IoTactileSim: A Virtual Testbed for Tactile Industrial Internet of Things Services

With the inclusion of tactile Internet (TI) in the industrial sector, we are at the doorstep of the tactile Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). This provides the ability for the human operator to control and manipulate remote industrial environments in real-time. The TI use cases in IIoT demand a communication network, including ultra-low latency, ultra-high reliability, availability, and security. Additionally, the lack of the tactile IIoT testbed has made it more severe to investigate and improve the quality of services (QoS) for tactile IIoT applications. In this work, we propose a virtual testbed called IoTactileSim, that offers implementation, investigation, and management for QoS provisioning in tactile IIoT services. IoTactileSim utilizes a network emulator Mininet and robotic simulator CoppeliaSim to perform real-time haptic teleoperations in virtual and physical environments. It provides the real-time monitoring of the implemented technology parametric values, network impairments (delay, packet loss), and data flow between operator (master domain) and teleoperator (slave domain). Finally, we investigate the results of two tactile IIoT environments to prove the potential of the proposed IoTactileSim testbed.

INTRODUCING A FRAMEWORK TO GENERATE AND EVALUATE THE COST EFFECTS OF PRODUCT (FAMILY) CONCEPTS

Product concept generation and evaluation are critical for the success of new product developments (NPD) because managers need to select the most profitable product concepts. However, current approaches can be restricted to single products and do not cover product families' effects. Similarly, they do not necessarily capture all requirements and usually lack extensive cost analyses. Thus, this paper proposes a framework supporting product concept generation and evaluation by providing an accessible conceptualization to overcome the limitations. Using the so-called Extended Axiomatic Design (EAD) supports designers and managers to configure the requirements across product concepts' various domains while concurrently evaluating their economic consequences. The study applies the framework on a simplified case of a bottle manufacturer to conceptualize four product concepts. The case illustrates how the EAD can be used as a virtual testbed to generate and evaluate new product concepts. Finally, designers and managers can make more informed decisions about product concepts by considering their economic and engineering selection criteria to select the most profitable NPD project configuration.

An Open-Source Virtual Testbed for a Real Net-Zero Energy Community

Net-zero energy communities (NZECs) are critical to assuring the sustainability and resilience of modernized power systems. System modeling helps overcome technical challenges in designing and operating NZECs. In this paper, we present an open-source NZEC virtual testbed in Modelica based on a real NZEC in Florida, USA. This testbed consists of two sets of models: (1) higher-fidelity physics-based models that consider the interaction between subsystems of the studied NZEC and capture fast dynamics, and (2) lower-fidelity data-driven models that require fewer resources to establish and/or run. All models are validated against measurements from this real NZEC. In addition, this testbed includes a simulation framework that streamlines the processes for simulation and thus allows the use of developed models to form a virtual testbed. To demonstrate the usage of the virtual testbed, a case study is conducted where a building-to-grid integration control is evaluated via simulation. The evaluation results suggest that the tested control significantly smooths the power draw of the studied community and does not sacrifice thermal comfort to a great extent.

Cybersecurity threats and experimental testbed for a generator system

In this work, a high-fidelity virtual testbed modeling a networked diesel generator, similar to those used commercially and by the military, is described. This testbed consists of a physical system model of a generator, a digital control system, a remote monitoring system, and physical and networked connections. The virtual testbed allows researchers to emulate a cyber-physical system and perform cyber attacks against the system without the monetary and safety risks associated with a testbed created from physical components. The testbed was used to feasibly simulate network, hardware Trojan, and software Trojan attacks against the diesel generator, and to observe the cyber and physical outcomes.

Virtual testbed for monocular visual navigation of small unmanned aircraft systems

Monocular visual navigation methods have seen significant advances in the last decade, recently producing several real-time solutions for autonomously navigating small unmanned aircraft systems without relying on the Global Positioning System (GPS). This is critical for military operations that may involve environments where GPS signals are degraded or denied. However, testing and comparing visual navigation algorithms remains a challenge since visual data is expensive to gather. Conducting flight tests in a virtual environment is an attractive solution prior to committing to outdoor testing. This work presents a virtual testbed for conducting simulated flight tests over real-world terrain and analyzing the real-time performance of visual navigation algorithms at 31 Hz. This tool was created to ultimately find a visual odometry algorithm appropriate for further GPS-denied navigation research on fixed-wing aircraft, even though all of the algorithms were designed for other modalities. This testbed was used to evaluate three current state-of-the-art, open-source monocular visual odometry algorithms on a fixed-wing platform: Direct Sparse Odometry, Semi-Direct Visual Odometry, and ORB-SLAM2 (with loop closures disabled).