Cybersecurity is a critical issue for Real-Time IoT applications since high performance and low latencies are required, along with security requirements to protect the large number of attack surfaces to which IoT devices are exposed. Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) is largely adopted in an IoT context to provide security services such as key-exchange and digital signature. For Real-Time IoT applications, hardware acceleration for ECC-based algorithms can be mandatory to meet low-latency and low-power/energy requirements. In this paper, we propose a fast and configurable hardware accelerator for NIST P-256/-521 elliptic curves, developed in the context of the European Processor Initiative. The proposed architecture supports the most used cryptography schemes based on ECC such as Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (ECDSA), Elliptic Curve Integrated Encryption Scheme (ECIES), Elliptic Curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) and Elliptic Curve Menezes-Qu-Vanstone (ECMQV). A modified version... [more]

One of the basic conditions for the successful implementation of energy demand-side management (EDM) in smart grids is the monitoring of different loads with an electrical load monitoring system. Energy and sustainability concerns present a multitude of issues that can be addressed using approaches of data mining and machine learning. However, resolving such problems due to the lack of publicly available datasets is cumbersome. In this study, we first designed an efficient energy disaggregation (ED) model and evaluated it on the basis of publicly available benchmark data from the Residential Energy Disaggregation Dataset (REDD), and then we aimed to advance ED research in smart grids using the Turkey Electrical Appliances Dataset (TEAD) containing household electricity usage data. In addition, the TEAD was evaluated using the proposed ED model tested with benchmark REDD data. The Internet of things (IoT) architecture with sensors and Node-Red software installations were established to... [more]

In this paper, the dynamic experimental identification of an inductive energy harvester for the conversion of vibration energy into electric power is presented. Recent advances and requirements in structural monitoring and vehicle diagnostic allow defining Autonomous Internet of Things (AIoT) systems that combine wireless sensor nodes with energy harvester devices properly designed considering the specific duty cycle. The proposed generator was based on an asymmetrical magnetic suspension and was addressed to structural monitoring applications on vehicles. The design of the interfaces of the electric, magnetic, and structural coupled systems forming the harvester are described including dynamic modeling and simulation. Finally, the results of laboratory tests were compared with the harvester dynamic response calculated through numerical simulations, and a good correspondence was obtained.

The role of distributor system operators is experiencing a gradual but relevant change to include enhanced ancillary and energy dispatch services needed to manage the increased power provided by intermittent distributed generations in medium voltage networks. In this context, the paper proposes the insertion, in strategic points of the network, of specific power electronic systems, denoted as active nodes, which permit the remote controllability of the active and reactive power flow. Such capabilities, as a further benefit, enable the distributor system operators to provide ancillary network services without requiring any procurement with distributed generation systems owners. In particular, the paper highlights the benefits of active nodes, demonstrating their capabilities in reducing the inverse power flow issues from medium to high voltage lines focusing on a network cluster including renewable energy resources. As a further novelty, this study has accounted for a real cluster opera... [more]

In the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) has emerged as a viable multiple access method due to its superior efficiency. In this paper, a new power allocation technique for NOMA-enabled IIoT devices is presented with trade-offs between increasing energy efficiency and decreasing power consumption. We present a joint optimization of transmission rate and energy harvesting in simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) NOMA-enabled IIoT devices. With the power splitting (PS) approach, we examine how to improve overall transmission rate and harvested energy, simultaneously, while fulfilling the minimum rate and harvested energy needs of each IIoT device in a SWIPT-enabled NOMA system. An objective function is established by adding transmission rates obtained from information decoding and the transformed throughput from energy harvesting. The combination of management approaches with Industry 4.0 technology provides a viable strateg... [more]

Blockchain technology has emerging areas of deployment in diverse sectors and use cases. In this study, several potential application areas of blockchain with promising benefits have been identified in the natural gas industry. There is no single solution that can address different challenges and meet disparate requirements. Therefore, it is important to understand the needs of the natural gas industry and propose appropriate blockchain solutions. Moreover, in the literature, there is a lack of detailed case studies involving industrial experts from the natural gas sector. Expert opinion can be useful for prioritizing the most needed or expected blockchain application areas among several options. By considering privacy, authentication, speed, security, energy consumption, and costs, suitable blockchain types and consensus mechanisms can be determined. This study presents one of the first detailed case studies for tailored applications of blockchain in the natural gas industry. Through... [more]

Energy is at the center of human society and drives the technologies and overall human well-being. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are widely used for system modeling, prediction, control, and optimization in the energy sector. The internet of things (IoT) is the core of the third wave of the information industry revolution and AI. In the energy sector, tens of billions of IoT appliances are linked to the Internet, and these appliances generate massive amounts of data every day. Extracting useful information from the massive amount of data will be a very meaningful thing. Complex event processing (CEP) is a stream-based technique that can extract beneficial information from real-time data through pre-establishing pattern rules. The formulation of pattern rules requires strong domain expertise. Therefore, at present, the pattern rules of CEP still need to be manually formulated by domain experts. However, in the face of complex, massive amounts of IoT data, manually set... [more]

Electric vehicles (EVs) are becoming popular due to their efficiency, eco-friendliness, and the increasing cost of fossil fuel. EVs support a variety of apps because they house powerful processors and allow for increased connectivity. This makes them an attractive target of stealthy cryptomining malware. Recent incidents demonstrate that both the EV and its communication model are vulnerable to cryptojacking attacks. The goal of this research is to explore the extent to which cryptojacking impacts EVs in terms of recharging and cost. We assert that while cryptojacking provides a financial advantage to attackers, it can severely degrade efficiency and cause battery loss. In this paper we present a simulation model for connected EVs, the cryptomining software, and the road infrastructure. A novel framework is proposed that incorporates these models and allows an objective quantification of the extent of this economic damage and the advantage to the attacker. Our results indicate that bat... [more]

Increasing waste generation has become a significant issue over the globe due to the rapid increase in urbanization and industrialization. In the literature, many issues that have a direct impact on the increase of waste and the improper disposal of waste have been investigated. Most of the existing work in the literature has focused on providing a cost-efficient solution for the monitoring of garbage collection system using the Internet of Things (IoT). Though an IoT-based solution provides the real-time monitoring of a garbage collection system, it is limited to control the spreading of overspill and bad odor blowout gasses. The poor and inadequate disposal of waste produces toxic gases, and radiation in the environment has adverse effects on human health, the greenhouse system, and global warming. While considering the importance of air pollutants, it is imperative to monitor and forecast the concentration of air pollutants in addition to the management of the waste. In this paper,... [more]

With regard to the best electro-chemical efficiency of an active direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), the stacks and their balance of plant (BOP) are complex to build and operate. The yield of making the large-scale stacks is difficult to improve. Therefore, a portable power station made of multiple simpler planar type stack modules with only appropriate semi-active BOPs was developed. A planar stack and its miniature BOP components are integrated into a semi-active DMFC stack module for easy production, assembly, and operation. An improved energy management system is designed to control multiple DMFC stack modules in parallel to enhance its power-generation capacity and stability so that the portability, environmental tolerance, and long-term durability become comparable to that of the active systems. A prototype of the power station was tested for 3600 h in an actual outdoor environment through winter and summer. Its performance and maintenance events are analyzed to validate its stabil... [more]

IoT-based applications operate in a client−server architecture, which requires a specific communication protocol. This protocol is used to establish the client−server communication model, allowing all clients of the system to perform specific tasks through internet communications. Many data communication protocols for the Internet of Things are used by IoT platforms, including message queuing telemetry transport (MQTT), advanced message queuing protocol (AMQP), MQTT for sensor networks (MQTT-SN), data distribution service (DDS), constrained application protocol (CoAP), and simple object access protocol (SOAP). These protocols only support single-topic messaging. Thus, in this work, an IoT message protocol that supports multi-topic messaging is proposed. This protocol will add a simple “brain” for IoT platforms in order to realize an intelligent IoT architecture. Moreover, it will enhance the traffic throughput by reducing the overheads of messages and the delay of multi-topic messaging... [more]

With the growth in smart technology, customers have a chance to contribute to demand response programs and reduce their bills of electricity actively. This paper presents an intelligent wireless smart plug demonstration, which is designed to control the electrical appliances in the home energy management system (HEMS) application with a response to the utility company’s signal. Besides, a linear model of an energy management system utilizing a dynamic priority for electrical appliances is used as an energy management strategy. This can be useful for decreasing energy consumption in peak hours. Proposed hardware is tested with two different price strategies such as real-time pricing and a combination of this and incremental block rate (IBR) pricing. A small one-story house with ordinary electrical appliances is used as a test-bed for the proposed hardware and strategy. Initial results show that intelligent plugs can decrease the energy cost by 9% per day with an effective peak-to-averag... [more]

The continuous evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) makes it possible to connect everyday objects to networks in order to monitor physical and environmental conditions, which is made possible due to wireless sensor networks (WSN) that enable the transfer of data. However, it has also brought about many challenges that need to be addressed, such as excess energy consumption. Accordingly, this paper presents and analyzes wireless network energy models using five different communication protocols: Ad Hoc On-Demand Distance Vector (AODV), Multi-Parent Hierarchical (MPH), Dynamic Source Routing (DSR), Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) and Zigbee Tree Routing (ZTR). First, a series of metrics are defined to establish a comparison and determine which protocol exhibits the best energy consumption performance. Then, simulations are performed and the results are compared with real scenarios. The energy analysis is conducted with three proposed sleeping algorithms: Modified Sl... [more]

Solar tracking systems enable increased efficiency of a photovoltaic system through a continuous adjustment of its position with respect to the sun, thus increasing the generation of electrical energy. The integration of photovoltaic solar tracking systems in buildings and houses enables the energy needs of users in a broader way to be covered. This integration is facilitated through the existence of technologies such as access to the Internet through Wi-Fi, which allows developing systems to be encompassed within the domain of the “Internet of Things” (IoT). In this study, a first-of-its-kind “open-loop” solar tracker was designed and developed, which executes the tracking algorithm in the Firebase web service and allows the exchange of data with said service through a NodeMCU development board, which has an integrated Wi-Fi module. After an experimental campaign in Aguascalientes, central Mexico, gains in terms of collected energy on average were measured at 29.9% in May compared to... [more]

This paper proposes a video-based smoke detection technique for early warning in antifire surveillance systems. The algorithm is developed to detect the smoke behavior in a restricted video surveillance environment, both indoor (e.g., railway carriage, bus wagon, industrial plant, or home/office) or outdoor (e.g., storage area or parking area). The proposed technique exploits a Kalman estimator, color analysis, image segmentation, blob labeling, geometrical features analysis, and M of N decisor, in order to extract an alarm signal within a strict real-time deadline. This new technique requires just a few seconds to detect fire smoke, and it is 15 times faster compared to the requirements of fire-alarm standards for industrial or transport systems, e.g., the EN50155 standard for onboard train fire-alarm systems. Indeed, the EN50155 considers a response time of at least 60 s for onboard systems. The proposed technique has been tested and compared with state-of-art systems using the open... [more]

Blockchain, as an emerging technology and a disruptive innovation, has attracted attention from both academia and industry. However, there are many potential risks associated with it, such as the technical risk, the legal risk and the privacy risk. A comprehensive risk analysis is crucial for cost-effective deployment of blockchain technology. Important adoption decisions, including when to deploy blockchain, how to plan the investment, how to transfer current businesses onto blockchain, and how to price the blockchain service depend on this risk analysis. Yet very little study exists concerning the blockchain adoption planning with risks analysis. This research presents a cost-and-risk analysis framework and an adoption planning method for the case of blockchain application in carbon trading. Design requirements implied by the analysis are inferred and the architecture of a novel hybrid blockchain system is proposed. The system leverages the advantages of blockchain technology and inc... [more]

One of the established unstable power swing (out-of-step) detection algorithms in micro grid/smart grid power systems uses a trajectory of apparent impedance in the R-X plane. However, this algorithm is not suitable for fast out-of-step conditions and it is hard to detect out-of-step conditions exactly. Another algorithm for out-of-step detection is using phasor measurement units (PMUs). However, PMUs need extra equipment. This paper presents the out-of-step detection algorithm using the trajectory of complex power. The trajectory of complex power and generator mechanical power is used to identify out-of-step conditions. A second order low pass digital filter is used to extract the generator mechanical power from the complex power. Variations of complex power are used to identify equilibrium points between stable and unstable conditions. The proposed out-of-step algorithm is based on the modification of assessment of a transient stability using equal area criterion (EAC). The proposed... [more]

Blockchain technology is increasingly used worldwide to enhance the performance and profit of any environment through its defining characteristics, such as security, auditability, immutability, and inconspicuousness. Owing to these characteristics, the blockchain can be used in various non-financial operations of some domains, such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and distributed computing. However, implementing blockchain technology in IoT is not always a feasible solution because blockchain deployment is costly, it has limited extensibility and provides irregular bandwidth and latency. In this regard, a simple size extensible (SSE) blockchain has been proposed to provide an optimal solution for IoT environments by satisfying the needs of the IoT environment as well as ensuring end-to-end security. The implementation of the proposed blockchain develops an overlay network to obtain a distributed environment where the blockchain is handled by the resources present therein. Two novel algo... [more]

This paper proposes a new mass estimation for a vehicle system, utilizing the characteristics of engine torque local convex minimum, where the mass can be estimated based on the driving forces and the longitudinal accelerations only. Fundamentally, this approach generally requires no other information about an aerodynamic effect, a road grade, or a rolling friction, which is usually demanded by the existing well-known longitudinal dynamics and adaptive filter-based estimation methods. The effectiveness of the proposed approach was evaluated and validated by both TruckSim/Simulink co-simulation and actual field test data. It is found that the proposed estimation technique is more favorable for a situation where the vehicle is exposed to low-speed regions. In addition to this new mass estimation strategy, other new and current existing methods were explored and are reviewed here. Moreover, this study suggested a guideline for a hybrid-type mass estimation strategy to predict a mass by co... [more]

Condition monitoring of gear-based mechanical systems in non-stationary operation conditions is in general very challenging. This issue is particularly important for wind energy technology because most of the modern wind turbines are geared and gearbox damages account for at least the 20% of their unavailability time. In this work, a new method for the diagnosis of drive-train bearings damages is proposed: the general idea is that vibrations are measured at the tower instead of at the gearbox. This implies that measurements can be performed without impacting the wind turbine operation. The test case considered in this work is a wind farm owned by the Renvico company, featuring six wind turbines with 2 MW of rated power each. A measurement campaign has been conducted in winter 2019 and vibration measurements have been acquired at five wind turbines in the farm. The rationale for this choice is that, when the measurements have been acquired, three wind turbines were healthy, one wind tur... [more]

LoRa (Long Range) is a long-range communications capacity with chirp spread spectrum modulation. It has been developed for Internet of Things (IoT) applications for long-distance and low power consumption. Some authors proposed LoRa protocols such as LoRaWAN, LoRaBlink, DQ-LoRa and the multi-hop LoRa network with linear topology; however, these protocols have disadvantages. In this paper, we propose a minimized latency multi-hop LoRa network protocol that is collision-free with low latency to improve on the disadvantages. First, in the proposed protocol, tree topology is constructed by exchanging packets between LoRa nodes and the sink node. During this period, a timeslot and channel are assigned to each tree link, over which LoRa nodes communicate with their parent node and which is collision-free with its neighbor nodes. After the tree construction period, LoRa nodes start data transmission using the timeslot and channel that they have already been assigned to in the tree constructio... [more]

Advanced smart grid technologies enable energy prosumers to trade surplus energy from their distributed renewable energy sources with other peer prosumers through peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading. In many previous works, P2P energy trading was facilitated by blockchain technology through blockchain’s distributive nature and capacity to run smart contracts. However, the feature that all the data and transactions on a blockchain are visible to all blockchain nodes may significantly threaten the privacy of the parties participating in P2P energy trading. There are many previous works that have attempted to mitigate this problem. However, all these works focused on the anonymity of participants but did not protect the data and transactions. To address this issue, we propose a P2P energy trading system on a blockchain where all bids are encrypted and peer matching is performed on the encrypted bids by a functional encryption-based smart contract. The system guarantees that the information... [more]

Although mud pumps are vital components of a drilling rig, their failures are frequent. The identification of technical condition of these high-pressure piston pumps is difficult. There are no reliable criteria for the assessment of mud pump condition. In this paper, faults of the pump valve module are identified by means of acoustic emission (AE) signals. The characteristics of these signals are extracted by wavelet packet signal processing. This method has been verified by experiments conducted on a NOV (National Oilwell Varco) -made triplex 14-P-220 mud pump (mounted in the drillship). The results show that the wavelet packet signal processing method can effectively extract the frequency band energy eigenvalues of the signals. Besides, some operational problems associated with high pressure piston mud pumps are presented. A non-invasive method for diagnosing the technical condition of such pumps is being developed at the Maritime University of Szczecin.

In this paper, a Radio Frequency (RF) energy harvester (EH) system for Internet of Things (IoT)-related applications is presented. The proposed EH architecture operates at 5.2 GHz band and utilizes multiple rectenna. This approach enhances the efficiency of the whole system over a wide dynamic RF input range. In the presented circuit, configuration of the rectenna is controlled by Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) with respect to the input power level of the received RF input signal. In addition, an automatic adaptive matching based on the configuration of the rectenna, level of the received signal, and load current adjusts the matching network. The rectenna is realized through the Radio Frequency-Direct Current (RF-DC) converter composed of two Schottky diodes and generates the output DC voltage. Finally, a buck-boost converter provides the flattened and fixed voltage for the IoT and wearable devices. The 5.2 GHz band reconfigurable system demonstrates 67% high efficiency and 6.1 V... [more]

In order to ensure the information security, most of the important information including the data of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) in the energy internet is currently transmitted and exchanged through the intranet or the carrier communication. The former increases the cost of network construction, and the latter is susceptible to interference and attacks in the process of information dissemination. The blockchain is an emerging decentralized architecture and distributed computing paradigm. Under the premise that these nodes do not need mutual trust, the blockchain can implement trusted peer-to-peer communication for protecting the important information by adopting distributed consensus mechanisms, encryption algorithms, point-to-point transmission and smart contracts. In response to the above issues, this paper firstly analyzes the information security problems existing in the energy internet from the four perspectives of system control layer, device access, market transaction... [more]