Abstract: A considerable part of recent research in smart cities and IoT has focused on achieving energysavings in buildings and supporting aspects related to sustainability. In this context, the educational community is one of the most important ones to consider, since school buildings constitute a large part of non-residential buildings, while also educating students on sustainability matters is an investment for the future. In this work, we discuss a methodology for achieving energysavings in schools based on the utilization of data produced by an IoT infrastructure installed inside school buildings and related educational scenarios. We present the steps comprising this methodology in detail, along with a set of tangible results achieved within the GAIA project. We also showcase how an IoT infrastructure can support activities in an educational setting and produce concrete outcomes, with typical levels of 20% energysavings.
Abstract: Raising awareness among young people on the
relevance of behaviour change for achieving energysavings is widely considered as a key approach towards long-term and costeffective energy efficiency policies. The GAIA Project aims to deliver a comprehensive solution for both increasing awareness on energy efficiency and achieving energysavings in school buildings. In this framework, we present a novel rule engine that, leveraging a resource-based graph model encoding relevant application domain knowledge, accesses IoT data for producing energysavings recommendations. The engine supports configurability, extensibility and ease-of-use requirements, to be easily applied and customized to different buildings. The paper introduces the main design and implementation details and presents a set of preliminary performance results.
Abstract: Smart Dust is a set of a vast number of ultra-small fully
autonomous computing and communication devices, with very
restricted energy and computing capabilities, that co-operate to
quickly and efficiently accomplish a large sensing task. Smart
Dust can be very useful in practice i.e. in the local detection of
a remote crucial event and the propagation of data reporting its
realization. In this work we continue (see [POMC02]) our
effort towards the research on smart dust from a basic algorithmic
point of view. Under a simple but realistic model for smart dust
we present an interesting problem, which is how to propagate
efficiently information on an event detected locally. Then we
present a new smart dust protocol, which we call the
``Sleep-Awake" protocol, for information propagation that explicitly uses the energysaving features (i.e. the alteration of sleeping and awake time periods) of the smart dust particles. By using both probabilistic some first analysis and extensive
experiments, we provide some first concrete results for the
success probability and the time and energy efficiency of the
protocol, in terms of parameters of the smart dust network. We
note that the study of the interplay of these parameters allows us
to program the smart dust network characteristics accordingly.
Abstract: We propose a MAC protocol for mobile ad hoc networks that
uses power control for the RTS/CTS and DATA frame
transmissions in order to improve energy and capacity
utilization efficiency. Unlike IEEE 802.11, in our scheme the
RTS frames are not sent using the maximum transmission
power to silence neighbouring nodes, and the CTS frames do
not silence all receiving nodes to the same degree. In contrast,
the transmission power of the RTS frames follows a slow
start principle, while the CTS frames, which are sent at
maximum transmission power, prevent the neighbouring
nodes from transmitting their DATA frames with power more
than a computed threshold, while allowing them to transmit at
power levels less than that threshold. This is done by
including in the RTS and the CTS frames additional
information, such as the power of the transmissions, and the
interference tolerance of the nodes. Moreover the DATA
frames are sent at the minimum required transmission power
increased by a small margin to ensure connectivity with the
intended receiver, so as to cause minimal interference to
neighbouring nodes and allow for future interference to be
added to the receiver of the DATA frames. The power to be
used by the transmitter is computed by the recipient of the
RTS frame and is included in the CTS frame. It is expected
that a network with such a power management scheme would
achieve a better throughput performance and more power
savings than a network without such a scheme.
Abstract: We propose a MAC protocol for mobile ad hoc networks that
uses power control for the RTS/CTS and DATA frame
transmissions in order to improve energy and capacity
utilization efficiency. Unlike IEEE 802.11, in our scheme the
RTS frames are not sent using the maximum transmission
power to silence neighbouring nodes, and the CTS frames do
not silence all receiving nodes to the same degree. In contrast,
the transmission power of the RTS frames follows a slow
start principle, while the CTS frames, which are sent at
maximum transmission power, prevent the neighbouring
nodes from transmitting their DATA frames with power more
than a computed threshold, while allowing them to transmit at
power levels less than that threshold. This is done by
including in the RTS and the CTS frames additional
information, such as the power of the transmissions, and the
interference tolerance of the nodes. Moreover the DATA
frames are sent at the minimum required transmission power
increased by a small margin to ensure connectivity with the
intended receiver, so as to cause minimal interference to
neighbouring nodes and allow for future interference to be
added to the receiver of the DATA frames. The power to be
used by the transmitter is computed by the recipient of the
RTS frame and is included in the CTS frame. It is expected
that a network with such a power management scheme would
achieve a better throughput performance and more power
savings than a network without such a scheme.
Abstract: Raising awareness among young people and changing their behaviour and habits concerning energy usage is key to achieving sustained energysaving. Additionally, young people are very sensitive to environmental protection so raising awareness among children is much easier than with any other group of citizens. This work examines ways to create an innovative Information & Communication Technologies (ICT) ecosystem (including web-based, mobile, social and sensing elements) tailored specifically for school environments, taking into account both the users (faculty, staff, students, parents) and school buildings, thus motivating and supporting young citizens˘ behavioural change to achieve greater energy efficiency. A mixture of open-source IoT hardware and proprietary platforms on the infrastructure level, are currently being utilized for monitoring a fleet of 18 educational buildings across 3 countries, comprising over 700 IoT monitoring points. Hereon presented is the system˘s high-level architecture, as well as several aspects of its implementation, related to the application domain of educational building monitoring and energy efficiency. The system is developed based on open-source technologies and services in order to make it capable of providing open IT-infrastructure and support from different commercial hardware/sensor vendors as well as open-source solutions. The system presented can be used to develop and offer new app-based solutions that can be used either for educational purposes or for managing the energy efficiency of the building. The system is replicable and adaptable to settings that may be different than the scenarios envisioned here (e.g., targeting different climate zones), different IT infrastructures and can be easily extended to accommodate integration with other systems. The overall performance of the system is evaluated in real-world environment in terms of scalability, responsiveness and simplicity.
Abstract: Few IoT systems monitoring energy consumption in buildings have focused on the educational community. IoT in the educational domain can jump-start a process of sustainability awareness and behavioral change towards energysavings, as well as provide tangible financial savings. We present a real-world multi-site IoT deployment, comprising 19 school buildings, aiming at enabling IoT-based energy awareness and sustainability lectures, promoting energy-saving behaviors supported by IoT data. We discuss scenarios where IoT-enabled applications are integrated into school life, providing an engaging and hands-on approach, based on real data, generating value in terms of educational and energysavings outcomes. We also present a set of first results, based on the analysis of school-building data, which highlight potential ways to identify irregularities and inefficiencies.
Abstract: Raising awareness among young people, and especially students, on the relevance of behavior change for achieving energysavings is increasingly being considered as a key enabler towards long-term and cost-effective energy efficiency policies. However, the way to successfully apply educational interventions focused on such targets inside schools is still an open question. In this paper, we present our approach for enabling IoT-based energysavings and sustainability awareness lectures and promoting data-driven energy-saving behaviors focused on a high school audience. We present our experiences toward the successful application of sets of educational tools and software over a real-world Internet of Things (IoT) deployment. We discuss the use of gamification and competition as a very effective end-user engagement mechanism for school audiences. We also present the design of an IoT-based hands-on lab activity, integrated within a high school computer science curriculum utilizing IoT devices and data produced inside the school building, along with the Node-RED platform. We describe the tools used, the organization of the educational activities and related goals. We report on the experience carried out in both directions in a high school in Italy and conclude by discussing the results in terms of achieved energysavings within an observation period.
Abstract: This paper studies the data gathering problem in wireless networks, where data generated at the nodes has to be collected at a single sink. We investigate the relationship between routing optimality and fair resource management. In particular, we prove that for energy balanced data propagation, Pareto optimal routing and flow maximization are equivalent, and also prove that flow maximization is equivalent to maximizing the network lifetime. We algebraically characterize the network structures in which energy balanced data flows are maximal. Moreover, we algebraically characterize communication links which are not used by an optimal flow. This leads to the characterization of minimal network structures supporting the maximal flows.
We note that energy balance, although implying global optimality, is a local property that can be computed efficiently and in a distributed manner. We suggest online distributed algorithms for energy balance in different optimal network structures and numerically show their stability in particular setting. We remark that although the results obtained in this paper have a direct consequence in energysaving for wireless networks they do not limit themselves to this type of networks neither to energy as a resource. As a matter of fact, the results are much more general and can be used for any type of network and different type of resources.
Abstract: This paper studies the data gathering problem in wireless networks, where data generated at the nodes has to be collected at a single sink. We investigate the relationship between routing optimality and fair resource management. In particular, we prove that for energy-balanced data propagation, Pareto optimal routing and flow maximization are equivalent, and also prove that flow maximization is equivalent to maximizing the network lifetime. We algebraically characterize the network structures in which energy-balanced data flows are maximal. Moreover, we algebraically characterize communication links which are not used by an optimal flow. This leads to the characterization of minimal network structures supporting the maximal flows.
We note that energy-balance, although implying global optimality, is a local property that can be computed efficiently and in a distributed manner. We suggest online distributed algorithms for energy-balance in different optimal network structures and numerically show their stability in particular setting. We remark that although the results obtained in this paper have a direct consequence in energysaving for wireless networks they do not limit themselves to this type of networks neither to energy as a resource. As a matter of fact, the results are much more general and can be used for any type of network and different types of resources.
Abstract: Recent rapid technological developments have led to the
development of tiny, low-power, low-cost sensors. Such devices
integrate sensing, limited data processing and communication
capabilities.The effective distributed collaboration
of large numbers of such devices can lead to the efficient
accomplishment of large sensing tasks.
This talk focuses on several aspects of energy efficiency.
Two protocols for data propagation are studied: the first
creates probabilistically optimized redundant data transmissions
to combine energy efficiency with fault tolerance,
while the second guarantees (in a probabilistic way) the
same per sensor energy dissipation, towards balancing the
energy load and prolong the lifetime of the network.
A third protocol (in fact a power saving scheme) is also
presented, that directly and adaptively affects power dissipation
at each sensor. This “lower level” scheme can be
combined with data propagation protocols to further improve
energy efficiency.
Abstract: Buildings are among the largest consumers of electricity with a significant portion of this energy use is wasted in unoccupied areas or improperly installed devices.
Identifying such power leaks is hard especially in large office and enterprise buildings.
In this paper we present the design and implementation of a system that uses an underlying sensor network to provide accurate real time information about various characteristics like occupancy, lighting, temperature and power consumption at different levels of granularity.
All sensor devices require minimal installation and maintenance.
Using an experimental installation we evaluate a number of applications and services that achieve energysavings by applying different power conservation policies.
Furthermore we provide energy measurements to users and occupants to show how various choices and behaviors affect their personal energysavings.
Abstract: A lot of activity is being devoted to studying issues related to energy consumption and efficiency in our buildings, and especially on public buildings. In this context, the educational public buildings should bean important part of the equation. At the same time, there is an evident need for open datasets, which should be publicly available for researchers to use. We have implemented a real-world multi-site Inter-net of Things (IoT) deployment, comprising 25 school buildings across Europe, primarily designed as a foundation for enabling IoT-based energy awareness and sustainability lectures and promoting data-driven energy-saving behaviors. In this work, we present some of the basic aspects to producing datasets from this deployment and discuss its potential uses. We also provide a brief discussion on data derived from a preliminary analysis of thermal comfort-related data produced from this infrastructure.