Using Augmented Reality and Drones in Tandem to Serve Smart Cities

Augmented Reality Technologies as such have been known since the first decade of the 21st century. However, due to the relatively high costs of terminal equipment, the lack of mass demand in industries, their unpreparedness to implement augmented reality in production processes, the limited use of augmented reality in the educational process, etc., this technology did not become networked. In the broadest sense of this word, the traffic generated by augmented reality significantly affects both the principles of network construction and its planning. The article is devoted to studying the interaction of augmented reality applications and control methods for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The study was carried out experimentally using the developed experimental stand. During the experiment, an augmented reality application was used to control the UAV. The assessments of the quality of service of the network and subjective evaluations of the quality of perception were obtained. The Hurst parameter was used to determine the relationship between the quality of communication network service and the quality of perception. The parameters of the communication network maintenance are determined to ensure the specified rate of perception when controlling the UAV using the augmented reality application.

Non-Sequential Linear Construction Project Scheduling Model for Minimizing Idle Equipment Using Constraint Programming (CP)

Over the last several decades, the scheduling of linear construction projects (LCPs) has been explored extensively by experts. The linear scheduling method (LSM), which focuses on work rate and work continuity, has the advantage of tackling LCPs’ scheduling problems. The traditional LSM uses work continuity to monitor resource allocation continuity on the premise that activities with the same type of work use the same crew. However, some LCPs require a combination of different types of equipment to comprise the crew. Sometimes, parts of different crews require the same types of equipment, and sometimes, the same crew requires different equipment configurations. This causes the pattern of work continuity to be different from the pattern of resource allocation continuity. Therefore, we propose an optimization model of the LSM to minimize idle equipment on a non-sequential linear construction project—i.e., a road network maintenance project. This model is intended to minimize the number of idle equipment and their idle time to achieve more efficient scheduling for linear construction projects. This model offers novel details of resource allocation continuity assessment by taking into account equipment combination and configuration (ECC). Therefore, the scheduling concept used by the proposed model is named the linear scheduling model with ECC (LSM–ECC). The model was developed using constraint programming (CP), as CP has good performance and robustness in the optimization field. The model was implemented to a representation of a road network maintenance project and has satisfactory results.

Implementation of a 46-node quantum metropolitan area network

Quantum key distribution (QKD) enables secure key exchanges between two remote users. The ultimate goal of secure communication is to establish a global quantum network. The existing field tests suggest that quantum networks are feasible. To achieve a practical quantum network, we need to overcome several challenges including realizing versatile topologies for large scales, simple network maintenance, extendable configuration and robustness to node failures. To this end, we present a field operation of a quantum metropolitan-area network with 46 nodes and show that all these challenges can be overcome with cutting-edge quantum technologies. In particular, we realize different topological structures and continuously run the network for 31 months, by employing standard equipment for network maintenance with an extendable configuration. We realize QKD pairing and key management with a sophisticated key control centre. In this implementation, the final keys have been used for secure communication such as real-time voice telephone, text messaging and file transmission with one-time pad encryption, which can support 11 pairs of users to make audio calls simultaneously. Combined with intercity quantum backbone and ground–satellite links, our metropolitan implementation paves the way toward a global quantum network.

Developing An Optimization Model For Pavement Maintenance Planning And Resource Allocation In Hossana Town, Ethiopia

Pavement Management System is designed to provide objective information and useful data for analysis so that road managers can make more consistent, cost-effective, and defensible decisions related to the preservation of a pavement network. During the process of road network maintenance and rehabilitation, road authorities strive to select an optimum maintenance strategy from a number of alternatives. Mathematical optimization models, supported by suitable data, can assist decision making about allocating funds between alternative maintenance tasks and about the size of the maintenance budget. It can be done through the analysis of costs and benefits by comparing the various maintenance alternatives with the help of an optimization method known as solver. The road segment mainly included in study was road from Hosanna Menhariya to Wachemo University and other important access roads. These roads are divided into different sections in not more than 100m length. The Study involves data collection, data analysis and the selection of optimal maintenance strategy by using a method known as Solver (Add-ins in Microsoft excel). In this study, patching was selected as possible maintenance among the other alternatives. The result of solver analysis for patching indicates that as 74,574 birr allocated for the maintenance of pavement per kilometer in different three segments under the municipality having the constraint budget of 152,018.45 birr/km. The optimized solution shows that about 20962.5 birr would be saved in one year per km with in municipality.

Deterministic cooperative hybrid ring-mesh network coding for big data transmission over lossy channels in 5G networks

Wired and wireless communication data is getting bigger and bigger at such a high pace. Accordingly, the big data (BD) communication networks should be developed as quickly as the quick increase in the exchanging data size is. Based on this regard, this paper proposes a wired and wireless protocol that applies cooperation Network coding (CoNC) in a wired ring topology (WRT) to improve exchanging the BD significantly in wireless mesh network (WMN). The paper presents a solution for distributed nodes to deal with big data over 5G by proposing Hybrid Ring-Mesh Protocols (HRMP) that exploit the CoNC technique at distributed nodes. The proposed protocol (X-ORING) deterministically combines the data that is received at a base station (BS), where the BS wirelessly retransmits the combined data to the WMN members, instead of just forwarding them to the WMN members. Moreover, all members of the WMN are connected by wired optical fibre channels in a WRT and directly to the BS. The results show that applying CoNC in the proposed protocols exploits the advantages of the WRP between the WMN members, and consequently, the WMN packet error rate is significantly improved. Moreover, using optical fibre wires between the mesh network members and the BS increases the WMN coverage region considerably, and allows the BS to receive all members' packets correctly. Finally, the results show that applying CoNC on the WRT improves the entire network maintenance and reliability greatly, simply because the proposed HRMP can continue broadcasting even if one of the direct optical fibre goes out of serves, i.e. the fibre link between one of the N member and the BS lost the connectivity.