WP5-09

Multi-Sensor Gateway for unified system management

ID	WP5-09
Contributor	ABI
Levels	Ground-Station Level
Require	Definition of the data format and of the protocol for the components in the system.
Provide	A unified management system for heterogeneous components.
Input	The gateway processes inputs from heterogenous components in the system (e.g., sensors, cameras, drones, rovers, hardware accelerators).
Output	The gateway: visualized data on the web dashbaord, for the operator to check and manage the system; provides output to heterogenous components in the system (smart cameras, PLC, hardware accelerator and other actuators and sensors).
C4D building block	The Multi-sensor gateway applicability is transversal with respect to the application fields, and can communicate with different heterogeneous components. With respect to C4D, it has been adopted in the Precition Agriculture UC5 - Demo 1, as communication component and management system.
TRL	6

General Description

Following figure illustrates the schematic overview of the WP5-09-ABI component; with reference to the common reference C4D architecture, the multi-sensor gateway is placed at the *ground station level*.

In particular, the WP5-09-ABI component communicates with vehicles (more in general with components and sensors) through different communication protocols (according to the ones needed by a given component) and a custom user-defined interface (data-format). If the vehicle has its own ground station, the multi-sensor gateway can be connected directly with that ground station.

Beside the communication capabilities, the edge gateway also integrates the possibility of edge processing. The cloud gateway allows for the connection with external systems (e.g., databases, dashboards, etc…) opening the possibility of connection to different C4I (although currently it is not implemented). The web dashboard is the HMI that allows the operator, not necessarily expert of drones, to manage the system coordination and check its status.

WP5-09-ABI component schematic overview

Design and Implementation

The WP5-09-ABI component has been developed to be exploited in a context of heterogeneous networks, and being able to manage multiple sources of data.

In the C4D, it has been exploited in the Precision Agriculture (UC5 – Demo 1) use case, to collect and integrate information from different data related to online and offline computation. In particular, here are reported integrations related to three different computation points:

• The first one is on-ground processing of previously acquired images. It includes the creation of orthomosaic maps and related analysis. These images and the related data are then visualized in the dashboard, offering an overview of how they change in different acquisitions.

• The second one is related to still to on-ground computation, but this time it is the real-time elaboration of an acquired video where detection of the plants is done on the running video.

• The third one is related to on-board online computation. This includes a customized drone, which integrates a companion computer with custom algorithms running on-board. In this case, data are encrypted on-board before transmission, and need to be decrypted in the gateway. This opens the possibility, for future development, to enable a feedback mechanism, in which the gateway can make decisions according to received data and send a command to reconfigure operation.