Research Centre for Mathematics and Applications

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Publications

Performance evaluation of directional antennas in ZigBee networks under NLOS propagation conditions

Publication . Azevedo, Joaquim Amândio; Santos, Filipe

Many authors suggest directional antennas to enhance the transmission performance of ZigBee networks. For line-of-sight propagation, directional antennas can extend the transmission range or reduce the transmit power. Directional antennas may also reduce interference between networks operating in the same frequency channel. However, these antennas may not perform similarly under non-line-of-sight propagation conditions. This work presents a study with ZigBee modules comparing the performance of a directional antenna with an omnidirectional one. The measurements were conducted on a university campus for different propagation outdoor environ ments. A deconvolution technique was applied to estimate the received signal as a function of the azimuth angle. The results demonstrated that the received power followed the gain difference between antennas only for paths with low attenuation. Considering the same Effective Isotropic Radiated Power (EIRP), the system with directional antennas started to lose packets at the same distance as the omnidirectional antennas. The directional antenna did not allow the increase in the link range compared to the omnidirectional antenna. The power consumption was also measured for different transmit power levels of the ZigBee radio. The study showed that the control circuits of directional antennas typically consume more power than omnidirectional antennas operating at a higher transmit power level.

2022Journal article

Open access

Measurement of water level in urban streams under bad weather conditions

Publication . Azevedo, Joaquim Amândio; Brás, João André

Flood control and water resources management require monitoring the water level in rivers and streams. Water level measurement techniques increasingly consider image processing procedures. Most of the systems use a staff gauge to support the waterline detection. However, these techniques can fail when applied to urban stream channels due to water undulation, debris on the water surface, and traces of rain captured by the camera, and other adverse effects on images can be quite dramatic on the results. The importance of considering these effects is that they are usually associated with the variation in the water level with the occurrence of rain. The technique proposed in this work uses a larger detection zone to minimize the effects that tend to obstruct the waterline. The developed system uses an infrared camera to operate during the day and night. Images acquired in different weather conditions helped to evaluate the proposed technique. The water level measurement accuracy was about 1.8 cm for images taken during the day and 2.8 cm for images taken at night. During short periods of heavy rain, the accuracy was 2.6 cm for the daytime and 3.4 cm for the nighttime. Infrared lighting can improve detection accuracy at night. The developed technique provides good accuracy under different weather conditions by combining information from various detection positions to deal with waterline detection issues.

2021Journal article

Open access

A more efficient technique to power home monitoring systems using controlled battery charging

Publication . Azevedo, Joaquim Amândio; Santos, Filipe Edgar

Home energy monitoring has recently become a very important issue and a means to reduce energy consumption in the residential sector. Sensors and control systems are deployed at various locations in a house and an intelligent system is used to efficiently manage the consumed energy. Low power communication systems are used to provide low power consumption from a smart meter. Several of these systems are battery operated. Other systems use AC/DC adapters to supply power to sensors and communication systems. However, even using low-power technology, such as ZigBee, the power consumption of a router can be high because it must always be powered on. In this work, to evaluate power consumption, a system for monitoring energy usage and indoor air quality was developed. A technique is proposed to efficiently supply power to the components of the system. All sensor nodes are battery operated, and relays are used to control the battery charging process. In addition, an energy harvesting system based on solar energy was developed to power the proposed system.

2021Journal article

Open access

Noncontact Automatic Water-Level Assessment and Prediction in an Urban Water Stream Channel of a Volcanic Island Using Deep Learning

Publication . Mendonça, Fabio; Mostafa, Sheikh Shanawaz; Dias, Fernando Morgado; Azevedo, Joaquim Amândio; Ravelo-García, Antonio G.; Navarro-Mesa, Juan L.

Traditional methods for water-level measurement usually employ permanent structures, such as a scale built into the water system, which is costly and laborious and can wash away with water. This research proposes a low-cost, automatic water-level estimator that can appraise the level without disturbing water flow or affecting the environment. The estimator was developed for urban areas of a volcanic island water channel, using machine learning to evaluate images captured by a low-cost remote monitoring system. For this purpose, images from over one year were collected. For better performance, captured images were processed by converting them to a proposed color space, named HLE, composed of hue, lightness, and edge. Multiple residual neural network architectures were examined. The best-performing model was ResNeXt, which achieved a mean absolute error of 1.14 cm using squeeze and excitation and data augmentation. An explainability analysis was carried out for transparency and a visual explanation. In addition, models were developed to predict water levels. Three models successfully forecasted the subsequent water levels for 10, 60, and 120 min, with mean absolute errors of 1.76 cm, 2.09 cm, and 2.34 cm, respectively. The models could follow slow and fast transitions, leading to a potential flooding risk-assessment mechanism.

2024Journal article

Open access

Levi and Harper identities for non-prioritized belief base change

Publication . Garapa, Marco; Fermé, Eduardo; Reis, Maurício D. L.

In this paper, we investigate the relation between shielded base contraction postulates and credibility-limited (CL) base revision postulates. More precisely, we identify (i) the relation between the postulates satisfied by a shielded base contraction operator and the postulates satisfied by the CL base revision operator that is defined from it by means of the consistency-preserving Levi identity and (ii) the relation between the postulates satisfied by a CL base revision operator and the postulates satisfied by the shielded base contraction operator that is defined from it by means of the Harper identity. Furthermore, we show that the consistency-preserving Levi identity and the Harper identity establish a one-to one correspondence between the twenty classes of shielded base contractions presented in [21] and the twenty classes of credibility-limited base revisions presented in [22].

2023Journal article

Open access