simulation environments.

TWO-PHASE FLOW REGIME THREE-DIMENSONAL VISUALIZATION USING ELECTRICAL CAPACITANCE TOMOGRAPHY – ALGORITHMS AND SOFTWARE

This paper presents the software for comprehensive processing and visualization of 2D and 3D electrical tomography data. The system name as TomoKIS Studio has been developed in the frame of DENIDIA international research project and has been improved in the frame of Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education Project no 4664/B/T02/2010/38. This software is worldwide unique because it simultaneously integrates the process of tomographic data acquisition, numerical FEM modeling and tomographic images reconstruction. The software can be adapted to specific industrial applications, particularly to monitoring and diagnosis of two-phase flows. The software architecture is composed of independent modules. Their combination offers calibration, configuration and full-duplex communication with any tomographic acquisition system with known and open communication protocol. The other major features are: online data acquisition and processing, online and offline 2D/3D images linear and nonlinear reconstruction and visualization as well as raw data and tomograms processing. Another important ability is 2D/3D ECT sensor construction using FEM modeling. The presented software is supported with the multi-core GPU technology and parallel computing using Nvidia CUDA technology.