Programmable Software Research Articles

Continuous and real-time indoor and outdoor methane sensing with portable optical sensor using rapidly pulsed IR LEDs

We designed a simple, portable, low-cost and low-weight nondispersive infrared (NDIR) spectroscopy-based system for continuous remote sensing of atmospheric methane (CH4) with rapidly pulsed near-infrared light emitting diodes (NIR LED) at 1.65 μm. The use of a microcontroller with a field programmable gate array (μC-FPGA) enables on-the-fly and wireless streaming and processing of large data streams (~2 Gbit/s). The investigated NIR LED detection system offers favourable limits of detection (LOD) of 300 ppm (±5%) CH4,. All the generated raw data were processed automatically on-the-fly in the μC-FPGA and transferred wirelessly via a network connection. The sensing device was deployed for the portable sensing of atmospheric CH4 at a local landfill, resulting in quantified concentrations within the sampling area (ca 400 m2) in the range of 0.5%–3.35% CH4. This NIR LED-based sensor system offers a simple low-cost solution for continuous real-time, quantitative, and direct measurement of CH4 concentrations in indoor and outdoor environments, yet with the flexibility provided by the custom programmable software. It possesses future potential for remote monitoring of gases directly from mobile platforms such as smartphones and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Improved Real Time GPS RF Data Capturing for GNSS SDR Applications

Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) software-defined radio (SDR) is a programmable software receiver, primarily used to receive satellite data and provide user position. It is flexible and cost-effective compared to conventional satellite receivers. In GNSS SDR, recording the live raw data in real-time is a challenging task as large data are sent by the satellites at a very high speed. These data are further processed by the baseband algorithms which provide the user location. The accuracy of the tracked location depends on the precision of the data captured. Among the available hardware receivers, USRP RF front end kit provides flexibility. This paper proposes an efficient approach to capture the real-time GPS data by using the USRP N210 kit. If the receiver is not tuned with the exact parameters, the problems of data overflow and underflow occur. A novel data controlling queue thread method is introduced to overcome this problem. It is evident that the results obtained from our method are very close to those of Ublox GPS.

Development of an Open-Source Water Consumption Meter for Housing

This article reports on the project "Design and development of water and gas P.L. measurement devices in the housing: an approach to sustainable consumption in Mexico", prepared at the Metropolitan Autonomous University in the Department of the Environment, whose objective was to develop a device to measure water consumption in the housing, which allows users to know their spending and can make decisions in favor of efficiency through the reduction of water use in household activities. The meter is made up of open source, programmable or reconfigurable software, which receives the signal from a water flow sensor and a casing designed to contain the hardware and facilitate the user's installation. Both the hardware and the casing can be purchased, downloaded, manufactured and assembled at home (Do It Yourself). As specific results were obtained: hardware programming and housing design and as a final result: the assembly of the functional prototype with which measurements of water consumption were made in a housing in Mexico. With this work we conclude that through the development of new accessible and common measurement technologies for the users of a house, it will be possible to promote efficiency in the use of natural resources in cities, increasing availability and promoting a more sustainable urban development.

Cylinder‐based hybrid rotary nanogenerator for harvesting rotational energy from axles and self‐powered tire pressure monitoring

AbstractTire pressure monitoring plays a pivotal role in vehicle safety system. However, as a conventional battery‐operated electronic system, regularly replacing battery remains a great inconvenience in wide‐distributed tire pressure sensing. Here, we introduce a self‐powered tire pressure monitor by using a rotary cylinder‐based hybrid nanogenerator as a sustainable power source. The designed energy harvester, by hybridizing a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) and electromagnetic generator (EMG), can scavenge rotational energy from rolling axles. Integrating with transformers, the hybrid nanogenerator can achieve an open‐circuit voltage of 16 V and short‐circuit current of 0.1 mA at the rotation rate of 150 rpm, respectively, with the maximal output power of about 1.8 mW at the loading of 20 kΩ. Via a programmable software, the hybrid device can operate as a self‐powered counter and timer for potential speed detecting. Further, it has been demonstrated that the hybrid nanogenerator is capable of triggering a transmitter‐integrated tire pressure sensor for self‐powered monitoring tire pressure in real time. This study expands applications based on TENGs in automobile engineering, which might promote the development of intelligent driving and traffic safety engineering.

CloudSimSDN‐NFV: Modeling and simulation of network function virtualization and service function chaining in edge computing environments

SummarySoftware‐defined networking (SDN) has evolved and brought an innovative paradigm shift in computer networks by utilizing a programmable software controller with open protocols. Network functions, previously served on dedicated hardware, have shifted to network function virtualization (NFV) that enabled functions to be virtualized and provisioned dynamically upon generic hardware. In addition to NFV, edge computing utilizes the edge resources close to end‐users, which can reduce the end‐to‐end service delay and the network traffic volume. Although these innovative technologies gained significant attention from both academia and industry, there are limited tools and simulation frameworks for the effectiveness evaluation in a repeatable and controllable manner. Furthermore, large‐scale experimental infrastructures are expensive to setup and difficult to maintain. Even if they are created, they are not available or accessible for the majority of researchers throughout the world. In this paper, we propose a framework for simulating NFV functionalities in both edge and cloud computing environments. In addition to the basic network functionalities supported by SDN in CloudSimSDN, we added new NFV features, such as virtualized network functions allocation, migration, and autoscaling with the support of corresponding network functionalities, such as flow load balancing, rerouting, and service function chaining (SFC) maintenance. We evaluated our simulation framework with autoscaling and placement policies for SFC in the integrated edge and cloud computing environments. The results demonstrate its effectiveness in measuring and evaluating the end‐to‐end delay, response time, resource utilization, network traffic, and power consumption with different algorithms in each scenario.

Designing Software Configurable Chips and SIPs using Chiplets and zGlue

Abstract zGlue Smart Fabric, an active silicon interposer, enables rapid development of Systems in Package (SiPs) and Chips using chiplet stacking in a modular style and software programmability. zGlue Smart Fabric works with off-the-shelf chiplets in known good die and wafer level chip scale packages format without dictating a footprint constraint on chiplets. This is achieved by making a fine pitch copper pillar micro-bump array on the surface that can conform to the chiplet ball map using a programable connectivity and power array built into zGlue's fabric. Connection to RF and sensitive analog signals are handled in RDL. Programmability of zGlue bumps also enable some repair and reconfigurability after manufacturing. The design process with zGlue includes usage of a cloud-based software design tool called ChipBuilder. This tool performs most conventional SiP design functions but more importantly it is used for creating soft and hard routes among IOs. ChipBuilder starts with a data representation of zGlue's Smart Fabric. A growing library of chiplet data has been encoded into the tool and is made available to the users of ChipBuilder via the cloud. Users select chiplets, enter design, perform IO planning, and route the design. With this modular IC design style, zGlue can handle high mix devices that are expected with the growth of connected smart devices everywhere.

Effect of Electrical Damping Ratio on Maximum Average Power of an Electromagnetic Vibration Harvester at Resonance and off-Resonance Conditions

Energy harvesting has opened up new ways to power low energy electronics without any need for batteries. The most advanced types of harvesters are piezoelectric, electrostatic and electromagnetic which use kinetic energy in form of vibrations. Electromagnetic harvesters (EHs) are efficient, less costly and offer huge design flexibility. As such, in this paper some analytical and experimental studies on maximum average harvestable power (Pave) from typical design of EH using the popular coupling architecture (a cylindrical magnet oscillating in a copper coil) have been carried out. The effect of frequency of excitation and electrical (ζe ) and mechanical damping ratios (ζm) on Pave obtained from an EH has been investigated. For this purpose, an EH using NdFeB (neodymium magnet) magnet oscillating in a copper coil has been designed and developed. An experimental test set up has developed which comprises of (i) a cam-follower type drive mechanism to simulate a vibration source with variable amplitude and frequency of base excitation, (ii) a spring-mass system with an EH system in parallel with the spring to provide the relative motion between the magnet and the copper coil, (iii) the attendant instrumentation comprising of ultrasonic sensor to sense the displacements of base and mass, motor drive speed measurement and an open source platform (ARDUINO) with programmable circuit board and software and data acquisition system. Using the developed experimental set up, (i)frequency response curve for vibrating system with EH has been obtained from which equivalent electrical damping ζe has been determined using half power point method, and (ii)the values of relative displacements of magnet and coil, at various excitation frequencies have been recorded. Using the analytical expression for the Pave of SDOF EH has been determined both at resonance and off resonance conditions, for three different values of ζe namely ζe = ζm, ζe = 5ζm, and ζe = 10ζm. It is observed that the maximum Pave is obtained for condition ζe = ζm. As the value of ζe increases, the Pave increases, at resonant frequency and considerable power is made available at off-resonance frequencies. It is concluded that ζe should be increased to enhance the maximum average harvestable power from EH and vibrating system should be so designed to have ζm, as small as possible.

A Fully Programmable eFPGA-Augmented SoC for Smart Power Applications

This paper proposes a reconfigurable system on chip (SoC) for smart power applications. The system is composed of an ultra-low-power microcontroller for standard software programmability, coupled to an embedded-FPGA (eFPGA) to perform control-driven applications and lightweight digital signal processing, at lower power consumption and higher responsiveness than with processor-based execution. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first heterogeneous reconfigurable SoC targeting smart power applications. The SoC targets BCD technologies integrating bipolar, CMOS, and DMOS devices, typically featuring a small number of metal layers when compared with the traditional CMOS technologies. The added value of the proposed system is that the digital system is fully synthesizable since the eFPGA is based on a soft-core approach. This paper presents the results of integrating an eFPGA with a computational capability of $\simeq 1\text{k}$ equivalent gates in STMicroelectronics 90-nm BCD technology featuring five metal layers and high- $k$ transistors. We benchmarked our architecture on a wide range of applications relevant to the smart power domain. eFPGA integration in SoCs introduces a 20%–27% area overhead but has a straightforward benefit in terms of energy consumption, which proves reduction from about $10\times $ to $800\times $ . In terms of latency, the eFPGA implementation allows a gain from $8\times $ to $145\times $ comparing the pure cycles count.

A self-powered counter/timer based on a clock pointer-like frequency-tunable triboelectric nanogenerator for wind speed detecting

A self-powered technology is a promising approach to achieving sustainable power supply in large-scale wireless sensor networks. Here we report a clock pointer-like triboelectric nanogenerator (CP-TENG) with two non-contact tribo layers which can deliver an abrasion-free operation. The output voltage pulse frequency is tunable by subtly changing the number of electrodes that can improve output power density to some extent. Due to the one-to-one correspondence between voltage pulses and counting points, a self-powered counting and timing systems have been demonstrated via a programmable software platform. Furthermore, by integrating with a wind cup, a self-powered wind speed detector based on the CP-TENG indicates a superior real-time monitoring for wind speed attributed to accurately determining of algorithm parameter. This work not only pushes the development of self-powered systems, but also expands potential applications based on the TENG in intelligent interaction, environmental monitoring, industrial production and meteorological detecting.

Hardware and software integrated coursework as a way of engineering ability training in the learning of digital electronics

A new way oriented to engineering ability training by field programmable gate array-based hardware and software integrated coursework in the learning of digital electronics course in communication engineering is presented. This coursework is implemented in two stages during six weeks, the task of the first stage is hardware design, and the second stage task is the software design; all students are divided into several small teams with three or four persons in the process. A scheme for storing and configuring four different programs by a single programmable read-only memory (PROM)is given in hardware design. In the software design, it emphasizes the selection of the optimization scheme for different design schemes. Through competitive and engineering oriented design evaluation, the students are guided to combine theory with practice more closely to solve the actual engineering problems in the design.

The Engineering of Software-Defined Quantum Key Distribution Networks

Quantum computers will change the cryptographic panorama. A technology once believed to lay far away into the future is increasingly closer to real world applications. Quantum computers will break the algorithms used in our public key infrastructure and in our key exchange protocols, forcing a complete retooling of the cryptography as we know it. Quantum Key distribution is a physical layer technology immune to quantum or classical computational threats. However, it requires a physical substrate, and optical fiber has been the usual choice. Most of the time used just as a point to point link for the exclusive transport of the delicate quantum signals. Its integration in a real-world shared network has not been attempted so far. Here we show how the new programmable software network architectures, together with specially designed quantum systems can be used to produce a network that integrates classical and quantum communications, including management, in a single, production-level infrastructure. The network can also incorporate new quantum-safe algorithms and use the existing security protocols, thus bridging the gap between today's network security and the quantum-safe network of the future. This can be done in an evolutionary way, without zero-day migrations and the corresponding upfront costs. We also present how the technologies have been deployed in practice using a production network.

Design and Optimization of Delphi-Based Electromagnetic Coilgun

In classical gun and satellite launching systems, noise, flame, and hazardous gasses occur during the explosion of gunpowder, and it is possible to change the muzzle velocity of projectile only during the production phase. In addition, negative aspects of classical guns include the storage of munitions, their decay in time, high amount of their mass, and their high cost. In this paper, “A New Electromagnetic Coilgun” is designed to allow acceleration of a ferromagnetic projectile with the help of instantaneous alternate current applied on four sequential stator coils without using any mechanical boosters. programmable interface controllers microcontroller software and Delphi software were used to obtain the data from optic systems placed at the beginning of stator coils for gradual velocity measurement of the projectile, to process the same, and to perform triggering checks. Furthermore, such Delphi-based software allowed to improve the muzzle velocity by changing the triggering time for coils and, thus, to optimize the system. This paper is distinguished from other studies in the literature in terms of the software used and the design of accelerating coil. Data communication was ensured through the serial port of the PC during the launching process. The study examined the effects of variables such as the voltage applied on coils, number of turns of the coil, and the number of capacitors on the maximum muzzle velocity that may be obtained through the launcher and these were discussed in detail in the scope of the paper.

High-level optimised systems design using hardware-software partitioning

Embedded systems have a wide range as they have become essential parts of modern life. A typical embedded system consists of application-specific hardware and programmable software. Hardware-software (HW/SW) partitioning problem defines which tasks should be mapped to software and hardware. It allows the proposition of an optimised system with predefined constraints. In this paper, a heuristic algorithm, the hybrid-bee-colony-optimisation for multiple-choice HW/SW partitioning is proposed. The proposed algorithm aims to minimise power consumption and execution time, while meeting area constraint. This heuristic algorithm is developed to generate an approximate solution in acceptable delay. The Virtex 5 is chosen as a target platform. Simulation results are compared with existing works and they show rapidity with the generation of an optimal solution near to the exact one.

WhiteRabbit: Scalable Software-Defined Network Data-Plane Verification Method Through Time Scheduling

Software-defined networks are vulnerable to attacks by compromised switches because commonly used programmable software switches are risky than traditional hardware ones. Although several countermeasures have been proposed to address compromised switches, the accuracy of detecting a malicious behavior depends on the performance of network statistics gathering by a controller. In this paper, we propose that WhiteRabbit is an approach to verify the consistency of the forwarding state by gathering real-time network statistics gathering from switches with accurate time scheduling. WhiteRabbit can detect attacks by compromised switches without being influenced by the performance of statistics gathering of a controller. Given that the proposed utilizes moving average, it mitigates the effect on the verification accuracy from the impact of the switch performance, such as scheduling error. In our previous work, we demonstrated the feasibility of WhiteRabbit using a prototype system. However, we could not evaluate the impact of the difference between the scheduled and actual execution times in our previous work, because we performed the experiment in a minimal setup using Mininet. Thus, we measured the scheduling error and time required to gather statistics in a large-scale environment. We also confirmed that the scheduling error is lower than the time required to gather statistics. Additionally, considering that WhiteRabbit only depends on the scheduling error, we verified that the accuracy of WhiteRabbit is higher than prior arts on the tree topology constructed with 15 switches.

The Price for Programmability in the Software Data Plane: The Vendor Perspective

The killer features of the next-generation 5G mobile standard, including mobile edge computing and network slicing, will be very difficult to support with traditional fixed-function network appliances. Rather, the 5G core will depend on programmable switches, which allow packet processing functionality to be reconfigured on the fly in order to deploy virtualized network functions and service chains instantaneously. With 5G on the close horizon, it has become crucial to identify the price for programmability in the software data plane, considering the expected complexity and scale of the next-generation mobile core. In this paper, we report on a multi-year data-plane scalability study we have conducted for a large mobile vendor. Our results paint a rather pessimistic picture on the current landscape of the programmable software data plane. We find that the prominent programmable switches either do not provide all the features necessary to implement 5G telco pipelines efficiently or struggle to meet the scale, and the performance operators have come to expect from conventional fixed-function appliances. The only exception, ESwitch, remains proprietary. We call for further work on data-plane scalability and sketch some directions for future research.

Initial operation results of NE213 scintillation detector for time-resolved measurements on triton burnup in KSTAR.

In time-resolved measurement for triton burnup in Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR) deuterium plasmas, an NE213 liquid scintillation detector was installed and operated during the 2017 KSTAR campaign. The detector is composed of an NE213 scintillator (50 mm in diameter and 10 mm in thickness) and a photomultiplier tube (PMT). The PMT anode signal was processed under a data acquisition system which contains a field programmable gate array circuit and pulse processing software that is capable of discriminating gamma-ray and neutron pulse signals. In order to determine an appropriate threshold level for the 14 MeV neutron signal resulting from triton burnup, the NE213 scintillation detector was calibrated by using d-d and d-t neutron generators at the National Fusion Research Institute and Intense 14 MeV Neutron Source Facility, OKTAVIAN, Osaka University, Japan. The detector was installed on KSTAR with a 10 mm thick soft-iron stray magnetic field shield and a radiation shield which consists of 100 mm thick lead blocks and 200 mm thick borated polyethylene blocks. A discrimination range for d-t neutron was determined based on test results from neutron generators and KSTAR. Data points selected from the discrimination range were consistent with the classical triton confinement characteristics. In conclusion, under condition of an input counting rate of 1.9 × 105 counts per second (CPS), the detector is able to measure triton burnup signals up to 500 CPS for various plasma parameters.

Intrusion Detection on Software Defined Networking

Software Defined Networking and programmability on network have established themselves as current trends in IT by bringing autonomous operation with dynamic flow to network. Networks must be programmable, and it must be aware of the application in order to operate autonomously. Networks need to evolve to catch up with the current trends without losing their current status and operation, reliability, robustness, or security, and without distorting current investments. SDN is a transpiring network architecture where network control plane is distinguished from data plane and by that the network is directly programmable. This control, was initially bound in every network devices, enabled in the network to be abstracted for applications and services. Security is a major challenge for organizational and campus networks. The future of Internet depends on virtualization which is to provide numerous networks hosted the same physical hardware. This proposal takes a great advantage of the programmability provided by SDN to utilize Intrusion Detection System.

The SDN Approach for the Aggregation/Disaggregation of Sensor Data.

In many Internet of Things (IoT) applications, large numbers of small sensor data are delivered in the network, which may cause heavy traffics. To reduce the number of messages delivered from the sensor devices to the IoT server, a promising approach is to aggregate several small IoT messages into a large packet before they are delivered through the network. When the packets arrive at the destination, they are disaggregated into the original IoT messages. In the existing solutions, packet aggregation/disaggregation is performed by software at the server, which results in long delays and low throughputs. To resolve the above issue, this paper utilizes the programmable Software Defined Networking (SDN) switch to program quick packet aggregation and disaggregation. Specifically, we consider the Programming Protocol-Independent Packet Processor (P4) technology. We design and develop novel P4 programs for aggregation and disaggregation in commercial P4 switches. Our study indicates that packet aggregation can be achieved in a P4 switch with its line rate (without extra packet processing cost). On the other hand, to disaggregate a packet that combines N IoT messages, the processing time is about the same as processing N individual IoT messages. Our implementation conducts IoT message aggregation at the highest bit rate (100 Gbps) that has not been found in the literature. We further propose to provide a small buffer in the P4 switch to significantly reduce the processing power for disaggregating a packet.

Reconfigurable remote radio head design and implementation for super base station applications

This paper proposes a reconfigurable remote radio head (RRH) software and hardware architecture and presents the results of its implementation. The implemented RRH has been designed for a centralized architecture super base station that facilitates the integration of 2G, 3G, and 4G ground base stations and geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO) satellite gateway stations. The reconfigurable RRH is a primary aspect of the system. By modifying the programmable software configuration from the perspective of software-defined radio, the RRH can support multiple frequency allocations. The RRH is composed of radio frequency (RF) modules, intermediate frequency (IF) modules, and some of the physical layer functions. The development of a reconfigurable IF module is emphasized. A filter-bank multiplexing technique has been employed for the IF module, which reduces the use of hardware resources. To this end, we experimentally evaluated the main key performance indicators (KPIs) of the RRH. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed design attains the goal of reducing hardware costs and improving system flexibility and stability.

Modelo para detección y simulación de fallas bajo la gestión de mantenimiento y proyectos

En este trabajo se presenta el diseño e implementación de un modelo basado en un dispositivo que contiene elementos de control digital e integra un sistema automático de detección y diagnóstico de fallas que puede ser usado como herramienta para la orientación de los operarios durante la presencia de una falla potencial. Este sistema se fundamenta en el control digital bajo la implementación de una tarjeta de adquisición de datos (DAQ) y un software aplicativo programable. Con la realización de este estudio se hace un aporte al desarrollo del mantenimiento productivo total y su alcance va dirigido a contribuir significativamente en el mantenimiento autónomo.