This paper extends the 'go-with-the-flow' method to explore enclosed environments, like oil reservoirs, pipe lines that transport liquids, and industrial tanks for processing chemicals, where sensing nodes cannot establish communication with the external world. Nonetheless, large quantities of highly miniaturized, thus power-constrained sensor nodes are injected into these environment and flow through them along with the medium, monitoring their environment but also reconstructing their time-varying position from mutual communication, but without any communication to external base stations or beacons. The relative trajectories of nodes yield essential insights of the fluid flow in the otherwise inaccessible environment. We present a functional implementation of a ranging protocol accommodating size and energy constraints. Our simulation chain models node movement from different types of flow dynamics. It comprehensively assesses not only the performance of the communication and ranging protocols, but also of the reconstruction algorithm. Our assessments cover a wide range of different environments and flow profiles, including highly dynamic ones.
DOCUMENT
Publicatie ter gelegenheid van het afscheid/pensioen van Henk van Leeuwen, docent Informatica en lector Ambient Intelligence bij het Saxion Kenniscentrum Design en Technologie. In deze uitgave kijkt Henk van Leeuwen, na een loopbaan van 40 jaar in het onderwijs, niet alleen terug op interessante zaken uit het verleden, maar onderkent hij ook welke drijvende krachten invloed hadden. Hierbij heeft Van Leeuwen niet gestreefd naar volledigheid. Het is een persoonlijke kijk, die berust op eigen ervaringen en die tot discussie kan prikkelen. Naast de vakinhoudelijke observaties neemt Van Leeuwen ook het hbo-informaticaonderwijs en het ICT-onderzoek onder de loep. Het begrip ‘sensing’ in de titel ’Sense and nonsense of sensing’ van deze uitgave heeft dan ook niet primair een technische betekenis. Sensing is in dit verband een manier van observeren, van snuffelen. In het ‘Informaticavak’ gebruiken we daar tal van sensoren voor. Over sensoren gaat het zeker, maar nog meer over zijn persoonlijk observeren, interpreteren van wat hij heeft opgemerkt en zijn reflectie daarop. Dat leidt tot uitspraken over zin en onzin, sense en nonsense, van wat Van Leeuwen waarneemt, nu en in het verleden. Van Leeuwen neemt de lezer mee in de ontwikkelingen van informatica zoals hij die heeft gezien en breng daarvan verslag uit. Daarbij stelt hij de vraag of we uit de lijnen die we zien in het verleden, ontwikkelingen voor de toekomst kunnen afleiden.
MULTIFILE
This paper introduces the design principle of legibility as means to examine the epistemic and ethical conditions of sensing technologies. Emerging sensing technologies create new possibilities regarding what to measure, as well as how to analyze, interpret, and communicate said measurements. In doing so, they create ethical challenges for designers to navigate, specifically how the interpretation and communication of complex data affect moral values such as (user) autonomy. Contemporary sensing technologies require layers of mediation and exposition to render what they sense as intelligible and constructive to the end user, which is a value-laden design act. Legibility is positioned as both an evaluative lens and a design criterion, making it complimentary to existing frameworks such as value sensitive design. To concretize the notion of legibility, and understand how it could be utilized in both evaluative and anticipatory contexts, the case study of a vest embedded with sensors and an accompanying app for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is analyzed.
DOCUMENT
The demand for mobile agents in industrial environments to perform various tasks is growing tremendously in recent years. However, changing environments, security considerations and robustness against failure are major persistent challenges autonomous agents have to face when operating alongside other mobile agents. Currently, such problems remain largely unsolved. Collaborative multi-platform Cyber- Physical-Systems (CPSs) in which different agents flexibly contribute with their relative equipment and capabilities forming a symbiotic network solving multiple objectives simultaneously are highly desirable. Our proposed SMART-AGENTS platform will enable flexibility and modularity providing multi-objective solutions, demonstrated in two industrial domains: logistics (cycle-counting in warehouses) and agriculture (pest and disease identification in greenhouses). Aerial vehicles are limited in their computational power due to weight limitations but offer large mobility to provide access to otherwise unreachable places and an “eagle eye” to inform about terrain, obstacles by taking pictures and videos. Specialized autonomous agents carrying optical sensors will enable disease classification and product recognition improving green- and warehouse productivity. Newly developed micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) sensor arrays will create 3D flow-based images of surroundings even in dark and hazy conditions contributing to the multi-sensor system, including cameras, wireless signatures and magnetic field information shared among the symbiotic fleet. Integration of mobile systems, such as smart phones, which are not explicitly controlled, will provide valuable information about human as well as equipment movement in the environment by generating data from relative positioning sensors, such as wireless and magnetic signatures. Newly developed algorithms will enable robust autonomous navigation and control of the fleet in dynamic environments incorporating the multi-sensor data generated by the variety of mobile actors. The proposed SMART-AGENTS platform will use real-time 5G communication and edge computing providing new organizational structures to cope with scalability and integration of multiple devices/agents. It will enable a symbiosis of the complementary CPSs using a combination of equipment yielding efficiency and versatility of operation.
