Smart Assets Research Articles

Industry 4.0: Makes Manufacturing Factory Smatter

The purpose of this article is to present an overview of industry 4.0. The goal of this presentation is to give a brief perspective of what Industry 4.0 is, its challenges in today’s manufacturing environments. Many researchers have mentioned that implementing industry 4.0 is a response to the current challenges in fast changing environments. In this paper, I have provided a comprehensive introduction and definition about this Industry 4.0 concept, transformation steps and explain the technologies involved in Industry 4.0 ecosystem. After that, I have presented several points about challenges and issues of Industry 4.0, then the most relevant and potential benefits of this new industrial paradigm. Lastly, I have ended this presentation by drawing a conclusion. The successful path to smatter Industry 4.0 depends on having a vision and enterprise-wide strategy, rather than taking a piecemeal approach to implementing technology solutions. Focus on business drivers, tech enablers that overcome pain points, and working with the right partner ecosystem to accelerate sustainable transformation for greater business value and opportunity outcomes. Now in competitive market, it is more likely a company will be more profitable and create jobs when it produces products with higher flexibility, quality and technology content and applying Industry 4.0 than by competing on low-price products. In addition, companies can take advantage of the broad range of aspects of Industry 4.0, including smart products, smart assets, and optimized factories operating sustainably and creating optimal conditions for empowered workers. Manufacturing organizations need an enterprise-wide strategy to gain the full business value of Industry 4.0, including productivity, sustainability, and competitive edge. A smatter Industry 4.0 approach helps organizations overcome the challenges they currently face, and it also enables them to become future-ready to build anything, anytime, anywhere. The goal of Industry 4.0 implement is to enable autonomous decision-making processes, monitor assets and processes in real-time, maintaining improved quality and enable equally real-time connected value creation networks through early involvement of stakeholders, and vertical and horizontal integration.

Collaborative Resilience: Taxonomy-Informed Neural Networks for Smart Assets’ Maintenance in Hostile Industry 4.0 Environments

Collaborative Resilience: Taxonomy-Informed Neural Networks for Smart Assets’ Maintenance in Hostile Industry 4.0 Environments

Leveraging a novel NFT-enabled blockchain architecture for the authentication of IoT assets in smart cities

The concept of smart city architecture requires a comprehensive solution that can combine real-time response applications for cyber-physical systems. However, the architecture faces challenges that can obstruct the operations in terms of systems, processes, and data flow as far as the breach risk is concerned. Though the field has been researched with the existence of centralized and distributed architectures to support smart cities. Research gaps regarding security concerns, platform assistance, and resource management continue to persist. This research article presents a novel blockchain-based architecture that proposes expansion in the non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to cater to the expansion of IoT-enabled smart assets. It enables NFTs to employ fog computing for all users and smart devices connected to a fog node in a cyber-physical system. The proposed expansion suggested in Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) for IoT assets representation in a cyber-physical system, provides devices and user identification and authentication functionality. The proposed NFT architecture has been designed to provide a smart city solution for cyber-physical systems that ensures robust security features (such as CIA) by introducing new attributes and functions for Owner, User, Fog, and IoT device/s authentication. The validation and rigor of the security services, efficiency, and latency have been achieved by deployments on private and public ledgers. The efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of the suggested functions and components have been evaluated in terms of evaluation cost and time complexity which resulted in promising results, obtained and validated on a testnet. The evaluation cost for the devised mint component was approximately 81%, and devised approve() was approximately 23% more efficient than other solutions.

Role of Voltage Control Devices in Low Voltage State Estimation Process

Megatrends, such as the proliferation of distributed generation, electrification, and the appearance of aggregator companies, put the low voltage power grids under intense pressure. Since the network infrastructure developments cannot keep up with the trends, distribution system operators turned to alternative solutions. Smart grid assets, such as on-load tap-changing distribution transformers or serial low voltage regulators, are promising solutions. However, the energy transition cannot be handled with the network expansive on the distribution level. Control centers are predicted to expand to this voltage level in the near future, and distribution system state estimation could be an enabler of all functionalities. On the low voltage level, data scarcity is a great challenge in observability; therefore, research must focus on the creation of pseudomeasurements and integration of available data sources. This paper examines the inclusion of smart assets from the conceptual point to the application on two sites, based on data from operational environments, both with a pseudomeasurement and an integrated metering point approach. The results showed that integrating smart assets could considerably mitigate voltage fluctuations, and reduce estimation errors by two magnitudes on the low voltage network.

Фокус пріоритетів індустрії Х.0 та її анатомія в умовах цифровізації економічних відносин

The emergence of Industry X.0 by digitizing economic relations at different levels of economic aggregation implies a complex and systematic modernization of business processes, thereby accelerating innovation of the national economy. Considering the existing scientific developments in the development of Industry X.0, the transformation of existing business processes under the influence of the latest technologies and the formation of smart assets, e-services for smart businesses and e-government are unexplored. On the basis of dialectical, systemic and matrix methods Industry X.0 was investigated, and found that it determines new quality and format of business operation in gig economy. Comparisons of ratings of innovative development that influence the acceleration of digitalization in some countries have been used.
 The structural elements of the ecosystem of Industry X.0 are presented, and it is proved that they determine an effective digital economic relation that shape gig economy, as a result of step-by-step content of the stages of becoming smart business, assets, digital platforms. Tools and mechanisms that will accelerate the emergence of Industry X.0 have been identified. The content of the concept “ecosystem of Industry X.0” is disclosed. A number of practical measures are proposed, aimed at deepening the development of high-tech industries and expanding new quality of life of people. Main characteristics that determine the emergence of smart industry and smart services are indicated.
 A number of the latest technologies (autonomous artificial intelligence in a smartphone, professional assistant robots, available satellite Internet, the flourishing of audiobooks and podcasts, the bicycle technological revolution) that define a new quality of people's lives are highlighted and their characteristics are given.
 The rapid emergence of Industry X.0 declares new quality of economic relations through innovation, discoveries and technologies in management of industry and business. Key features of Industry X.0 include: full automation of the production process; high communication between staff and machine through Internet technologies; cyber-physical systems that integrate into one network, interact in real-time, self-tune, self-study.

Property as the law of virtual things

Property law in the twentieth century moved from the law of things to the law of rights in things. This was a process of fragmentation: Under Hohfeldian property, we conceive of property as a bundle of sticks, and those sticks can be moved to different holders; the right to possess can be separated from the record ownership right, for example. The downside of Hohfeld's model is that physical objects—things—become informationally complicated. Thing-ness constrains the extravagances of Hohfeldian property: although we can split off the right to possess from the right to exclude, use, destroy, copy, manage, repair, and so on, there is a gravitational pull to tie these sticks back into a useful bundle centered on the asset, the thing. Correspondingly, there has been an “informational turn” to property law, looking at the ways in which property law serves to limit property forms to reduce search costs, and to identify and celebrate the informational characteristics of thing-ness. The question of thing-ness came to a head in the context of digital and smart assets with the formation of non-fungible tokens. NFTs were attempts to generate and sell “things,” a conceptually coherent something that can contain a loose bundle of rights. The project was an attempt to re-create thing-ness by an amalgam of cryptography, game theory, and intellectual property. This essay discusses thing-ness in the context of digital assets, how simulated thing-ness differs from physical thing-ness, and the problems that arise from attempts to reify digital assets.

Secure Combination of IoT and Blockchain by Physically Binding IoT Devices to Smart Non-Fungible Tokens Using PUFs.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are widely used in blockchain to represent unique and non-interchangeable assets. Current NFTs allow representing assets by a unique identifier, as a possession of an owner. The novelty introduced in this paper is the proposal of smart NFTs to represent IoT devices, which are physical smart assets. Hence, they are also identified as the utility of a user, they have a blockchain account (BCA) address to participate actively in the blockchain transactions, they can establish secure communication channels with owners and users, and they operate dynamically with several modes associated with their token states. A smart NFT is physically bound to its IoT device thanks to the use of a physical unclonable function (PUF) that allows recovering its private key and, then, its BCA address. The link between tokens and devices is difficult to break and can be traced during their lifetime, because devices execute a secure boot and carry out mutual authentication processes with new owners and users that could add new software. Hence, devices prove their trusted hardware and software. A whole demonstration of the proposal developed with ESP32-based IoT devices and Ethereum blockchain is presented, using the SRAM of the ESP32 microcontroller as the PUF.

Становлення Індустрії Х.0 на засадах інноваційно-цифрової підприємницької діяльності та віртуальної мобільності

The article attempts to present a number of key technologies that determine the new quality of life of people. The following content is specified and disclosed: autonomous artificial intelligence in a smartphone, professional robot assistants, available satellite intelligence, podcasts, digital urban planning tools. In the article, the authors hypothesize that Industry X.0 is by far the highest stage of digitalization and represents a concept of innovative and digital production, the components of which are «smart assets», «smart services», «smart business», and «smart government». Structural elements of the authors’ concept of X.0 Industry are indicated, its visual cut in virtual reality conditions is provided and the functioning of this Industry exclusively within the framework of the 7th technological mode is characterized. The authors have developed and presented the protocol of formation of the X.0 Industry through the prism of innovations, technologies in both the industry sector and business management. 4 stages of implementation of this protocol are defined, namely: determination of the innovative landscape of «technological breakthrough» in a particular industry within the formation of industry X.0; assessment of threats; determining the course of further development and the action plan (four main approaches to which organizations can apply: protection, adoption of innovations, initiation of subversive innovations, retreat); implementation of structural changes at the DNA level of the organization. The authors on the basis of a number of factors bring forward the argument that today’s realities of the digital space require the development of a new logic of running a platform business in terms of its digitization. It is concluded that in practice it is necessary to form a broad coalition of educators, government officials, analysts, high-tech specialists, economists, industrialists, scientists who will join the formation of the X.0 Industry on the basis of digitalization and innovatizing. The authors concluded that Industry X.0 is a new approach to the organization of production in the context of virtual reality, which is based on highly intelligent integrated new products and digital ecosystems that form an innovative digital value chain, add new competencies and implement deep cultural changes in the direction of the formation of a new virtual reality.

Internet of Things Supervision System and Supply Chain Financial Supervision Methods Based on Blockchain Technology

With the continuous progress of blockchain technology, how to use it for commodity traceability has become a concern. This study mainly discusses the Internet of Things supervision system and supply chain financial supervision method based on blockchain technology. The whole blockchain network is a decentralized system, which consists of six layers: data layer, network layer, and consensus layer. These three layers are the foundation layer; the other three layers are incentive layer, contract layer, and application layer. The interface of the platform needs to be conceived in combination with the business of building materials. According to the functional differentiation, the required interfaces mainly include information generation interface, information verification, information retrieval, and other information interfaces. Smart contracts can process data, operate asset transactions, manage smart assets, and expand the ability of blockchain to use data. In this way, the blockchain technology can trace the source of the data, so as to ensure the authenticity and security of the data. Blockchain technology can be used in data tracking. Specifically, in the building materials industry, with the help of blockchain technology, building material mixing enterprises can see the raw materials such as sand and gravel purchased under the order, the region where they are produced, the time point of transportation, the carrier, etc. In the process of supply chain financial supervision experiment, when the pledge rate of building materials is within the range of [0.4206,1], the bank income under the block chain mode is higher. The system designed in this study realizes the certification and traceability of building materials and has good use value.

Pairing a Circular Economy and the 5G-Enabled Internet of Things: Creating a Class of ?Looping Smart Assets?

The increase in the world's population has led to a massive rise in human consumption of the planet's natural resources, well beyond their replacement rate. Traditional recycling concepts and methods are not enough to counter such effects. In this context, a circular economy (CE), that is, a restorative and regenerative by-design economy, can reform today's "take-make-dispose" economic model. On the other hand, the Internet of Things (IoT) continues to gradually transform our everyday lives, allowing for the introduction of novel types of services while enhancing legacy ones. Taking this as our motivation, in this article we analyze the CE/IoT interplay, indicating innovative ways in which this interaction can drastically affect products and services, their underlying business models, and the associated ecosystems. Moreover, we present an IoT architecture that enables smart object integration into the IoT ecosystem. The presented architecture integrates circularityenabling features by maximizing the exploitation of assets toward a new type of IoT ecosystem that is circular by design (CbD). Finally, we provide a proof-of-concept implementation and an application study of the proposed architecture and results regarding the applicability of the proposed approach for the telecommunications (telecom) sector.

Smart Wire Placement to Facilitate Large-Scale Wind Energy Integration: An Adaptive Robust Approach

Enhanced utilization of the existing transmission grid is a cheaper and paramount way to have a high penetration of large-scale wind energy resources. Smart wire devices (SWDs) are a new technology to enhance the transfer capability through power flow control. The SWDs are distributed, cheap, self-governing smart assets of FACTS technologies, which can adjust the power flow in an interconnected transmission network. Accordingly, this paper presents a comprehensive three-stage robust SWD placement model, which minimizes the generation and investment costs while guaranteeing that the adaptive and secure robust solution is accustomed to cover the wind uncertainty interval. Since the proposed robust model is not solvable via an off-the-shelf optimization package and to reduce the computation burden of the solution process, an effective solution strategy is proposed to solve it. Detailed simulation results on the IEEE 24-bus system verify the effectiveness of the proposed robust SWD placement model.

Future trends in I&M: Diagnostics, maintenance and condition monitoring for cyber-physical systems

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have made considerable progress in sensing, data storage, data mining, simulation capabilities and online computing. When these ICTs are integrated with physical assets, the result is a cyber-physical system. The Internet of Things and Big Data have transformed the connectivity between the elements of an enterprise, leading to the fourth stage of industrialization, known as Industry 4.0, and characterized by smart assets that dynamically interact with each other and with all levels of the business model.

IoT 기반의 한국형 Smart Factory 의사결정시스템 플랫폼에 대한 연구 - 대구/경북 부품소재 기업을 중심으로

The current economic crisis is making new demands on manufacturing industry, in particular, in terms of the flexibility and efficiency of production processes. This requires production and administrative processes to be meshed with each other by means of IT systems to optimise the use and capacity utilisation of machines and lines but also to be able to respond rapidly to wrong developments in production and thus to minimise adverse impacts on the business. The future scenario of the represents the zenith of this development. The factory can be modified and expanded at will, combines all components from different manufacturers and enables them to take on context-related tasks autonomously. Integrated user interfaces will still be required at most for basic functionalities. The complex control operations will run wirelessly and ad hoc via mobile terminals such as PDAs or smartphones. The comnination of IoT, and Big Data optimisation is bringing about huge opportunities. these processes are not just limited to manufacturing, anywhere a supply chain environment exists can benefit from information provided by linked devices and access to big data to inform their decision support. Building a smart factory with smart assets at its core means reaching those desired new levels of productivity and efficiency. It means smart products that leverage advanced traceability, connectivity and intelligence. For businesses, it means being able to address the talent crunch through more autonomous. In a Smart Factory, machinery and equipment will have the ability to improve processes through self-optimization and autonomous decision-making.

Security, Privacy, and the Built Environment

The built environment is entering a period of great evolution, enabled by the adoption of building information modeling (BIM), the increased use of technologies in digital asset management, and the emergence of smart assets and the Internet of Things (IoT). This article considers the impact of these developments on security and privacy, and outlines the rationale for adopting a broader approach to cybersecurity than the confidentiality, integrity, and availability triad that's used by the information assurance community. It considers the impact of using new, predominantly wireless technologies in the built environment and discusses the need for security and privacy improvements.

Implications of Changing Dynamics for Metered On-Street Parking

The parking industry has seen significant changes over the past decade with the infusion of new technology and smart assets. The introduction of networked meters, virtual payment methods (such as pay-by-cell and credit–debit cards at meters), and technology for real-time detection of space occupancy has resulted in better system uptime, proactive maintenance strategies, multiple payment options, real-time information on parking availability, and better use of spaces through dynamic congestion pricing. The new parking assets and payment options have implications for municipalities and vendors supporting their parking programs. Instead of a significant portion of revenue from coins, virtual transactions account for a predominant share of the parking revenue stream. Focusing on Washington, D.C., as a case study, this paper discusses the economic implications of the changes in the context of overall parking revenue and the cost of different revenue streams for parking. The paper also discusses the impact of these changes on program management (such as maintenance, personnel, and contracting models) and program outcomes (such as customer satisfaction and continued innovation). The paper provides agencies with a framework for taking a holistic look at their parking programs and assessing the impacts of various alternative, cost-effective approaches.