A Survey on the Use-Cases and Deployment Efforts Toward Converged Internet of Things (IoT) and Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Environments

In the past few years, automotive Internet of Things (IoT) solutions have become one of the most significant IoT application areas in the shape of vehicular communication to connect vehicles and such the so-called Internet of Vehicles (IoV) to be used in Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) environments. With an increasing level of cooperation, ITS could facilitate smart city operations by providing cooperative intelligent traffic solutions. Modern Cooperative ITS (C-ITS) solutions have started to be implemented in the whole world with various deployment models and significant improvements in the integration of Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communication and IoT solutions. To highlight the current V2X technology evolution towards an IoT/IoV era, this paper presents a comprehensive survey about the convergence between IoT and V2X use-cases together with their supporting technologies in the cooperative ITS ecosystem worldwide. We show how IoT could enable advanced V2X applications to get widespread and increase ITS efficiency.

Material Models to Study the Effect of Fines in Sandy Soils Based on Experimental and Numerical Results

Choosing and calibrating a robust and accurate soil material model (constitutive model) is the first important step in geotechnical numerical modelling. A less accurate model leads to poor results and more difficulty estimating true behaviour in the field. Subsequent design work is compromised and may lead to dangerous and costly mistakes. In this research, laboratory experimental results were used as a basis to evaluate several soil material models offered in Plaxis2D software. The deciding feature of the soil model was how well it could represent effects of percentage of fine material within sandy soils to simulate its behaviour. Results indicate that the Hardening Soil (HS) model works well when the percentage of fine (soft) materials is less than 10%. Above that level, the Soft Soil model (SS) becomes the most suitable. Finally, some important conclusions about this research and recommendations for future research are highlighted.

Asphalt layers within railway tracks’ substructure

For both heavy cargo Rail lines and High-Speed Lines, the railway industry continues to develop railway track design technologies. Within the past years, using an asphalt layer as a part of the railway track became so common as a support layer, it helps to reduce noise and vibration levels, reduce the thickness of the cross-sectional layers, reduce the lifetime maintenance, and many other great advantages. This paper will discuss the application of asphalt layers in railways, functionality, application fields, and types of asphalted trackbeds. Design requirements and parameters of asphalt layers, the mix design, installation process, and international experiences will be mentioned. Asphalt layers can improve the overall performance of the trackbeds and their behavior under repeated stresses of trains, the effect of asphalt layers on stress and strain ratios will be briefly discussed.

Modelling the ZalaZONE Proving Ground: a benchmark of State-of-the-art Automotive Simulators PreScan, IPG CarMaker, and VTD Vires

In our days, simulation based development is a core element of vehicle engineering, especially considering highly automated or fully autonomous vehicles. Accordingly, the paper presents a benchmark of three different automotive simulators: PreScan, IPG CarMaker, and VTD Vires. The three software tools were applied for the same goal, namely, modelling the ZalaZONE Proving Ground of Hungary for vehicle testing. The paper aims to highlight the experiences while creating the virtual models by presenting and comparing the relevant software features and providing suggestions for scientific or practical application.

Methods to detect and measure scour around bridge foundations

Bridges are indispensable structures vital to the operation of road and rail transportation networks. Crossing rivers and artificial waterways, however, presents a risk to their foundations due to scour actions. Scour is the number one cause for bridge failures and may occur beneath any bridge, large or small, with supports located within the waterway. This paper provides a summary of present scour detection and measurement equipment and associated assessment methodologies. In this regard, particular emphasis is placed on structural health monitoring better to evaluate the presence and influence of potential scour. A Sensitivity Analysis on a newly introduced monitoring system is also assumed. Furthermore, much research has been undertaken to create a technology that can instantly identify and detect bridge scour, improving survey reliability through prior inspection and prompt intervention. This research will explore and evaluate bridge scour detection methods employed and suggest a possible path for developing the detection system to identify scour depth effectively and efficiently. Finally, our key aim is to minimize human effort in identifying and bridge scour by using a quick, easy-to-use, cost-effective process, resulting in fewer injuries and economic savings.

Certification of Unmanned Aircraft Systems – from product safety to type certificate – a review about the operation of the EU safeguard processes

Significant changes are emerging in the market of unmanned aircraft systems since 2019 through the publication of two specific regulations that regulate all steps of the use of unmanned aerial vehicles in detail. With the implementation of the new EU drone regulations, the role of the notified bodies and the certification agencies will be more important from the viewpoint of product safety and the official certification required by the EU and national aviation authorities. The product safety chain consists of two major parts. One part belongs to the production phase, where the manufacturer has to prove the functionality (it is called the conformity assessment) and another part belongs to the distribution market, where the authorities assess the fulfilment of the conditions of the distribution (it is called the market surveillance). The first pillar concern to the design and manufacturing and the second to the distribution. Each segment is presented in this article and the authors introduce the different control approaches of these segments. It has to be taken into consideration that the drones are representing a special market with notable safety risks that have to be handled during the whole lifepath of the products from the design through the distribution until the aerial operations.

Investigating the Throughput Performance of the MPT-GRE Network Layer Multipath Library in Emulated WAN Environment

Nowadays there is a growing demand for a much faster and more secure communication without borders through the internet, which is provoking more and more both network designers and manufacturers of communication devices. Thanks to the BYOD trend, our communication devices can be easily carried anywhere in the world. They generally have several built-in network interfaces (e.g. Ethernet, Wi-Fi, 4G). Theoretically, using these cards in parallel, we could speed up data transmission, and thus communication, by aggregating the channel capabilities of the interfaces. On the other hand, we could make data transmission more secure by applying redundancy to the system. Unfortunately, traditional IP-based communications do not allow the use of parallel interfaces in a given communication session, leaving the hardware capabilities of our communications devices virtually untapped. To address this issue, we have developed a multipath communication solution called MPT-GRE, which we have already tested in several laboratory environments. The measurement results were published in our previous articles. In this paper we are going to test it in a much more realistic environment, using the Dummynet WAN emulation software. The measurement results confirmed that the MPT-GRE multipath solution is able to aggregate the performance of physical connections efficiently in the emulated Fast Ethernet IPv4 WAN environment as well.

The Interplay between the Physical Internet and Logistics: A Literature Review and Future Research Directions

In recent years, there is a need for new methods and frameworks for planning transport systems, improving their efficiency, and addressing globalisation and sustainability challenges. In addition, the use of existing capacities and infrastructure has raised significant issues in the transport sector. To achieve an economically, environmentally, and socially sustainable logistics ecosystem, Benoit Montreuil introduces the concept of “Physical Internet” (PI) to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of logistics networks. As a ground-breaking transportation philosophy, the PI aims to revolutionise freight and logistics transport. Moreover, the PI can enhance logistics productivity through the organisation of large-scale pooling. Similar to Digital Internet that conveys data, the PI strives to connect, synchronise, and ship regular modular containers from the point of origin to an exact destination, thereby creating robust and collaborative logistics networks. While the literature on the PI is relatively growing, there is still a lack of reviews that synthesise this knowledge body, identify current trends and gaps, and advance the research more broadly. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the potentials of the PI for the development of sustainable logistics networks. Overall, 59 studies are selected from leading academic databases and further analysed. The review findings reveal that most scholars focus on the optimisation of transport at the tactical and organisational stage while devoting little attention to the contribution of the PI to the social sustainability of logistics compared to the economic and environmental aspects.

Influence of frequency resolution in case of frequency response function measurement in structural dynamics

Frequency resolution is an essential parameter in acoustical testing, even if we are using numerical or experimental method, for example when determining frequency response function (FRF) of a dynamic mechanical system, or executing modal analysis based on the FRFs. Finer resolution leads to more accurate results, at the expense of longer calculation/measurement process and larger data size. This parameter is generally set based on rules of thumb, prior practice or with big margin for safety. This results in waste time and data storage if the required frequency resolution is overestimated, or even significant errors in the results, if it is underestimated. Present paper offers a direct, method for the conscious determination of optimal frequency resolution. It is based fully on theoretical considerations, and investigates amplitude and phase distortion at resonances as target parameters. Beside defining the steps of the process, it is tested on a real structure, and the results are presented as well, proving the applicability and the appropriateness of the method. With this method, development engineers get a practical tool for adjusting the parameters of dynamic measurements and simulations.

Integration of BIM in architecture and structural engineering education through common projects

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is one of the most significant developments in architecture and civil engineering in recent years, therefore it becomes increasingly important to promote its integration into university education. Currently, several universities worldwide offer BIM courses in architecture and civil engineering programs, while many others are under the process of integrating BIM into their curricula. The goal of this research is the implementation of BIM into higher education (Széchenyi István University, Hungary) by integrating the architectural, structural, and mechanical engineering disciplines. An important advantage of the university is that the architecture and civil engineering programs belong to the same faculty, which allows students to work together on common projects. A new course was performed in the previous semester, in which the students are designing contemporary buildings as case studies. In this paper, the results of the integration process are presented and evaluated based on the trainers’ and students’ experiences.