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Generally, municipal water supply companies use manual collection and laboratory analysis for water quality testing. However, these methods have limitations such as lack of real-time information, inability to sample the entire water supply, and high costs. Therefore, continuous, real-time water quality monitoring is crucial for public health protection and ensuring that the whole water supply network is monitored. This paper proposes an Internet of Things (IoT) platform for the measurement of consumption and the quality of drinking water in rural or semi-rural environments. Data collected through temperature, flow, potential of hydrogen (pH), turbidity, and Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP) sensors is exchanged with a database through a long-range wireless communication protocol. Two mobile applications and one desktop application were also developed, with the purpose of being used by simple users, technicians, and network administrators respectively. The presented implementation process includes the design of the hardware surrounding the ESP32 microcontroller and its mounted peripherals, as well as the software run by the microcontroller and the mobile devices. A prototype system was built and tested under controlled conditions, successfully recognizing an increase in water turbidity and its unsuitability when contaminated with different agents. This method may prove to be a financially advantageous solution for rural, semi-rural, and even urban environments when used with groups of data collection nodes, helping significantly in the upkeep and surveillance of the water supply network.Highlights: The IoT platform is equipped with sensors that measure water consumption as well as turbidity, temperature, and pH. Tested under controlled conditions, detecting different signs of water contamination. A low-cost option for continuous water monitoring, particularly in resource-limited environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Durational action timed automata (daTAs) are state transition systems like timed automata (TAs) that capture information regarding the concurrent execution of actions and their durations using maximality-based semantics. As the underlying semantics of daTAs are infinite due to the modeling of time progress, conventional model checking techniques become impractical for systems specified using daTAs. Therefore, a finite abstract representation of daTA behavior is required to enable model checking for such system specifications. For that, we propose a finite abstraction of the underlying semantics of a daTA-like region abstraction of timed automata. In addition, we highlight the unique benefits of daTAs by illustrating that they enable the verification of properties concerning concurrency and action duration that cannot be verified using the traditional TA model. We demonstrate mathematically that the number of states in durational action timed automata becomes significantly smaller than the number of states in timed automata as the number of actions increases, confirming the efficiency of daTAs in modeling behavior with action durations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper describes low-cost hardware-based analog and digital real-time circuit simulators for the development of power electronics control circuits. During the process of designing and developing digital control circuits for power electronics systems, preliminary verification of control algorithms is required. For this purpose, software simulators such as Pspice, Psim, Matlab-Simulink, and many others are commonly used. Afterward, the developed control algorithm is implemented in the digital control system. For further verification of the implemented control algorithms, a hardware-based analog or digital simulator can be utilized. The paper presents the author's proposed analog simulators. In the digital version of the simulator, TMS320F28388D microcontroller with 200 MHz clock was used. These simulators have demonstrated their usefulness in the development of power electronics systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a novel multimodal large language model-based fault detection and diagnosis framework that addresses the limitations of traditional fault detection and diagnosis approaches is proposed. The proposed framework leverages the Generative Pre-trained Transformer-4-Preview model to improve its scalability, generalizability, and efficiency in handling complex systems and various fault scenarios. Moreover, synthetic datasets generated via large language models augment the knowledge base and enhance the accuracy of fault detection and diagnosis of imbalanced scenarios. In the framework, a hybrid architecture that integrates online and offline processing, combining real-time data streams with fine-tuned large language models for dynamic, accurate, and context-aware fault detection suited to industrial settings, particularly focusing on security concerns, is introduced. This comprehensive approach aims to address traditional fault detection and diagnosis challenges and advance the field toward more adaptive and efficient fault diagnosis systems. This paper presents a detailed literature review, including a detailed taxonomy of fault detection and diagnosis methods and their applications across various industrial domains. This study discusses case study results and model comparisons, exploring the implications for future developments in industrial fault detection and diagnosis systems within Industry 4.0 technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ensuring the safety of water airport runways is essential for the correct operation of seaplane flights. Among other tasks, airport operators must identify and remove various objects that may have drifted into the runway area. In this paper, the authors propose a complete and embedded‐friendly waterway obstacle detection pipeline that runs on a camera‐equipped drone. This system uses a class‐agnostic version of the YOLOv7 detector, which is capable of detecting objects regardless of its class. Additionally, through the usage of the GPS data of the drone and camera parameters, the location of the objects are pinpointed with 0.58 m Distance Root Mean Square. In our own annotated dataset, the system is capable of generating alerts for detected objects with a recall of 0.833 and a precision of 1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM) is a flexible block‐structured multi‐carrier scheme recently proposed for next‐generation wireless communication systems. There are various approaches suggested for its analysis and implementation via simulations but testing in real‐time environments is not heavily investigated. This paper carries out the real‐time implementation of the GFDM system utilizing software‐defined radio (SDR) by emphasizing mainly channel estimation and synchronization. Symbol timing, frequency offset, and channel estimate algorithms are applied using a windowed preamble with two identical halves to satisfy low egress noise requirements. Time and frequency estimation is evaluated in terms of residual offsets along with symbol error rate over frequency selective channels. This algorithm is extended to a preamble composed of multiple identical parts. This facilitates a large frequency estimation range at the cost of complexity. For practical validation of the above concepts, the National Instruments (NI) universal software radio peripheral (USRP) 2953R is employed as hardware and it is interfaced with LabVIEW. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a hardware implementation of a one-dimensional convolutional neural network using depthwise separable convolution (DSC) on the VC707 FPGA development board. The design processes the one-dimensional rolling bearing current signal dataset provided by Paderborn University (PU), employing minimal preprocessing to maximize the comprehensiveness of feature extraction. To address the high parameter demands commonly associated with convolutional neural networks (CNNs), the model incorporates DSC, significantly reducing computational complexity and parameter load. Additionally, the DoReFa-Net quantization method is applied to compress network parameters and activation function outputs, thereby minimizing memory usage. The quantized DSC model requires approximately 22 KB of storage and performs 1,203,128 floating-point operations in total. The implementation achieves a power consumption of 527 mW at a clock frequency of 50 MHz, while delivering a fault diagnosis accuracy of 96.12%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A two‐step framework that integrates real‐time data collection with time series forecasting models for predicting traffic volume is proposed. In the first step, the framework utilizes live highway surveillance video data and YOLO‐v7 object detector to construct accurate traffic volume data. In the second step, an ARIMA–LSTM time series model is applied to forecast future traffic volumes. Experimental results show that YOLO‐v7 achieved a vehicle detection accuracy of over 93.30%, ensuring high precision in traffic volume data construction. The ARIMA–LSTM model demonstrated superior performance in traffic volume prediction, with a mean squared error of 87.97, root mean squared error of 10,388.57, and mean absolute error of 101.39. YOLO‐v7's detection speed of 7.8 ms per frame further validates the feasibility of real‐time data construction. The findings indicate that the combination of YOLO‐v7 for vehicle detection and ARIMA–LSTM for traffic prediction is highly effective, offering a significant reduction in training time compared to more complex deep learning models while maintaining high prediction accuracy. This research presents a unified solution for traffic data collection and prediction, enhancing transportation infrastructure planning and optimizing traffic flow. Future work will focus on extending the prediction intervals and further refining the models to improve performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The integration of digital twins (DTs) in healthcare is critical but remains limited in real‐time patient monitoring due to challenges in achieving low‐latency telemetry transmission and efficient resource management. This paper addresses these limitations by presenting a novel cloud‐based DT framework that optimises real‐time healthcare monitoring, providing a timely solution for critical healthcare needs. The framework incorporates a Pyomo‐based dynamic optimisation model, which reduces telemetry latency by 32% and improves response time by 52%, surpassing existing systems. Leveraging low‐cost, low‐latency multimodal sensors, the system continuously monitors critical physiological parameters, including SpO2, heart rate, and body temperature, enabling proactive health interventions. A DT definition language (Digital Twin Definition Language)‐based time series analysis and twin graph platform further enhance sensor connectivity and scalability. Additionally, the integration of machine learning (ML) strengthens predictive accuracy, achieving 98% real‐time accuracy and 99.58% under cross‐validation (cv = 20) using the XGBoost algorithm. Empirical results demonstrate substantial improvements in processing time, system stability, and learning capacity, with real‐time predictions completed in 17 ms. This framework represents a significant advancement in healthcare monitoring, offering a responsive and scalable solution to latency and resource constraints in real‐time applications. Future research could explore incorporating additional sensors and advanced ML models to further expand its impact in healthcare applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) and sensing technologies provide an interesting opportunity of remote health monitoring and disease risk categorisation of populations. An end‐to‐end architecture is proposed to facilitate real‐time digital dashboards to visualise general anxiety risks of patients, especially during a pandemic, such as COVID‐19. To collect physiological data related to anxiety (heart rate, blood pressure, and saturation of peripheral oxygen [SPO2]) and communicate them to a centralised dashboard, dubbed 'X‐DASH', a hardware prototype of the proposed architecture was developed using Node‐MCU and diverse sensors. The dashboard presents a smart categorisation of users' data, assessing their anxiety risks, to provide medical professionals and state authorities a clear visualisation of health risks in populations belonging to different regions. We categorised the risk levels as Normal, Mild, Moderate, Elevated, Severe, and Extreme, based on the collected physiological data and pre‐defined threshold values. The developed hardware prototype in this work was used to collect data from about 500 patients present at cardiac clinic of a leading general hospital in Karachi (Pakistan) and the anxiety risk levels were assigned based on pre‐defined threshold values. To validate the reliability of the X‐DASH, the personal physician of each patient was consulted and was requested to identify each of their anxiety risk levels. It was found that the risk levels suggested by X‐DASH, (based on data of heart rate, blood pressure, and SPO2 were more than 90% accurate when compared with diagnoses of physicians. Subsequently, packet loss, delay and network overhead for the platform was compared when using MQTT, CoAP and Modbus. Although MQTT has shown higher delays, but it is still recommended due to having a higher reliability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advancements in neural network approaches have enhanced the effectiveness of surface Electromyography (sEMG)-based hand gesture recognition when measuring muscle activity. However, current deep learning architectures struggle to achieve good generalization and robustness, often demanding significant computational resources. The goal of this paper was to develop a robust model that can quickly adapt to new users using Transfer Learning. We propose a Multi-Scale Convolutional Neural Network (MSCNN), pre-trained with various strategies to improve inter-subject generalization. These strategies include domain adaptation with a gradient-reversal layer and self-supervision using triplet margin loss. We evaluated these approaches on several benchmark datasets, specifically the NinaPro databases. This study also compared two different Transfer Learning frameworks designed for user-dependent fine-tuning. The second Transfer Learning framework achieved a 97% F1 Score across 14 classes with an average of 1.40 epochs, suggesting potential for on-site model retraining in cases of performance degradation over time. The findings highlight the effectiveness of Transfer Learning in creating adaptive, user-specific models for sEMG-based prosthetic hands. Moreover, the study examined the impacts of rectification and window length, with a focus on real-time accessible normalizing techniques, suggesting significant improvements in usability and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an innovative scheduling algorithm designed specifically for real-time energy harvesting systems, with a primary focus on minimizing energy consumption and extending the battery's lifespan. The algorithm employs a fixed priority assignment which is the deadline monotonic policy, we have chosen it for its optimality and superior performance compared to other fixed priority scheduling methods. To achieve a balance between energy efficiency and system performance, we incorporated a DVFS (Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling) technique into the algorithm. This adaptive approach enables precise control over the processor's operating frequency, effectively managing energy consumption while ensuring satisfactory system functionality. The core objective of our scheduling algorithm centers on optimizing energy utilization in real-time energy harvesting systems, specifically tailored to extend the battery's operational life. Rigorous evaluations, including comprehensive comparisons against established fixed priority scheduling algorithms, validate the algorithm's efficacy in significantly reducing energy consumption while preserving the system's overall functionality. By combining the deadline monotonic policy and DVFS technique, our proposed algorithm emerges as a promising solution for energy-autonomous systems, contributing to the advancement of sustainable energy practices in real-time applications. As energy harvesting technologies continue to progress, our algorithm holds valuable potential to provide critical insights for enhancing the efficiency and reliability of future energy harvesting systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Generally, municipal water supply companies use manual collection and laboratory analysis for water quality testing. However, these methods have limitations such as lack of real-time information, inability to sample the entire water supply, and high costs. Therefore, continuous, real-time water quality monitoring is crucial for public health protection and ensuring that the whole water supply network is monitored. This paper proposes an Internet of Things (IoT) platform for the measurement of consumption and the quality of drinking water in rural or semi-rural environments. Data collected through temperature, flow, potential of hydrogen (pH), turbidity, and Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP) sensors is exchanged with a database through a long-range wireless communication protocol. Two mobile applications and one desktop application were also developed, with the purpose of being used by simple users, technicians, and network administrators respectively. The presented implementation process includes the design of the hardware surrounding the ESP32 microcontroller and its mounted peripherals, as well as the software run by the microcontroller and the mobile devices. A prototype system was built and tested under controlled conditions, successfully recognizing an increase in water turbidity and its unsuitability when contaminated with different agents. This method may prove to be a financially advantageous solution for rural, semi-rural, and even urban environments when used with groups of data collection nodes, helping significantly in the upkeep and surveillance of the water supply network.

Abstract The integration of digital twins (DTs) in healthcare is critical but remains limited in real‐time patient monitoring due to challenges in achieving low‐latency telemetry transmission and efficient resource management. This paper addresses these limitations by presenting a novel cloud‐based DT framework that optimises real‐time healthcare monitoring, providing a timely solution for critical healthcare needs. The framework incorporates a Pyomo‐based dynamic optimisation model, which reduces telemetry latency by 32% and improves response time by 52%, surpassing existing systems. Leveraging low‐cost, low‐latency multimodal sensors, the system continuously monitors critical physiological parameters, including SpO2, heart rate, and body temperature, enabling proactive health interventions. A DT definition language (Digital Twin Definition Language)‐based time series analysis and twin graph platform further enhance sensor connectivity and scalability. Additionally, the integration of machine learning (ML) strengthens predictive accuracy, achieving 98% real‐time accuracy and 99.58% under cross‐validation (cv = 20) using the XGBoost algorithm. Empirical results demonstrate substantial improvements in processing time, system stability, and learning capacity, with real‐time predictions completed in 17 ms. This framework represents a significant advancement in healthcare monitoring, offering a responsive and scalable solution to latency and resource constraints in real‐time applications. Future research could explore incorporating additional sensors and advanced ML models to further expand its impact in healthcare applications.

Abstract The ubiquitous Internet of Things (IoT) and sensing technologies provide an interesting opportunity of remote health monitoring and disease risk categorisation of populations. An end‐to‐end architecture is proposed to facilitate real‐time digital dashboards to visualise general anxiety risks of patients, especially during a pandemic, such as COVID‐19. To collect physiological data related to anxiety (heart rate, blood pressure, and saturation of peripheral oxygen [SPO2]) and communicate them to a centralised dashboard, dubbed ‘X‐DASH’, a hardware prototype of the proposed architecture was developed using Node‐MCU and diverse sensors. The dashboard presents a smart categorisation of users' data, assessing their anxiety risks, to provide medical professionals and state authorities a clear visualisation of health risks in populations belonging to different regions. We categorised the risk levels as Normal, Mild, Moderate, Elevated, Severe, and Extreme, based on the collected physiological data and pre‐defined threshold values. The developed hardware prototype in this work was used to collect data from about 500 patients present at cardiac clinic of a leading general hospital in Karachi (Pakistan) and the anxiety risk levels were assigned based on pre‐defined threshold values. To validate the reliability of the X‐DASH, the personal physician of each patient was consulted and was requested to identify each of their anxiety risk levels. It was found that the risk levels suggested by X‐DASH, (based on data of heart rate, blood pressure, and SPO2 were more than 90% accurate when compared with diagnoses of physicians. Subsequently, packet loss, delay and network overhead for the platform was compared when using MQTT, CoAP and Modbus. Although MQTT has shown higher delays, but it is still recommended due to having a higher reliability.

Abstract Ensuring the safety of water airport runways is essential for the correct operation of seaplane flights. Among other tasks, airport operators must identify and remove various objects that may have drifted into the runway area. In this paper, the authors propose a complete and embedded‐friendly waterway obstacle detection pipeline that runs on a camera‐equipped drone. This system uses a class‐agnostic version of the YOLOv7 detector, which is capable of detecting objects regardless of its class. Additionally, through the usage of the GPS data of the drone and camera parameters, the location of the objects are pinpointed with 0.58 m Distance Root Mean Square. In our own annotated dataset, the system is capable of generating alerts for detected objects with a recall of 0.833 and a precision of 1.

Abstract A two‐step framework that integrates real‐time data collection with time series forecasting models for predicting traffic volume is proposed. In the first step, the framework utilizes live highway surveillance video data and YOLO‐v7 object detector to construct accurate traffic volume data. In the second step, an ARIMA–LSTM time series model is applied to forecast future traffic volumes. Experimental results show that YOLO‐v7 achieved a vehicle detection accuracy of over 93.30%, ensuring high precision in traffic volume data construction. The ARIMA–LSTM model demonstrated superior performance in traffic volume prediction, with a mean squared error of 87.97, root mean squared error of 10,388.57, and mean absolute error of 101.39. YOLO‐v7's detection speed of 7.8 ms per frame further validates the feasibility of real‐time data construction. The findings indicate that the combination of YOLO‐v7 for vehicle detection and ARIMA–LSTM for traffic prediction is highly effective, offering a significant reduction in training time compared to more complex deep learning models while maintaining high prediction accuracy. This research presents a unified solution for traffic data collection and prediction, enhancing transportation infrastructure planning and optimizing traffic flow. Future work will focus on extending the prediction intervals and further refining the models to improve performance.

Abstract Generalized frequency division multiplexing (GFDM) is a flexible block‐structured multi‐carrier scheme recently proposed for next‐generation wireless communication systems. There are various approaches suggested for its analysis and implementation via simulations but testing in real‐time environments is not heavily investigated. This paper carries out the real‐time implementation of the GFDM system utilizing software‐defined radio (SDR) by emphasizing mainly channel estimation and synchronization. Symbol timing, frequency offset, and channel estimate algorithms are applied using a windowed preamble with two identical halves to satisfy low egress noise requirements. Time and frequency estimation is evaluated in terms of residual offsets along with symbol error rate over frequency selective channels. This algorithm is extended to a preamble composed of multiple identical parts. This facilitates a large frequency estimation range at the cost of complexity. For practical validation of the above concepts, the National Instruments (NI) universal software radio peripheral (USRP) 2953R is employed as hardware and it is interfaced with LabVIEW.

Abstract An online non‐model‐based procedure is presented for estimating the synchronous generator (SG) dynamic parameters using practical phasor measurement unit (PMU) signals in the presence of uncertainty and noisy data. For this purpose, considering 8th‐order approximation, the SGs model is estimated in which, based on evaluating voltage and current phasors achieved from PMU data, dynamic parameters are estimated online. The proposed approach is a generalised concept of the Heffron–Philips model in which the variables and the gain factors are adaptable according to operating conditions. The proposed scheme is an online and non‐model‐based method in which the SG magnetic saturation behaviours are modelled through multivariable non‐linear definition to extend the accurate controlling structure. In this case, two different studies are carried out. In the first study, considering a single SG is connected to the infinite bus, the ability of the proposed method through simulation studies is evaluated. In the second study, the proposed scheme is developed practically in the laboratory whereby performing the experimental structure on different types through real‐time working mode, validation of the proposed estimated model through different operating points is evaluated. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed practical scheme for estimating the generator's detailed model and non‐linear dynamic parameters through real‐time evaluations.

Abstract IEEE 802.1 Time‐Sensitive Networking (TSN) has proposed several shapers, for example, time‐aware shaper (TAS, 802.1Qbv), asynchronous traffic shaping (ATS, 802.1Qcr), credit‐based shaper (CBS, 802.1Qav), and cyclic queuing and forwarding (CQF, 802.1Qch). The shapers have their advantages and disadvantages and can be used in isolation or in combination to address the varied timing requirements of industrial application streams. There is very limited work on how to analyse and configure shaper combinations. The authors are interested in the configuration optimisation of multi‐shaper TSN networks, targeting the TAS + CBS, TAS + ATS, and TAS + Multi‐CQF combinations. The authors first propose multi‐shaper integration approaches, focusing on a novel iterative delay analysis for TAS + ATS, an approach to integrate TAS and CQF by placing constraints on TAS scheduling as well as the TAS and CBS integration. We formulate the combinatorial optimisation problem of configuring multi‐shaper TSN networks, which consists, for example, of the routing of streams, the assignment of streams to the egress port queues, and the synthesis of gate control lists for TAS. Then, the authors propose a solution based on a simulated annealing metaheuristic. The proposed solutions are evaluated on large realistic test cases, up to tens of thousands of streams and devices.

Real-time Hand Gesture Recognition (HGR) has emerged as a vital technology in human-computer interaction, offering intuitive and natural ways for users to interact with computer-vision systems. This comprehensive review explores the advancements, challenges, and future directions in real-time HGR. Various HGR-related technologies have also been investigated, including sensors and vision technologies, which are utilized as a preliminary step in acquiring data in HGR systems. This paper discusses different recognition approaches, from traditional handcrafted feature methods to state-of-the-art deep learning techniques. Learning paradigms have been analyzed such as supervised, unsupervised, transfer, and adaptive learning in the context of HGR. A wide range of applications has been covered, from sign language recognition to healthcare and security systems. Despite significant developments in the computer vision domain, challenges remain in areas such as environmental robustness, gesture complexity, computational efficiency, and user adaptability. Lastly, this paper concludes by highlighting potential solutions and future research directions trying to develop more robust, efficient, and user-friendly real-time HGR systems.

This paper presents a real-time wearable system designed to assist Parkinson's disease patients experiencing freezing of gait episodes. The system utilizes advanced machine learning models, including convolutional and recurrent neural networks, enhanced with past sample data preprocessing to achieve high accuracy, efficiency, and robustness. By continuously monitoring gait patterns, the system provides timely interventions, improving mobility and reducing the impact of freezing episodes. This paper explores the implementation of a CNN+RNN+PS machine learning model on a microcontroller-based device. The device operates at a real-time processing rate of 40 Hz and is deployed in practical settings to provide 'on demand' vibratory stimulation to patients. This paper examines the system's ability to operate with minimal latency, achieving an average detection delay of just 261 milliseconds and a freezing of gait detection accuracy of 95.1%. While patients received on-demand stimulation, the system's effectiveness was assessed by decreasing the average duration of freezing of gait episodes by 45%. These preliminarily results underscore the potential of personalized, real-time feedback systems in enhancing the quality of life and rehabilitation outcomes for patients with movement disorders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An online non‐model‐based procedure is presented for estimating the synchronous generator (SG) dynamic parameters using practical phasor measurement unit (PMU) signals in the presence of uncertainty and noisy data. For this purpose, considering 8th‐order approximation, the SGs model is estimated in which, based on evaluating voltage and current phasors achieved from PMU data, dynamic parameters are estimated online. The proposed approach is a generalised concept of the Heffron–Philips model in which the variables and the gain factors are adaptable according to operating conditions. The proposed scheme is an online and non‐model‐based method in which the SG magnetic saturation behaviours are modelled through multivariable non‐linear definition to extend the accurate controlling structure. In this case, two different studies are carried out. In the first study, considering a single SG is connected to the infinite bus, the ability of the proposed method through simulation studies is evaluated. In the second study, the proposed scheme is developed practically in the laboratory whereby performing the experimental structure on different types through real‐time working mode, validation of the proposed estimated model through different operating points is evaluated. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed practical scheme for estimating the generator's detailed model and non‐linear dynamic parameters through real‐time evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For flight test engineering, the flight test task schedule is of great importance to the delivery node and the development cost of an aircraft, while in the real flight test process, dynamic events may frequently occur, which affect the schedule implementation and flight test progress. To adaptively adjust the real-world flight test schedule, this paper proposes a deep reinforcement learning (DRL) approach to solve the dynamic task scheduling problem for flight tests, with the objectives of flight test duration and task tardiness. Firstly, the task scheduling characteristics for flight tests are introduced, and a mixed-integer programming (MIP) model is constructed. Then, the addressed problem is formulated as a Markov decision process (MDP), including the well-designed state features, reward functions, and action space based on the heuristic rules for selecting the uncompleted flight test task and allocating the selected task to an appropriate aircraft. Proximal policy optimization (PPO) is adopted to train and learn the optimal policy. Finally, extensive experiments are carried out to verify the proposed method's effectiveness and efficiency in constructing a high-quality flight test task schedule in a dynamic flight test environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IEEE 802.1 Time‐Sensitive Networking (TSN) has proposed several shapers, for example, time‐aware shaper (TAS, 802.1Qbv), asynchronous traffic shaping (ATS, 802.1Qcr), credit‐based shaper (CBS, 802.1Qav), and cyclic queuing and forwarding (CQF, 802.1Qch). The shapers have their advantages and disadvantages and can be used in isolation or in combination to address the varied timing requirements of industrial application streams. There is very limited work on how to analyse and configure shaper combinations. The authors are interested in the configuration optimisation of multi‐shaper TSN networks, targeting the TAS + CBS, TAS + ATS, and TAS + Multi‐CQF combinations. The authors first propose multi‐shaper integration approaches, focusing on a novel iterative delay analysis for TAS + ATS, an approach to integrate TAS and CQF by placing constraints on TAS scheduling as well as the TAS and CBS integration. We formulate the combinatorial optimisation problem of configuring multi‐shaper TSN networks, which consists, for example, of the routing of streams, the assignment of streams to the egress port queues, and the synthesis of gate control lists for TAS. Then, the authors propose a solution based on a simulated annealing metaheuristic. The proposed solutions are evaluated on large realistic test cases, up to tens of thousands of streams and devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an energy-efficient and high-accuracy sampling synchronization approach for real-time synchronous data acquisition in wireless sensor networks (saWSNs). A proprietary protocol based on time-division multiple access (TDMA) and deep energy-efficient coding in sensor firmware is proposed. A real saWSN model based on 2.4 GHz nRF52832 system-on-chip (SoC) sensors was designed and experimentally tested. The obtained results confirmed significant improvements in data synchronization accuracy (even by several times) and power consumption (even by a hundred times) compared to other recently reported studies. The results demonstrated a sampling synchronization accuracy of 0.8 μs and ultra-low power consumption of 15 μW per 1 kb/s throughput for data. The protocol was well designed, stable, and importantly, lightweight. The complexity and computational performance of the proposed scheme were small. The CPU load for the proposed solution was <2% for a sampling event handler below 200 Hz. Furthermore, the transmission reliability was high with a packet error rate (PER) not exceeding 0.18% for TXPWR ≥ −4 dBm and 0.03% for TXPWR ≥ 3 dBm. The efficiency of the proposed protocol was compared with other solutions presented in the manuscript. While the number of new proposals is large, the technical advantage of our solution is significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A resource administrator (RM) can distribute tasks processing time between heterogeneous processors is presented. Its design is based on analyzing of the possible forms of attention to pending tasks and in the previous knowledge about them. A model is proposed based on difference equations that quantify the resource allocation of each task and choose the best processor where the task can be executed. The scheme adapts to dynamic changes in the requirements or the number of tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurate long-range object recognition is essential in autonomous navigation and military surveillance applications. While recent advancements have improved real-time recognition, existing models, especially those focused on monocular depth estimation, face accuracy challenges due to supervised Deep Learning (DL) limitations. This study presents a robust, real-time military object recognition system that leverages temporal sequences and attention mechanisms for enhanced depth estimation. Using RGB frames along depth maps from the KITTI and synthetics dataset, along with a fine-tuned YOLOv11 model, our system achieves a Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) of 1.24 meters, and RMSE (log) of 0.18 in-depth estimation, with object detection adequate up to 250 meters.The model maintains high precision (96.4%), recall (93.67%),and F1 score (93.33%) across various ranges, confirming YOLOv11's accuracy with an average inference time of 13 ms for short-range and 17 ms for long-range detection. These results highlight the system's potential for deployment in real-time military and adaptive response scenarios, outperforming existing models in both accuracy and computational efficiency.

Abstract A 1 millisecond (1‐ms) vision system that guarantees high efficiency and timely response for tomato defect detection is essential for factory automation. Because of various defect appearances, recently many existing researches focus on CNN based defect detection, but few of them attempt to reach high processing speed to adapt to the factorial assembly line. This paper proposes a global to multi‐scale local based parallel architecture with hardwired CNN for tomato defect detection. This architecture breaks down image‐wise detection into pixel‐wise localization and block‐wise classification. The pixel‐wise localization utilizes tomato‐aware information as constraints for localization performance. The block‐wise classification uses a fully pipelined network structure to obtain the classification result for each block as the pixel stream moves through the network. The classification network has a six‐layer lightweight network structure with quantization for hardwired type implementation on FPGA. The experiment results show that the proposed architecture processes 1000 FPS images with 0.9476 ms/frame delay. And for detection performance, this architecture keeps f1−score at 80.18%, only 1.31% lower than ResNet50 based detection system.

The automotive industry has recently adopted multicore processors and microcontrollers to meet the requirements of new features, such as autonomous driving, and comply with the latest safety standards. However, inter-core communication poses a challenge in ensuring real-time requirements such as time determinism and low latencies. Concurrent access to shared buffers makes predicting the flow of data difficult, leading to decreased algorithm performance. This study explores the integration of Logical Execution Time (LET) and Time-Division Multiple Access (TDMA) models in multicore embedded systems to address the challenges in inter-core communication by synchronizing read/write operations across different cores, significantly reducing latency variability and improving system predictability and consistency. Experimental results demonstrate that this integrated approach eliminates data loss and maintains fixed operation rates, achieving a consistent latency of 11 ms. The LET-TDMA method reduces latency variability to approximately 1 ms, maintaining a maximum delay of 1.002 ms and a minimum delay of 1.001 ms, compared to the variability in the LET-only method, which ranged from 3.2846 ms to 8.9257 ms for different configurations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To validate safety-related automotive software systems, experimental tests are conducted at different stages of the V-model, which are referred as "X-in-the-loop (XIL) methods". However, these methods have significant drawbacks in terms of cost, time, effort and effectiveness. In this study, based on hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation and real-time fault injection (FI), a novel testing framework has been developed to validate system performance under critical abnormal situations during the development process. The developed framework provides an approach for the real-time analysis of system behavior under single and simultaneous sensor/actuator-related faults during virtual test drives without modeling effort for fault mode simulations. Unlike traditional methods, the faults are injected programmatically and the system architecture is ensured without modification to meet the real-time constraints. Moreover, a virtual environment is modeled with various environmental conditions, such as weather, traffic and roads. The validation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed framework in a variety of driving scenarios. The evaluation results demonstrate that the system behavior via HIL simulation has a high accuracy compared to the non-real-time simulation method with an average relative error of 2.52. The comparative study with the state-of-the-art methods indicates that the proposed approach exhibits superior accuracy and capability. This, in turn, provides a safe, reliable and realistic environment for the real-time validation of complex automotive systems at a low cost, with minimal time and effort. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A 1 millisecond (1‐ms) vision system that guarantees high efficiency and timely response for tomato defect detection is essential for factory automation. Because of various defect appearances, recently many existing researches focus on CNN based defect detection, but few of them attempt to reach high processing speed to adapt to the factorial assembly line. This paper proposes a global to multi‐scale local based parallel architecture with hardwired CNN for tomato defect detection. This architecture breaks down image‐wise detection into pixel‐wise localization and block‐wise classification. The pixel‐wise localization utilizes tomato‐aware information as constraints for localization performance. The block‐wise classification uses a fully pipelined network structure to obtain the classification result for each block as the pixel stream moves through the network. The classification network has a six‐layer lightweight network structure with quantization for hardwired type implementation on FPGA. The experiment results show that the proposed architecture processes 1000 FPS images with 0.9476 ms/frame delay. And for detection performance, this architecture keeps f1−score$f_{1}-score$ at 80.18%, only 1.31% lower than ResNet50 based detection system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reference point for developing any artefact is its specification; to develop software formally, a formal specification is required. For sequential programs, pre and post conditions (together with abstract objects) suffice; rely and guarantee conditions extend the scope of formal development approaches to tackle concurrency. In addition, real-time systems need ways of both requiring progress and relating that progress to some notion of time. This paper extends rely-guarantee ideas to cope with specifications of—and assumptions about—real-time schedulers. Furthermore it shows how the approach helps identify and specify fault-tolerance aspects of such schedulers by systematically challenging the assumptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the scheduling of hard real-time systems on multicore platforms, significant unpredictability arises from interference caused by shared hardware resources. The objective of this paper is to offer a schedulability analysis for such systems by assuming a general model that introduces interference as a time parameter for each task. The analysis assumes constrained deadlines and is provided for fixed priorities. It is based on worst-case response time analysis, which exists in the literature for monocore systems. We demonstrate that the worst-case response time is an upper bound, and we evaluate our proposal with synthetic loads and execution on a real platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new approach for output feedback L 1 adaptive control based on a proportional adaptation law is presented. The effectiveness of this design is assessed in simulation and validated through real-time testing on an airfoil pitch control wind tunnel experimental rig. Experimental evaluation of the robustness of the controllers, assessed by introducing various disturbances into the control signals, shows that the adaptive control has a better performance compared to PID control, particularly in scenarios with reduced control effectiveness and time-varying disturbances. The experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method in practical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability to formulate maps of minimum detectable activities (MDAs) that describe the sensitivity of an ad hoc measurement that used one or more freely moving radiation detector systems would be significantly beneficial for the conduct and understanding of many radiological search activities. In a real-time scenario with a free-moving detector system, an MDA map can provide useful feedback to the operator about which areas have not been searched as thoroughly as others, thereby allowing the operator to prioritize future actions. Similarly, such a calculation could be used to inform subsequent navigation decisions of autonomous platforms. Here we describe a near real-time MDA mapping approach that can be applied when searching for point sources using detected events in a spectral region of interest (ROI) while assuming a constant, unknown background rate. We show the application of this MDA mapping method to a real scenario, a survey of the interior of a small building using a handheld detector system. Repeated measurements with no sources and with 137Cs sources of different strengths yield results consistent with the estimated thresholds and MDA values; namely, that for background-only measurements no sources are seen above threshold anywhere in the scene, while when sources are present they are detected above the thresholds calculated for their locations.

Abstract Efficient animal detection is essential for biodiversity protection. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been widely used because of their low costs and minimal environmental intrusion. However, using UAVs for practical animal detection poses two challenges: (a) the UAV's fly highly to avoid disturbing animals, resulting in small object detection problems; (b) the limited processing power of UAVs makes large state‐of‐the‐art (SOTA) methods (e.g., You Only Look Once V7, YOLOv7) difficult to deploy. This work proposes the WILD‐YOLO based on YOLOv7 to deal with the two problems. To detect small objects, WILD‐YOLO improves upon YOLOv7 by adding a small object detection head in the head part. To enable real‐time animal detection in field environments with UAVs, the lighten FasterNet and GhostNet have been used to significantly reduce the model size. Compared to YOLOv7, WILD‐YOLO significantly reduces the number of parameters, making it suitable for lightweight deployment on UAVs. Additionally, comparisons with other lightweight models such as YOLOv7‐tiny, YOLOv5‐s, YOLOv4‐s and MobilenetV2 on the datasets are conducted. The experimental results demonstrate that this proposed WILD‐YOLO method outperforms other approaches and has great potential for effective detection of wildlife in complex environments encountered by UAVs.

Abstract The operational performance of grid‐connected active front‐end converters (AFEs) faces challenges arising from the intricate interplay among phase‐locked loop (PLL) non‐linearities, grid impedance, and conventional control strategies, resulting in compromised stability. This study introduces a refined approach to dynamic model predictive control (MPC) by integrating recursive least squares (RLS) for the precise estimation of physical model parameters, thereby addressing stability concerns. Unlike conventional methodologies, the proposed enhanced RLS‐based MPC approach, equipped with an auto‐tuning feature, allows for the design of controllers without a prerequisite understanding of exact external dynamics. Notably, this technique exhibits exceptional disturbance rejection capabilities. The evaluation of the cost function at each sampling interval facilitates the determination of optimal switching states based on predicted variables. Gate pulses for the switches of the AFEs are generated accordingly. Employing a simulation platform, the proposed control structure's performance across varied conditions is comprehensively assessed, encompassing alterations in grid impedance and system non‐linearities. The method adeptly integrates inherent non‐linearities within the system, showcasing exceptional robustness in diverse dynamic scenarios. To further substantiate the efficacy of the proposed control system over conventional approaches, simulation results are validated using a laboratory hardware platform equipped with Typhoon HIL and dSPACE real‐time emulators, providing tangible evidence of the proposed control system's effectiveness in real‐world hardware setups. The multifaceted approach, encompassing precise parameter estimation, predictive control, auto‐tuning, disturbance rejection, robust design, and real‐time evaluation, collectively establishes a resilient foundation for enhancing and maintaining the overall stability of the system across diverse operating scenarios.

Abstract In engineering fields, time‐varying matrix inversion (TVMI) issue is often encountered. Zeroing neural network (ZNN) has been extensively employed to resolve the TVMI problem. Nevertheless, the original ZNN (OZNN) and the integral‐enhanced ZNN (IEZNN) usually fail to deal with the TVMI problem under unbounded noises, such as linear noises. Therefore, a neural network model that can handle the TVMI under linear noise interference is urgently needed. This paper develops a double integral‐enhanced ZNN (DIEZNN) model based on a novel integral‐type design formula with inherent linear‐noise tolerance. Moreover, its convergence and robustness are verified by derivation strictly. For comparison and verification, the OZNN and the IEZNN models are adopted to resolve the TVMI under multiple identical noise environments. The experiments proved that the DIEZNN model has excellent advantages in solving TVMI problems under linear noises. In general, the DIEZNN model is an innovative work and is proposed for the first time. Satisfyingly, the errors of DIEZNN are always less than 1 × 10−3 under linear noises, whereas the error norms of OZNN and IEZNN models are not convergent to zero. In addition, these models are applied to the control of the controllable permanent magnet synchronous motor chaotic system to indicate the superiority of the DIEZNN.

Abstract The solving of dynamic matrix square root (DMSR) problems is frequently encountered in many scientific and engineering fields. Although the original zeroing neural network is powerful for solving the DMSR, it cannot vanish the influence of the noise perturbations, and its constant‐coefficient design scheme cannot accelerate the convergence speed. Therefore, a noise‐tolerate and adaptive coefficient zeroing neural network (NTACZNN) is raised to enhance the robust noise immunity performance and accelerate the convergence speed simultaneously. Then, the global convergence and robustness of the proposed NTACZNN are theoretically analysed under an ideal environment and noise‐perturbed circumstances. Furthermore, some illustrative simulation examples are designed and performed in order to substantiate the efficacy and advantage of the NTACZNN for the DMSR problem solution. Compared with some existing ZNNs, the proposed NTACZNN possesses advanced performance in terms of noise tolerance, solution accuracy, and convergence rate.

Abstract The importance of hip adductor strength for injury prevention and performance benefits is well documented. The purpose of this study was to establish the intra‐ and inter‐day variability of peak force (PF) of a groin squeeze protocol using a custom‐designed compression strain gauge device. Sixteen semi‐professional soccer players completed three trials over three separate testing occasions with at least 24‐h rest between each session. The main findings were that the compression strain gauge was a reliable device for measuring PF within and between days. All intraclass correlations were higher than 0.80 and coefficients of variations were below 10% across the different sessions and trials. Due to the information gained through the compression strain gauge, the higher sampling frequency utilized, portability, and the relatively affordable price, this device offers an effective alternative for measuring maximal strength for hip adduction.

In order to improve the welfare of newborns, this study investigates the use of sound-recognition-based artificial intelligence (AI) approaches to the interpretation and monitoring of infant screams. Crying has long been a problem because it is the primary means of communication between infants and caregivers. The limitations of conventional interpretation techniques are discussed. These limitations include the subjective nature of interpretation and the inability to detect subtle variations in crying patterns. The goal of the research is to categorize crying patterns based on the cries of male and female infants and identify noises that are a sign of distress. The study utilized the Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) method to extract features from internet-sourced MP3 and WAV audio data. The technique successfully captured the unique qualities of each crying sound using various machine-learning models, including Random Forest and XGBoost. These models outperformed others with accuracy rates of 94.5% and 94.2%, respectively. These findings show how well these algorithms perform in correctly categorizing various newborn cries. The findings of this study establish the platform for possible Internet of Things (IoT) and healthcare framework implementations targeted at supporting parents in caring for their newborns by offering an insightful understanding of the distinctive vocalizations connected with weeping.

The paper describes low-cost hardware-based analog and digital real-time circuit simulators for the development of power electronics control circuits. During the process of designing and developing digital control circuits for power electronics systems, preliminary verification of control algorithms is required. For this purpose, software simulators such as Pspice, Psim, Matlab-Simulink, and many others are commonly used. Afterward, the developed control algorithm is implemented in the digital control system. For further verification of the implemented control algorithms, a hardware-based analog or digital simulator can be utilized. The paper presents the author’s proposed analog simulators. In the digital version of the simulator, TMS320F28388D microcontroller with 200 MHz clock was used. These simulators have demonstrated their usefulness in the development of power electronics systems.

Durational action timed automata (daTAs) are state transition systems like timed automata (TAs) that capture information regarding the concurrent execution of actions and their durations using maximality-based semantics. As the underlying semantics of daTAs are infinite due to the modeling of time progress, conventional model checking techniques become impractical for systems specified using daTAs. Therefore, a finite abstract representation of daTA behavior is required to enable model checking for such system specifications. For that, we propose a finite abstraction of the underlying semantics of a daTA-like region abstraction of timed automata. In addition, we highlight the unique benefits of daTAs by illustrating that they enable the verification of properties concerning concurrency and action duration that cannot be verified using the traditional TA model. We demonstrate mathematically that the number of states in durational action timed automata becomes significantly smaller than the number of states in timed automata as the number of actions increases, confirming the efficiency of daTAs in modeling behavior with action durations.

Recovering copper from end-of-life electronics, especially from printed circuit boards, provides significant economic benefits, reduces environmental impact, and supports a circular economy. This case study presents a data-driven approach to predicting copper recovery in the electrolysis stage of a bioleaching process by utilizing RGB sensor readings. We tested nine regression models using RGB values from experimental data. The gradient boosting model, optimized via response surface methodology (RSM), outperformed the others, with predictions matching 84% of observed patterns. These results demonstrate strong predictive capabilities, with scope for further accuracy enhancements. We offer an open-source, web-based digital twin designed specifically to monitor the bioleaching plant, enabling real-time and historical data analysis to support predictive maintenance. Our results underscore the potential to optimize the entire bioleaching process, marking a significant advancement for large-scale copper recovery. This study is the first to investigate predictive bioleaching continuous processes in a semi-industrial e-waste plant using RGB sensors, presenting a novel approach in the field.