Author: palma

Intermittent Networking and Small-Satellite Swarms

Small-Satellites (SmallSats) are an affordable solution, compared to geostationary satellites, to provide networking coverage in the most remote areas, including the Arctic.

Different possibilities for deploying SmallSats include constellations, where each satellite must keep its orbit, and swarms, where satellites freely drift according to their deployment velocity.

This post shows an animation presented at ICICT’18, where the paper entitled “Freely-Drifting Small-Satellite Swarms for Sensor Networks in the Arctic”  was presented.

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The Internet of Things is getting closer

In SINet an important goal is to interconnect different communication technologies for covering the Arctic region and other remote maritime areas.

This goal is aligned with ongoing development in the so-called Internet of Things, connecting the devices of our everyday life to the Internet.

Regarding our research activities in this direction, at the Department of Information Security and Communication Technology, NTNU, where SINet is hosted, we were interviewed by Gemini.

The news article in Norwegian (original) and in English (Google Translate).

 

SINet, Machine Learning and the IoT

Intermittent links and resource constraints are found in many scenarios, not only in maritime settings, but also in urban environments!

The SINet project has been cooperating with the IoT lab at NTNU for autonomous and adaptive sensing using machine learning. Read more about it here!

First week at Maritime Robotics

As part of a 3-month secondment, SINet is now being hosted at Maritime Robotics. The goal will be to explore networking solutions suitable for low-bitrate and long-range links, typically used in maritime environments (e.g. VHF links). Ultimately, this will allow better coverage and coordination of unmanned operations, such as bathymetry data collection.

Coordinated Unmanned Maritime Operations

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A change of perspective, ICTs at 78° N

As a researcher, Svalbard has always caught my attention and admiration, being the headquarters for so many scientific missions and their unparalleled findings about our world and its climate. Last week, I had the privilege of visiting the archipelago and participate in an intense summer school about the Arctic Ocean and the Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ), at UNIS.

Despite focusing my research on Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), the past two years have targeted the development of ICTs in coastal and maritime operations, namely through the SINet MSCA IF. These operations are particularly challenged in harsh regions such as the Arctic, where infrastructures are scarce or non-existent. But why is this issue relevant? What kind of operations would take place in the Arctic?

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One year milestone!

It’s been a year since the start of SINet.

Many activities have taken place and several contacts have been established, cooperating with researchers from inter-disciplinary fields – all for enabling efficient networking in challenging maritime environments.

The focus of SINet is also overlapping with other topics, such as the Internet of Things, where research has also been conducted. In the IoT resource constraints exist and intermittent connectivity is also common, which is what SINet is all about.

Reaching this milestone allowed for a special moment of reflection (don’t forget to check the new deliverables), and the conclusion is that there’s a lot more still to come!

Stay tuned!

New deliverables posted

A reference scenario and architecture specification for challenging maritime environments are included in the newly posted deliverables.

These will be the basis for the upcoming developments of SINet.

Towards Heterogeneous Unmanned Maritime Operations
Towards Heterogeneous Unmanned Maritime Operations