Simplify Urban Automation
The term “Urban Automation” refers to a union of different technologies in order to provide advanced sensing and enable new services to the users, as well as an underneath complex data management mechanism that allow the storage and analysis of big amounts of data. Thus ASUA project addresses, in the context of urban automation, the convergent domains of cloud computing and Sensors / Internet of Things (IoT) / Novel Communication Technologies, that are nowadays some of the most prominent and popular ICT paradigms.
The technical research and development efforts of ASUA can be divided into three key elements:
- Constrained devices
Techniques for coping with extremely resource constrained embedded devices even in challenging environments.
- Communication networks
Adaptive communication mechanisms and flexible interfaces for secure and reliable message dissemination
- Information management
Cloud-based technologies for distributed storage, autonomic decision making and multidisciplinary information management.
To increase energy efficiency, a deep sleep/auto wake up functionality is designed and implemented on gateways and sensors. Also, to avoid the high-volume data transfer, a method for model based data compression and reconstruction is developed and implemented.
For reliable sensor to gateway communication in challenging environments, BLE mesh network is developed. This network is based on both non-connectable broadcast advertisement and connection based data transfer. And long-range communication technologies (LoRa and Sigfox) are implemented to determine performance. Also, a simulation software implemented for ad hoc network creation and protocol efficiency measurement.
Remotely configurable gateways are another import outcome of ASUA. A flexible network communication manager is designed and implemented to monitor gateways, process their key parameters and reconfigure them according to a dynamic set of rules. It is based on SNMP protocol. Also, a novel robust communication technique with cloud support developed: Hybrid cloud supported dynamic node addressing and parameter setting.
For server side, standards compliant, scalable ASUA IoT Server is developed.
Cloud technology is one of the key features. It is continuous monitored by adding probes with PRTG and Veeam ONE tools. Resources can be adaptively configured to get a fault tolerant and high available system. Huge observation data are stored on Apache Cassandra, which is a horizontally scalable NoSQL database. Dynamic rule engine, which is remotely configurable, is designed and implemented to generate alarms, notifications, take reconfiguration actions or trigger actuators by evaluating observation data, gateway key parameters or other relevant information sources. ASUA architecture can be seen below.
One of the most important characteristics of ASUA is standards compliancy. Implemented standards contains but not limited to OGC SOS, MQTT, Open API Specification, GML, OGC WMS, OGC WFS, DSR, AODV, ZigBee, SNMP, IP67, BLE, Wi-Fi, FHIR. In this way, highly interoperable solution is provided to both existing and new systems.
Totally 10 new products have been developed and 4 products have been improved based on the project results. Partners of the project expect significant return of investment up to 5x.
Further Information:
Video: https://youtu.be/Txcun0iHv-A
Web: https://www.celticnext.eu/project-asua/
About ASUA
ASUA Project started in January 2015 and finished in December 2017.
The consortium led by Netcad included 8 partners from Romania, Austria, Spain, Turkey and Belgium which consists of large enterprises, SMEs and universities.
AUSTRIA Geodata Ziviltechnikergesellschaft mbH, Montanuniversitat Leoben
BELGIUM Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Option N.V., Televic
ROMANIA Beia Consult International
SPAIN Innovati Networks S.L.,
TURKEY Netcad Software Inc., Karel Electronics Inc.
