Industrial wireless sensor and actuator networks in industry 4.0: Exploring requirements,protocols, and challenges—A MAC survey

The vision to connect everyday physical objects to the Internet promises to create the Internet of Things (IoT), which is expected to integrate the diverse technologies such as sensors, actuators, radio frequency identification, communication technologies, and Internet protocols. Thus, IoT promises to transfer traditional industry to advance digital industry known as the Industry 4.0. At the core of the Industry 4.0 are the wireless sensor networks (WSNs) and wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSANs) that led to the development of industrial wireless sensor networks (IWSNs) and industrial wireless sensor and actuator networks (IWSANs). These networks play a central role of connecting machines, parts, products, and humans and create a diverse set of new applications to support intelligent and autonomous decision making. The IWSAN is a promising technology for numerous industrial applications because of their several potential benefits such as simple deployment, low cost, less complexity, and mobility support. However, despite such benefits, they impose several unique challenges at different layers of the protocol stack when deploying them for various monitoring and control applications in the Industry 4.0. In this article, we explore IWSAN, its applications, requirements, challenges, and solutions in the context of industrial control applications. Our main focus is on the medium access control (MAC) layer that can be exploited to satisfy such requirements. Our discussion presents extensive background study of the MAC schemes and it reviews the MAC protocols of the existing wireless standards and technologies. A number of application‐specific MAC protocols developed to support industrial applications, which are not part of these standards, are also elaborated. We rationalize to what extent the existing standards and protocols help in solving such requirements as laid down by the Industry 4.0. In the end, we emphasize on existing challenges and present important future directions.     

A 550-MSample/s 8-Tap FIR digital filter for magnetic recordingread channels

An area-efficient low-power and low-latency 550-MSample/s FIR filter for magnetic recording read channel applications is presented. A parallel direct type II architecture operates on real-time deinterleaved (even and odd) input data samples and employs a fast low-area multiplier based on selection of radix-8 premultiplied coefficients in conjunction with one-hot encoded bus leading to a very compact layout and reduced power dissipation. The chip has been fabricated using a 0.18-μm L-effective CMOS technology and is currently being used in commercial applications     

An extended access control model for permissioned blockchain frameworks

Wireless Networks - In distributed environment, a digital transaction or operation requires transparency and trust among multiple stakeholders. Several approches address such...     

Search me if you can: Multiple mix zones with location privacy protection for mapping services

The mobile vehicle is gaining popularity nowadays using map services like Google Maps and other mapping services. However, map services users have to expose sensitive information like geographic locations (GPS coordinates) or address to personal privacy concerns as users share their locations and queries to obtain desired services. Existing mix zones location privacy protection methods are most general purposed and theoretical value while not applicable when applied to provide location privacy for map service users. In this paper, we present new (multiple mix zones location privacy protection) MMLPP method specially designed for map services on mobile vehicles over the road network. This method enables mobile vehicle users to query a route between 2 endpoints on the map, without revealing any confidential location and queries information. The basic idea is to strategically endpoints to nearby ones, such that (1) the semantic meanings encoded in these endpoints (eg, their GPS coordinates) change much, ie, location privacy is protected; (2) the routes returned by map services little change, ie, services usability are maintained. Specifically, a mobile client first privately retrieves point of interest close to the original endpoints, and then selects 2 points of interest as the shifted endpoints satisfying the property of geoindistinguishability. We evaluate our MMLPP approach road network application for GTMobiSim on different scales of map services and conduct experiments with real traces. Results show that MMLPP strikes a good balance between location privacy and service usability.     

CuPc based organic--inorganic hetero-junction with Au electrodes

In present work, a hetero-junction of n-silicon (n-Si) with copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) has been fabricated. The current-voltage characteristics were investigated to explain the rectification and conduction mechanism. The effect of temperature and humidity on electrical properties of n-Si/CuPc hetero-junction has also been investigated. The characteristics of the junction have been observed to be temperature and humidity dependent so it is suggested that this junction can be used as temperature and humidity sensor.     

Enhancing the Selectivity and Transparency of the Electron Contact in Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells by Phosphorus Catalytic Doping

An intrinsic hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H(i)) film and a doped silicon film are usually combined in the heterojunction contacts of silicon heterojunction (SHJ) solar cells. In this work, a post-doping process called catalytic doping (Cat-doping) on a-Si:H(i) is performed on the electron selective side of SHJ solar cells, which enables a device architecture that eliminates the additional deposition of the doped silicon layer. Thus, a single phosphorus Cat-doping layer combines the functions of two other layers by enabling excellent interface passivation and high carrier selectivity. The overall thinner layer on the window side results in higher spectral response at short wavelengths, leading to an improved short-circuit current density of 40.31 mA cm⁻² and an efficiency of 23.65% (certified). The cell efficiency is currently limited by sputter damage from the subsequent transparent conductive oxide fabrication and low carrier activation in the a-Si:H(i) with Cat-doping. Numerical device simulations show that the a-Si:H(i) with Cat-doping can provide sufficient field effect passivation even at lower active carrier concentrations compared to the as-deposited doped layer, due to the lower defect density.     

Structural,Thermal and Luminescence Properties of AlN:Tm Thin Films Deposited on Silicon Substrate and Optical Fiber

Semiconductors - Thin films of AlN:Tm are deposited on a Si(111) and Si(100) substrates and optical fiber by rf magnetron sputtering method. 200–400 nm thick films are deposited at various...     

Machine learning in vehicular networking: An overview

As vehicle complexity and road congestion increase, combined with the emergence of electric vehicles, the need for intelligent transportation systems to improve on-road safety and transportation efficiency using vehicular networks has become essential. The evolution of high mobility wireless networks will provide improved support for connected vehicles through highly dynamic heterogeneous networks. Particularly, 5G deployment introduces new features and technologies that enable operators to capitalize on emerging infrastructure capabilities. Machine Learning (ML), a powerful methodology for adaptive and predictive system development, has emerged in both vehicular and conventional wireless networks. Adopting data-centric methods enables ML to address highly dynamic vehicular network issues faced by conventional solutions, such as traditional control loop design and optimization techniques. This article provides a short survey of ML applications in vehicular networks from the networking aspect. Research topics covered in this article include network control containing handover management and routing decision making, resource management, and energy efficiency in vehicular networks. The findings of this paper suggest more attention should be paid to network forming/deforming decision making. ML applications in vehicular networks should focus on researching multi-agent cooperated oriented methods and overall complexity reduction while utilizing enabling technologies, such as mobile edge computing for real-world deployment. Research datasets, simulation environment standardization, and method interpretability also require more research attention.     

Large-signal analysis of CMOS analogue functional elements using Fourier-series approximations

This paper discusses the large signal performance of CMOS analogue-functional elements. Fourier-series approximations are obtained for the transfer functions of the basic building blocks such as the linear CMOS transconductance element and the CMOS full-wave rectifier. Using these Fourier-series approximations, simple closed-form analytical expressions are obtained for the amplitudes of the harmonics at the output of a basic building block excited by a sinusoidal input signal. The analysis shows that, while the performance of the basic building blocks is near ideal at relatively small input amplitudes, performance degradation increases as the input amplitudes increase. On the other hand, since these expressions ignore the distortion mechanisms resulting from body effect and channel-length modulation, they cannot reliably predict the performance at small input signal levels. It appears, therefore, that body-effect and channel-length modulation must be taken into consideration for small-signal analysis.