Experimental chambers play an important role in plant science and agronomy by maintaining and providing ideal conditions so that experimental data can be collected under specific and controlled ...conditions. To ensure that the environmental parameters inside the chamber are within the required control limits, the best solution is to be able to record and monitor them. This recording and monitoring task are carried out in order to increase the repeatability of the experiments in the future, in addition to providing researchers with real-time information about the conditions in which the trials are found under in vivo and in vitro conditions.
•Innovative multi-layer dynamic value stream mapping (DVSM) is proposed to handle the dynamic value adding condition of the multi material flow manufacturing system.•Multi-machine handling DVSM on ...the basis of machine utilization and operator performance is shown by the cyber-physical multi-agent system, which contributes towards digital Lean manufacturing.•The cyber-physical multi-agent system is proposed for the virtualization of the shop floor resources.
As the next wave of productivity, Industry 4.0 aims to enhance the competitiveness and efficiency of manufacturers by bridging the gap between industrial manufacturing and information technology. Through digitalisation, it provides the advantage of enabling the real-time/near-real-time monitoring of manufacturing. This digital information allows monitoring tools such as Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to help the decision makers efficiently capture the non-value-adding processes on the factory floor. However, the application of VSM into small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), including diverse manufacturing environments, is not an easy task. It is even more challenging especially when the product processing is more complicated and requires improvements to labour management and facility utilization. Conventional VSM is not competent to handle the contemporary rapid dynamic manufacturing environment, complex material flow or efficiency of machine and labour performance. These three are the most important resources on the shop floor to bring transparency to the decision maker. We present a multi-agent system composed of several cost effective embedded Arduino systems as agents and a Raspberry-Pi® as a core agent. Equipped with Cyber-Physical System (CPS) technology, these agents, placed on or near the station, can reflect the non-linear material value flow without modelling the process or using RFID tags. Moreover, through the sensor node installed in each machine and by knowing the staff ID, the agents could send the relevant information in the form of dynamic value stream mapping (DVSM) in near-real-time for storage, analysis and visualization. We present a suitable visualization tool based in Node-RED® to carry out DVSM.
Continuous adaptation of international standards for medical devices requires recurrent modification of test benches. A universal control unit using an open software environment is presented to ...simplify the maintenance of various test benches. Our developed control unit is equipped with a Raspberry Pi 4, with standard communication interfaces and application-specific electronic assemblies. The software is based on Node-RED, a browser-based editor. A measuring setup was adapted for a flow perfusion system. Our control unit simplifies the handling of the flow perfusion system by controlling a hydraulic pump and all required valves. A software programmed PID algorithm adapts the speed of the pump to adjust the pressure automatically. Actuators like proportional pinch valves are handled to control volumetric flow and pressure within the circulation. Consequently, the user directly observes changes inside the system. The measured data are stored and are available for documentation.
Patients' remote monitoring becomes even more crucial due to the spreading of the COVID-19 disease. Hospitals cannot accommodate all the patients who need to be taken care. Hence, tele-medicine or, ...as also named, tele-health, remains the only means available to keep the situation under control. In particular, it is important to monitor the patients who are subject to the home quarantine period. The reason is twofold: (i) their live status and symptoms must be controlled; (ii) they must not leave the permitted area during the quarantine period. To this end, the paper defines a set of rules and processes based on the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm, which enable the integration of different devices, in order to monitor the required parameters related to the patient and notify life-threatening situations to the connected health-care structure. The conceived IoT network is developed by means of Node-RED, which is a flow-based programming tool targeted to the IoT. Particular attention is also paid to security and privacy requirements, since sensitive data related to the patients must be kept safe. The proposed solution is preliminary assessed by means of a test-bed.
In developing nations, outdated technologies and sulfur-rich heavy fossil fuel usage are major contributors to air pollution, affecting urban air quality and public health. In addition, the limited ...resources hinder the adoption of advanced monitoring systems crucial for informed public health policies. This study addresses this challenge by introducing an affordable internet of things (IoT) monitoring system capable of tracking atmospheric pollutants and meteorological parameters. The IoT platform combines a Bresser 5-in-1 weather station with a previously developed air quality monitoring device equipped with Alphasense gas sensors. Utilizing MQTT, Node-RED, InfluxDB, and Grafana, a Raspberry Pi collects, processes, and visualizes the data it receives from the measuring device by LoRa. To validate system performance, a 15-day field campaign was conducted in Santa Clara, Cuba, using a Libelium Smart Environment Pro as a reference. The system, with a development cost several times lower than Libelium and measuring a greater number of variables, provided reliable data to address air quality issues and support health-related decision making, overcoming resource and budget constraints. The results showed that the IoT architecture has the capacity to process measurements in tropical conditions. The meteorological data provide deeper insights into events of poorer air quality.
The increasing need for food is not in line with the clearing of agricultural land for food crops. So that the effort to increase the productivity of agricultural products is by applying precision ...agriculture. However, in reality, precision agriculture is difficult to apply to conventional processes, where farmers come to the farm, collect data, then carry out maintenance. This method will make production results not optimal because maintenance is not done accurately. This study introduces a monitoring system for environmental conditions based on the Internet of Things (IoT) for agricultural land, where trials are carried out in a greenhouse. The system that has been developed consists of several sensors designed to collect information related to agricultural environmental conditions, including DHT22 sensor (temperature and humidity), DS18B20 sensor (soil temperature), soil moisture sensor (moisture content in the soil), and BH1750 sensor (light intensity). Based on the Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol, the data is sent to a gateway (Raspberry Pi) and a local server via a wireless network to be stored in a database. By using the Node-RED Dashboard, the received sensor data is then displayed on the browser every time the sensor sends data. In addition, the local server also publishes sensor data to the public MQTT broker so that sensor data can be accessed through the MQTT Dashboard application on a smartphone. The results of testing for 25 days of the system running obtained an average success of the system in storing data of 99.64%.
The Internet of Things has contributed to make smarter houses and buildings in the last decades. Different existing works already integrate IoT technologies in homes, but end-user needs continuously ...change and researchers must face this challenge in identifying platforms to fast prototype solutions satisfying these new needs. This paper presents a solution that demonstrates how well-known fast-prototyping technologies like Node-RED, IBM Watson, Telegram, Raspberry Pi 4, and secured MQTT can contribute to develop complex systems facing the challenge. The selected tools are used within a smart home context to support features inspired by people needs and allow users to: a) consult real time conditions (i.e., temperature, humidity, gas), b) remotely manage lights, c) save energy through a light management system based on user movements, d) remotely monitor the house through dedicated webcams, e) generate warning notifications in case of danger. Users can interact with the systems through a web Node-RED dashboard and a Telegram bot. Differently from existing works, the feasibility of the implemented system and the efficacy of the exploited platforms are demonstrated through a running scenario extracted from a consolidated study on user needs in smart homes. The performed experiment can facilitate the fast prototyping of new solutions.
The increasing isolation of the elderly both in their own homes and in care homes has made the problem of caring for elderly people who live alone an urgent priority. This article presents a proposed ...design for a heterogeneous multirobot system consisting of (i) a small mobile robot to monitor the well-being of elderly people who live alone and suggest activities to keep them positive and active and (ii) a domestic mobile manipulating robot that helps to perform household tasks. The entire system is integrated in an automated home environment (AAL), which also includes a set of low-cost automation sensors, a medical monitoring bracelet and an Android application to propose emotional coaching activities to the person who lives alone. The heterogeneous system uses ROS, IoT technologies, such as Node-RED, and the Home Assistant Platform. Both platforms with the home automation system have been tested over a long period of time and integrated in a real test environment, with good results. The semantic segmentation of the navigation and planning environment in the mobile manipulator for navigation and movement in the manipulation area facilitated the tasks of the later planners. Results about the interactions of users with the applications are presented and the use of artificial intelligence to predict mood is discussed. The experiments support the conclusion that the assistance robot correctly proposes activities, such as calling a relative, exercising, etc., during the day, according to the user’s detected emotional state, making this is an innovative proposal aimed at empowering the elderly so that they can be autonomous in their homes and have a good quality of life.
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