In this work, the characterization of the radio channel for ISM 2.4GHz Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) for Judo applications is presented. Judo is an Olympic sport, in which the International Judo Federation (IJF) gives assistance and guidelines for the organizers of international competitions. Following IJF rules, the environments where Judo competitions are held are complex indoor scenarios in terms of radiopropagation, as some competition venues have large spectator capacity, multiple competition areas, furniture, and other facilities. The electromagnetic interference within the scenario is also an important issue, as personal portable devices, wireless microphones and other wireless communication systems used by the media are present. For the assessment of the impact that the topology and the morphology of these environments have on electromagnetic propagation, an in-house developed 3D ray-launching software has been used. Time domain results as well as estimations of received power level have been obtained for the complete volume of the scenario, which have been compared with measurements. The measurement campaign has been carried out deploying ZigBee-compliant XBee-Pro modules at a local Judo club's facilities, emulating a competition/training venue with a contest area with the dimensions specified by the IJF for international competitions, and using approved Judogis (jacket, trousers and belt). The analysis is completed with the inclusion of in-house human body computational model. The presented analysis can aid in the optimal network deployment, making the use of WSNs attractive for multiple applications in this kind of environments, as helping referees, monitoring vital signs, anti-doping control or Judoka identification.

Huge data processing contributes many factors in wireless sensor network such as network traffic and energy constraint. Using compressive sensing a new technique in data acquisition which reduced the required sampling rate to reconstruct the original signal will therefore lessen the power consumption. This paper will implement the compressive sensing algorithm of the wireless sensor network installed in the greenhouse. The primary objective of the design is to reduce the power consumption on wireless system network by maximizing the data packet payloads while minimizing the transmission activity of the Wireless Sensor Network. The sensor and receiver node consumes more power when transmission of data is taking place. The main contributions of this paper are to apply the compressive sensing algorithm in the greenhouse monitoring system to lessen the power consumption of the WSN, to serve as a reference for the new design of analog to digital converter using sampling rate lower than the traditional Nyquist rate and to give ideas to other researchers that compressive sensing can be applied to other WSN applications. This study will do the compression of the measured data in the sensor node and transmit it over a specified time. Matlab will be used to simulate and recover the original signal for verification of the results. The results will compare the power consumption of the existing system of the Precision Agriculture group in our laboratory.

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are very attractive materials due to their unique properties of small size, large surface area to volume ratio, high reactivity to the living cells, stability over high temperatures. These properties along with the evidence that GNPs are amenable to the attachment of biomolecules or ligands through well-known thiol and amino chemistry or simply by electrostatic interactions have led to a wealth of nanoparticle-based bio-devices for many teranostic applications and the research effort in the field is still huge. In the present work absorption spectroscopy, static and dynamic light scattering, Fourier-Transform infrared (FT-IR) microspectroscopy and TEM microscopy have been used to characterize different sized bare and biotinylated GNPs (from 20 to 70 nm diameter). These experimental techniques have been also applied to investigate the aggregation process of the biotinylated particles induced by addition of neutravidin at various concentrations in the nanomolar range. In particular, optical visible techniques have been used for estimating the size of particles before and after the biotin capping procedure. FT-IR microspectroscopy has allowed us to investigate the biochemical changes occurring in GNPs after interaction processes while TEM microscopy has enabled to observe the relative morphological modifications. Moreover, the outlined modifications in the scattering properties have been related to changes in the size also thanks to numerical evaluation of scattering cross section by using Mie theory. The complete characterization of these processes is of fundamental importance for further manipulations required for GNPs teranostic applications.

To study the sensitivity to micro-scale imperfections of the strength of a metallic, wafer-to-wafer MEMS bonding, we propose a three-scale numerical (finite element) approach. At the wafer level (macro-scale), accounting for the whole metallic sealing as nonlinear springs connecting the two silicon wafers modelled as thin plates, we link the force transferred by each single MEMS die to the external pressure applied to the wafers. This force is next used as an index for the input pressure at the die level (meso-scale), where the geometry of the metallic rings is accurately described: the local stress field at the interface between the two upper and lower metallic rings is so obtained. Finally, a micro-scale model is used to link the aforementioned local stress fields in the rings, to the bonding strength: representative volumes of the outer surfaces of the rings getting into contact, able to represent in a statistically way the relevant roughness (which is on the order or tens of nanometers at most), are adopted to obtain the relationship between the external pressure and the percentage of the sealed area. This information is exploited to discriminate, in terms of the expected bonding strength, different ring geometries.

This paper describes an automatically determination process of the security services for products and services on the Internet of Things. This process has as inputs the service context, the legislative diversity and the information involved among others. Considering the resources limitations in a Wireless Sensor Networks and the already mentioned inputs, it is possible to find the best solution to apply in each specific case. We will introduce the "Utility Matrix" as a main concept to link all interests of stakeholders regarding their security needs and the legal imperatives. The final solution has been implemented with an expert system. The process outputs are composed by several products as a security policy for the service; a protected data certification, and an effective tool to simulate and evaluate impacts over new services or when service conditions or laws change. Challenges to research over new technical solutions needs can also be obtained. This proposal will connect the Industrial, Judicial and Technological areas working together to obtain trustworthy certifications for all stakeholders.The results have been evaluated in a real scenario made up of a Wireless Sensor Network, over middleware service oriented platform in the framework of “AWARE project” and the expert system connected to the platform in order to configure the security services.

Many critical points in winemaking can affect final product quality. Wine is a dynamic system where conditions could be strongly different between products of the same vineyard and even among each wine vat, due to microbiological and chemical process. This high variability means an increase in work in term of control and process management. As for Precision Viticulture, the winemaking process required a site-specific methodology, in order to optimize cellar practices management and quality production. This kind of approach suggest a new concept of winemaking, which could be identified as Precision Enology. The Institute of Biometeorology of the National Research Council has developed a wireless monitoring system, which consists of silicone barrel bungs equipped with sensors for the measurement of physical and chemical parameters in wine stored in barrel. The preliminary prototype was published on the Australian Journal of Grape and Wine Research. In the present work is presented an open-source evolution of the system, with Arduino based technology. Results have shown good performance in terms of data transmission and accuracy, demonstrating characteristics perfectly suited for monitoring with minimal size and power consumption. The system has been designed to create a low-cost product, which allows to monitor in real-time wine evolution in each barrel directly from the office or smartphone, minimizing costs and time for sampling and laboratory analysis. The possibility to integrate a wide range of sensors on the system makes it a flexible tool capable to satisfy various monitoring needs in winemaking.

The Internet of Things paradigm is a new research field which connects the physical world objects to the internet and allowing easy access to these objects in order to monitor and manage them. The objects are associated with unique identifiers and capability to transfer data over network without the intervention of humans and traditional computers. Wireless sensor networks play a major role in this paradigm in relating the physical object data to the internet. The wireless sensor networks are put together using low cost computing devices and embedded systems such as Arduino, Raspberry Pi and other RF systems. The Sensor cloud is a secondary form of cloud computing which enables the management of the physical world objects on cloud with features to store, process, visualize and share data from these objects. The sensor cloud is therefore becoming popular in providing an open, flexible and reconfigurable platform for many monitoring and controlling applications. This paper explores the idea of IoT to enable the monitoring of cold supply chain through the deployment of wireless sensor network in logistics and cold storage facilities and integrating them to the Xively sensor cloud for a complete monitoring and end-to-end visibility.

We recently proposed a surface-mounted structural health monitoring (SHM) scheme based on commercial, low-cost inertial MEMS sensors. While such commercial-off-the-shelf sensors are not very accurate, their low cost and negligible weight allow them to be deployed in dense arrays, possibly overcoming inaccuracy through redundancy. Taking the sensor characteristics into account, the development of a MEMS-based SHM method for lightweight structures like thin plates, was tackled from two different viewpoints: sensor accuracy verification, and optimal sensor placement. To assess the accuracy, a preliminary investigation was run on standard composite specimens for delamination testing, adopting a single MEMS three-axis accelerometer. A theoretical interpretation of the results, based on beam bending theory, showed the ability of the system to provide a one-to-one relationship between the crack length and the sensor output. Concerning the placement of the sensors, an approach for their optimal deployment over thin structures was developed, using a topology optimization-like formulation. Such formulation is able to search for the optimal layout of the network, by maximizing the sensitivity of the overall sensors output to a damage possibly located anywhere. In this work, accounting for the characteristic sizes of a structural element and of the MEMS package, which might differ by orders of magnitude, we also introduce a multi-scale (actually, two-scale) approach to sensor deployment. It is shown that, no matter what the location, size, and shape of the damaged area are, a trivial array of evenly spaced sensors does not represent the optimal solution to monitor the structural health.

The use of innovative fibers, that include carbon fibers, may support many important aspects in the building construction, making them stronger and more efficient. Carbon based textile materials, such as materials obtained by weaving and braiding techniques in composites with epoxy matrices, have been used in architecture and building design to reinforce building structures. The utilization of filaments and resin matrices is important due to the high strength of such composites, giving them the needed performance to reinforce concrete structures. However, the textile material used to reinforce structures can perform other functions, such as integrating sensors or monitoring sensors of some variables that are important in case of increased load, instability or deformation that for instance occurs with earthquakes. This paper analyses some carbon filament properties, textile structures and their composites with epoxy, with the goal to understand these materials ability to sense very low deformations. To understand how the carbon textile materials can sense and register such occurrences, the study focusses on the variation analysis of the carbon filaments electrical resistivity embedded in epoxy during tensile tests, performed at the dynamometer, and over concrete specimens. Both volume electrical resistivity and contact electrical resistivity of the composite materials were measured. The obtained results demonstrate the possibility of using carbon filaments to design textile materials able to sense very small strains in concrete structures.

Currently there is a restricted range of specific materials that are used as reducing impacts vibration on the building slab. The materials used in construction as resilient material, must meet very low elasticity modulus values. While the value of soft rubber is on the order of 4 GPa, the value of steel is 160 GPa (40 times greater). These low values ​​make differences of just 2 GPa (imperceptible in steel), produce very important variations in acoustic insulation gain. To determine the values of the elasticity modulus of the material used, test is required. The execution of the test is a difficult task and therefore expensive. First you need to prepare a slab reference, which must be tested independently. Subsequently, it has to place the floating slab, and re-testing. With the difference of the measurements the modulus of elasticity are determined. This work presents an alternative system that is simpler and cheaper. This system shall include a device to hit that is capable of creating a hit in all the trials and a capacitive sensor that is able to determine, once produced the hit, the energy absorbed by the plate. Once produced the impact, the plate suffer a deformation absorbing partly of the energy. The energy that has not absorbed by the plate is transmitted to the slab, and therefore the one heard in the adjoining enclosure as an impact noise or vibration. The plate absorbs the energy through its own deformation. Measuring the deformation with the sensor, the absorbed energy is obtained. After the execution of the test with the new device, proceed to the completion of a standard sound absorption  and vibration in situ test, according to the UNE-EN 140-7. By this way the sound insulation value and vibration is obtained, using a standard test to characterize the material. With the completion of testing on different geometric configurations of plates, we can establish a correlation between the values ​​obtained by the proposed alternative test in this research, and the results of a standardized test.