Hardware Operation Research Articles

Low Cost Digital Trainer Experimentation Platform –A Case study

Improvement in Technology has imparted huge changes in the field of Education, to be precise it has revolutionized the Traditional classes to Online Learning platforms, similarly this work portrays the necessity in improvising the experimental laboratory courses that requires high cost hardware, experts in the Hardware operation, Software usage and its understanding in performing a simple digital circuit experiment. Upright there is a need for a low cost system and user friendly platform for the learners that provides an opening to learn the practical courses at any place. The above statement is fulfilled by creating an Indigenous Application that works on a GUI platform that can be interfaced with any system on a ready to go installation setup. Experimental verification of the working platform and its advantages over the traditional system are distinct with the feedback from the users. A comparison study of Traditional lab experiments, open source online experiment and Blended laboratory experiments are conducted and its outcomes are analyzed. The obtained results shows that Blended learning is 1.5% and 0.5% better than the Traditional and Online learning experience respectively. Keywords: Traditional Laboratory, Open source online Laboratory, Hybrid Laboratory, GUI Platform, low cost Trainer Kit, Arduino, Multiplatform app, Digital IC

CCSDS 131.2-B-1 Serial Concatenated Convolutional Turbo Decoder Architecture for Efficient FPGA Implementation

Most of the turbo encoding schemes at standards are parallel-based, so different architectures for efficient implementation are common in the literature. However, a serial turbo decoder is not that common. This scheme is used in CCSDS 131.2-B-1 standard, which is attracting much of attention recently due to its higher performance for satellite communications. In this paper, an efficient architecture for the decoder is proposed and analyzed. It is intended to show an architecture that can be modeled in a circuit description language (such as VHDL and Verilog) in such a way that it can be easily implemented on a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). This work describes in detail this architecture explaining the encoding operations that are performed at the transmitter and then, how to undo them at the receiver. The proposed algorithm works by using independent components to divide the tasks and to obtain a pipeline architecture to improve the efficiency. The results of simulating and implementing the proposed architecture on a Xilinx Zynq UltraScale+ RFSoC ZCU28DR board with XCZU28DR-2FFVG1517E RFSoC are shown. The final results presented demonstrate how the hardware operations give equivalent results to the software simulation and do not consume board resources aggressively as usually the turbodecoder does.

Parallel multi-droplet platform for reaction kinetics and optimization.

We present an automated droplet reactor platform possessing parallel reactor channels and a scheduling algorithm that orchestrates all of the parallel hardware operations and ensures droplet integrity as well as overall efficiency. We design and incorporate all of the necessary hardware and software to enable the platform to be used to study both thermal and photochemical reactions. We incorporate a Bayesian optimization algorithm into the control software to enable reaction optimization over both categorical and continuous variables. We demonstrate the capabilities of both the preliminary single-channel and parallelized versions of the platform using a series of model thermal and photochemical reactions. We conduct a series of reaction optimization campaigns and demonstrate rapid acquisition of the data necessary to determine reaction kinetics. The platform is flexible in terms of use case: it can be used either to investigate reaction kinetics or to perform reaction optimization over a wide range of chemical domains.

FPGA Implementation of Double Precision Floating Point Multiplier

High speed computation is the need of today’s generation of Processors. To accomplish this major task, many functions are implemented inside the hardware of the processor rather than having software computing the same task. Majority of the operations which the processor executes are Arithmetic operations which are widely used in many applications that require heavy mathematical operations such as scientific calculations, image and signal processing. Especially in the field of signal processing, multiplication division operation is widely used in many applications. The major issue with these operations in hardware is that much iteration is required which results in slow operation while fast algorithms require complex computations within each cycle. The result of a Division operation results in a either in Quotient and Remainder or a Floating point number which is the major reason to make it more complex than Multiplication operation.

Towards Fault Tolerance Management Systems in SDN

The issue of network operation, monitoring, and availability in traditional network environments has been one of the major challenges to addressing network administrators' struggles to deal with. The capacity for the network to comprehend the status and the performance of every node has been one of the priorities amongst others for network administrators to protect during troubleshooting in their network. However, the growing use of software-defined networks (SDN) technologies, as well as virtualization, pave the way to the solution of network operation, monitoring, and availability of hardware and services in a network environment. SDN has emerged with a novel paradigm of network abstractions that is dynamic, able to monitor network performance and fault management automatically, using its programmable capability. This paper presents a design of a fault tolerance management system for SDN controller framework for small to medium sized networks capable of detecting controller faults and nodes/links faultsin case entire network access is unavailable. The fault management system applies various approaches for fault detection and recovery to ensure the reliability and availability of the network resources.

Meta-learning spiking neural networks with surrogate gradient descent

Adaptive ‘life-long’ learning at the edge and during online task performance is an aspirational goal of artificial intelligence research. Neuromorphic hardware implementing spiking neural networks (SNNs) are particularly attractive in this regard, as their real-time, event-based, local computing paradigm makes them suitable for edge implementations and fast learning. However, the long and iterative learning that characterizes state-of-the-art SNN training is incompatible with the physical nature and real-time operation of neuromorphic hardware. Bi-level learning, such as meta-learning is increasingly used in deep learning to overcome these limitations. In this work, we demonstrate gradient-based meta-learning in SNNs using the surrogate gradient method that approximates the spiking threshold function for gradient estimations. Because surrogate gradients can be made twice differentiable, well-established, and effective second-order gradient meta-learning methods such as model agnostic meta learning (MAML) can be used. We show that SNNs meta-trained using MAML perform comparably to conventional artificial neural networks meta-trained with MAML on event-based meta-datasets. Furthermore, we demonstrate the specific advantages that accrue from meta-learning: fast learning without the requirement of high precision weights or gradients, training-to-learn with quantization and mitigating the effects of approximate synaptic plasticity rules. Our results emphasize how meta-learning techniques can become instrumental for deploying neuromorphic learning technologies on real-world problems.

Green Software Process Factors: A Qualitative Study

In the twenty-first century, the use of software is growing due to many applications requiring large and complex software. Many people do not realise that the use of software has influenced the operation of computer hardware to move indirectly as it affects the hardware’s energy consumption and carbon emissions. Previous studies focused more on models and tools to measure the impact of power consumption and energy efficiency from hardware than on software development studies. Energy consumption can be optimised by the greening software process throughout all phases of development activity. Besides, the current green software process models are more focused on environmental and economic elements and do not integrate with the waste elements in the development phase. Integrating sustainability and waste elements is essential to ensure that the development process complies with green process standards. A qualitative method is used through interviews involving eight informants from Malaysia’s public and private sectors. The objectives of the empirical study are to reveal the current practices of the green software process in industry, identify software process waste and determine green factors associated with the software process. The analysis is guided by a thematic approach using Atlas.ti 8 software. This paper describes the results from the qualitative study that consists of three main themes: best practices of a software process, nine software wastes (building the wrong feature, rework, unnecessarily complex solutions, extraneous cognitive load, psychological distress, waiting, knowledge loss, ineffective communication, delay), and six green factors (resources, people, organisational, technical, environmental, technology). The analysis findings indicate that the software industry needs elements of best practices, green practices, and software technologies in each development phase to produce a green and sustainable software process. The advancement of computing today presents technology as an essential factor in green elements to ensure that the software process is constantly updated and always green.

Three-Dimensional Animation Space Design Based on Virtual Reality

3D animation stereo space design is to process and analyze the collected target image information on the computer and finally obtain a 3D model that can represent the corresponding structure. As a branch of computer vision, 3D animation stereo space design is an important part of realizing the key technology of environment perception. What humans see in the three-dimensional world is a two-dimensional picture. Combined with the visual mechanism and the prior information of the object, it can realize the perception of the environment and promote the convenience of life and production. Games, movies, virtual humans, and any product that uses 3D technology require 3D engine support. The 3D engine encapsulates hardware operations and graphics algorithms and can manage a large number of texture and model resources to construct complex 3D scenes. In order to facilitate the research related to virtual human, in this paper, through the research and study of graphics-related mathematical knowledge and related technologies of engine architecture, an intelligent virtual animation generation engine based on DirectX12 is realized, and three-dimensional characters are controlled through related components, and the function of each module is tested and guaranteed. Test cases were designed to test the various functions of the engine and finally showed that the design goals in the demand analysis have been completed, and a lightweight three-dimensional animation three-dimensional space model has been realized.

A Novel Efficient Convolutional Neural Algorithm for Multi-Category Aliasing Hardware Recognition.

When performing robotic automatic sorting and assembly operations of multi-category hardware, there are some problems with the existing convolutional neural network visual recognition algorithms, such as large computing power consumption, low recognition efficiency, and a high rate of missed detection and false detection. A novel efficient convolutional neural algorithm for multi-category aliasing hardware recognition is proposed in this paper. On the basis of SSD, the novel algorithm uses Resnet-50 instead of VGG16 as the backbone feature extraction network, and it integrates ECA-Net and Improved Spatial Attention Block (ISAB): two attention mechanisms to improve the ability of learning and extract target features. Then, we pass the weighted features to extra feature layers to build an improved SSD algorithm. At last, in order to compare the performance difference between the novel algorithm and the existing algorithms, three kinds of hardware with different sizes are chosen to constitute an aliasing scene that can simulate an industrial site, and some comparative experiments have been completed finally. The experimental results show that the novel algorithm has an mAP of 98.20% and FPS of 78, which are better than Faster R-CNN, YOLOv4, YOLOXs, EfficientDet-D1, and original SSD in terms of comprehensive performance. The novel algorithm proposed in this paper can improve the efficiency of robotic sorting and assembly of multi-category hardware.

Optimized SWAP networks with equivalent circuit averaging for QAOA

The SWAP network is a qubit routing sequence that can be used to efficiently execute the Quantum Approximate Optimization Algorithm (QAOA). Even with a minimally connected topology on an $n$-qubit processor, this routing sequence enables $\mathcal{O}({n}^{2})$ operations to execute in $\mathcal{O}(n)$ steps. In this work, we optimize the execution of SWAP networks for QAOA through two techniques. First, we take advantage of an overcomplete set of native hardware operations [including 150-ns controlled-$\frac{\ensuremath{\pi}}{2}$ phase gates with up to 99.67(1)% fidelity] to decompose the relevant quantum gates and SWAP networks in a manner which minimizes circuit depth and maximizes gate cancellation. Second, we introduce equivalent circuit averaging, which randomizes over degrees of freedom in the quantum circuit compilation to reduce the impact of systematic coherent errors. Our techniques are experimentally validated at the Advanced Quantum Testbed through the execution of QAOA circuits for finding the ground state of two- and four-node Sherrington-Kirkpatrick spin-glass models with various randomly sampled parameters. We observe a $\ensuremath{\sim}60%$ average reduction in error (total variation distance) for QAOA of depth $p=1$ on four transmon qubits on a superconducting quantum processor.

High-fidelity three-qubit iToffoli gate for fixed-frequency superconducting qubits

The development of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices has extended the scope of executable quantum circuits with high-fidelity single- and two-qubit gates. Equipping NISQ devices with three-qubit gates will enable the realization of more complex quantum algorithms and efficient quantum error correction protocols with reduced circuit depth. Several three-qubit gates have been implemented for superconducting qubits, but their use in gate synthesis has been limited due to their low fidelity. Here, using fixed-frequency superconducting qubits, we demonstrate a high-fidelity iToffoli gate based on two-qubit interactions, the so-called cross-resonance effect. As with the Toffoli gate, this three-qubit gate can be used to perform universal quantum computation. The iToffoli gate is implemented by simultaneously applying microwave pulses to a linear chain of three qubits, revealing a process fidelity as high as 98.26(2)%. Moreover, we numerically show that our gate scheme can produce additional three-qubit gates which provide more efficient gate synthesis than the Toffoli and iToffoli gates. Our work not only brings a high-fidelity iToffoli gate to current superconducting quantum processors but also opens a pathway for developing multi-qubit gates based on two-qubit interactions.

Compensation of Sag and Swell Voltage by Using Dynamic Voltage Restorer

There is an introduction to the dynamic voltage restorer in this paper that discusses voltage sags and swell. Also, it is about the compensation of voltage sag and swells. The power quality requirement is one of the most important issues. The power quality problem includes voltage sag, swell, notch, spike, transient, etc. Voltage sags and swells are serious problems requiring immediate attention. In order to compensate for them, there are a number of methods to employ. One of the most effective methods of sag and swell compensation is DVR, which is used in low voltage and medium voltage applications. This paper deals with the compensation of sag and swell voltage. The sag and swell of voltage are compensated by using DVR.. Then the operation of hardware and elements in DVR is explained with their rating dynamic voltage restorer. Keywords - Dynamic Voltage Restorer, Voltage Sag and Swell, Voltage Source Converter, Power Quality.

A custom interface for the joint operation of Med Associates and Tucker-Davis Technologies hardware in a rodent behavioral model

BackgroundRodent behavioral models with an electrophysiological component may require the joint operation of hardware from Med Associates, Inc. (St. Albans, VT) and Tucker-Davis Technologies (TDT; Alachua, FL). Although these manufacturers do produce supplemental hardware for interfacing with each other, investing in such hardware may be untenable for research groups with limited funds who wish to use equipment already in their possession. New methodWe designed a printed circuit board (PCB) in KiCad and had it fabricated by Advanced Circuits (Aurora, CO), with components sourced from Digi-Key (Thief River Falls, MN). The PCB provided 8 channels of bidirectional communication for the transmission of signals between Med Associates’ SG-716B SmartCtrl connection panel and TDT’s RZ5D base station. This setup enabled the coordinated operation of programs running separately on each set of hardware. ResultsThe custom-built PCB facilitated the joint operation of Med Associates and TDT hardware in a go/no-go detection task involving rats with electrical implants in their sciatic nerves. Comparison with existing methodsConventional methods for interfacing Med Associates and Tucker-Davis Technologies rely on the purchase of pre-built hardware whose costs can add up to thousands of dollars. The present method offers a viable alternative that is easily implemented and considerably less expensive (below $200). ConclusionThe present approach provides an inexpensive yet effective alternative to far more costly interfacing solutions offered by Med Associates and Tucker-Davis Technologies.

A Design of 220 kV Line Protection Action Deduction System Based on Numerical Simulation

Accurate conditions monitoring and early wrong action warnings of relay protection in the Smart Substation is the basic guarantee to realize the normal operation of primary and secondary system of the power grid. At present, the traditional operation and maintenance monitoring methods of relay protections have poor timeliness, while some automatic monitoring methods have insufficient early warning performance, and lack the online action deduction function independent of the actual device. In this paper, a design method of integrated action deduction system including protection logic reasoning and software and hardware operation condition is proposed. The system can receive real-time operation information of protection online, simulate different types of faults, and output the recording information of sub modules belongs to the action deduction system. It can realize the online monitoring of device faults such as deducing the correctness of setting values at a certain time in the future, giving the wrong action warnings and predicting the probability of them as well, which effectively improves the operation and maintenance efficiency of the secondary system in the intelligent substation.

Choosing a video conferencing service and its adaptation for educational institution

Objectives. The authors aimed to demonstrate the need for implementation of video conferencing service into the learning process, to select a video conferencing service, and to conduct a computer experiment with the selected BigBlueButton video conferencing service.Methods. The problems of choosing a video conferencing service from the list of video conferencing and video conferencing software are considered. At the stage of software selection, the features of its operation, requirements for hardware and for integration into internal information systems are indicated. Load testing of the video conferencing service was carried out by the method of volume and stability testing.Results. The load graphs for hardware components of the virtual server in the long term period are presented. The article describes the results of the graphs analysis in order to identify the key features of the video conferencing service during the test and trial operations.Conclusion. Taking into account the cost of licensing, as well as integration into the e-learning system, a choice of video conferencing service was made. A computer experiment was carried out with the selected BigBlueButton video conferencing service. The features of the hardware operation of the virtual server (on which the BigBlueButton system is located) have been determined. The load graphs for the central processing unit, random access memory and local computer network are presented. Problems of service operation at the stage of load increase are formulated.

IMPLEMENTATION OF OPEN BROADCASTER SOFTWARE STUDIO IN MUSIC PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT THROUGH LIVE STREAMING

This study aims to compile the management of performing arts in musical performances through live streaming at the Music Education Study Program, State University of Medan and to develop methods for implementing Open Broadcaster Software Studio in musical performances through live streaming in the Music Education Study Program. This study uses a qualitative approach by following the opinions of Miles and Huberman (1984), namely (1) data collection (data collection), which is carried out through interviews, observations, document digests, recording and recording; (2) data reduction, which is done by summarizing, selecting the main things, focusing on the important things, looking for themes and patterns and discarding unnecessary ones; (3) data display, which is done by showing data and presenting it in the form of narrative text and charts; (4) conclusion drawing/verification conducted by drawing conclusions and verifying the research findings. The results of the study indicate that the management of performing arts in Karya Musik performances through Live Streaming starts from the planning, organizing, actualling, and controlling stages. A show can be managed well if it has a good management system too. By having a good management system, the performance of the musical works will be able to achieve greater goals, targets, or outputs. Planning begins with preparing Human Resources and preparing hardware and software. The organization consists of the Program Director as the person in charge, Production manager who oversees the Floor Director and Talent/musicians, Multimedia manager who oversees IT operators, Software and Hardware Operators, and Camera Man, and Stage Manager who oversees Sound Operators and Lighting Operators. The implementation of Musical Performances through Live Streaming has been carried out 3 times. They are the Nusantara Tetabuhan Music Show, the Langkat Tamiang Rentak Show, and also the Orchestra Music Show. the methods and steps taken in implementing the OBS Studio software as a medium for the virtual musical performance process include input and output methods and using OBS Studio Software. The Method of Performing Live Streaming Music Works using OBS Studio Software begins with determining the settings and design layout, selecting Capture Card, Copy Code Live Streaming on Youtube, Paste Code Live Streaming to the OBS system, and Start Streaming.

Метод формирования регулярной обратной информационно-технологической связи в автоматизированных системах управления бизнес-процессами предприятия

Given the multifaceted nature of the concept of business process, we will limit ourselves to defining business process as a set of interrelated activities or works aimed at creating a certain product or service for customers. From the perspective of the BPM concept, business processes are valuable resources of an enterprise and their management is part of the system of organizational activities, i.e. the organizational system of automated enterprise business process management. Research Objective. Automation, then, is also a business process whose objectives are: the development (acquisition), implementation and operation of software and hardware designed to implement new business process capabilities (which simply were not in the manual loop), optimize and increase the speed of the existing business process, improve working conditions, reduce labor requirements, etc. There is a new direction – computer integration of information. Materials and methods. It is suggested that monitoring deviations from business process requirements be used to organise regular information-technology feedback in the of automated business process management systems of an enterprise. Results. Automation of a business process endows a business process with a new feature – the abi-lity to obtain operational data on all prescribed activities and to integrate all interacting objects of the business process in the implementation of the prescribed set of target functions. In some cases, business process automation is performed to streamline IT-related activities inside the organization. This includes the management of internal resources of the organization – financial, material, human resources, etc. Conclusion. Due to the presence of a sufficiently large number of “legacy systems”, the constantly increasing dynamics of changes in the external environment and the business proces-ses themselves, the task of ensuring the correctness of systems functioning in the absence of the current information model and the current documentation of the automated system seems relevant.

Scientific analysis of the functioning of the hardware of the monitoring system of road vehicles

As you know, the system of monitoring of road machines is a developing system, the work of which raises many questions, as well as among specialists who install these systems at the objects of work, as well as persons operating the installed systems of monitoring of road machines. Therefore, this article considers the main types of sensors and other elements of the monitoring system of road machines installed on almost all modern road machines. We will talk about the hardware part of the monitoring system of road machines — these are elements of the system that are installed directly at monitoring facilities. The accuracy and correctness of the installation, the accuracy of data transmission depends on the objectivity of the final information, and therefore the result of the work of the monitoring system of road machines. The monitoring system of road machines is a complex system that has a large number of features in operation. The purpose of this article is to identify and analyze the main issues on the installation and operation of the hardware of road machines. The article may have a scientific and practical interest not only among persons engaged in the installation and operation of the monitoring system of road machines, but also among scientific personnel engaged in research in this field. Keywords: road machines, monitoring system, sensors, operation of machines, scientific component

Characterization of dark current signal measurements of the ACCDs used on board the Aeolus satellite

Abstract. Even just shortly after the successful launch of the European Space Agency satellite Aeolus in August 2018, it turned out that dark current signal anomalies of single pixels (so-called “hot pixels”) on the accumulation charge-coupled devices (ACCDs) of the Aeolus detectors detrimentally impact the quality of the aerosol and wind products, potentially leading to wind errors of up to several meters per second. This paper provides a detailed characterization of the hot pixels that occurred during the first 1.5 years in orbit. The hot pixels are classified according to their characteristics to discuss their impact on wind measurements. Furthermore, mitigation approaches for the wind retrieval are presented and potential root causes for hot pixel occurrence are discussed. The analysis of the dark current signal anomalies reveals a large variety of anomalies ranging from pixels with random telegraph signal (RTS)-like characteristics to pixels with sporadic shifts in the median dark current signal. Moreover, the results indicate that the number of hot pixels almost linearly increased during the observing period between 2 September 2018 and 20 May 2020 with 6 % of the ACCD pixels affected in total at the end of the period leading to 9.5 % at the end of the mission lifetime. This work introduces dedicated instrument calibration modes and ground processors, which allowed for a correction shortly after a hot pixel occurrence. The achieved performance with this approach avoids risky adjustments to the in-flight hardware operation. It is demonstrated that the success of the correction scheme varies depending on the characteristics of each hot pixel itself. With the herein presented categorization, it is shown that multi-level RTS pixels with high fluctuation are the biggest challenge for the hot pixel correction scheme. Despite a detailed analysis in this framework, no conclusion could be drawn about the root cause of the hot pixel issue.

Internet of Things Simulation Learning Model Based on Virtual Remote Input Output

In our technology-driven world, various methods for teaching in an educational venue or in a simulated environment have been suggested especially for computer and coding education, among which virtual learning is a widely used teaching approach. In particular, IoT (Internet of Things)-related education has been made possible owing to the industrial developments that have occurred in various fields since the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Because it is mostly based on hardware and simple operations taught in a two-dimensional (2D) environment, conventional virtual learning of coding decreases the interest among learners. Therefore, there is a need for a three-dimensional (3D)-based educational approach that can arouse interest in learners. The proposed model allows various IoT systems to be indirectly built; it provides an inexpensive learning method by applying a simulation system in a 3D environment. The model is implemented on IoT devices, real IoT systems, and an IoT simulator based on the Arduino platform, thereby reducing the cost of building an education system while at the same time arousing the interest of learners with its 3D environment for learning. Various education-related content can be provided to learners through such an indirectly developed system. A header file type library is created by analyzing the prototype of the GPIO (general-purpose input/output) function suitable for the IoT device to be used in the virtual IoT simulator; a virtual remote IO module is also implemented. In addition, the physical and electrical characteristics of the peripheral devices to be applied were identified and implemented in a virtual space. Sensors and actuators with various characteristics were implemented to enhance the educational effect, and a test code was written to check the consistency of an operation between the real system and the virtual system. An experiment conducted to check the update cycle of the actual input and output showed that they differ by more than 5,000 fold on average. This is a physical limitation resulting from the difference between a method that directly controls an actual electrical signal with a register and a method of transmitting and receiving signals through a communication device. The actual system motion analysis showed no cases in which the automatic guided vehicle (AGV) deviated from the line and there was a slight difference in the responsiveness when returning to the original position from the deviation.