CyberPort

Cyber-Physical Port of the Future

Contact Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernd-Christian Renner
Staff Lars Hanschke
Financing Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) and Hamburg Port Authority (HPA)
Duration 07/16 - 03/20

Project Description

Motivation

Cyber-physical systems are well applicable to ports and cities, where the right balance between economy and ecology is a key issue. The underlying benefits of a smart port range from more efficient traffic management over monitoring to controlling of supply chains and work flows. A key research challenge is the (regenerative) energy supply of all devices (i.e., sensors and actuators) to decrease costs for deployment and maintenance. In the past years, the capabilities of environmentally-powered devices grew: computing power increased and multi-sensor platforms, e.g. for monitoring fine dust, humidity and temperature, became imaginable. However, the increased capabilities come at the cost of increased complexity for balancing the activity. To maintain perpetual operation, energy-aware adaption of a device's activity is key.

Goals and Contributions

Supported by the Hamburg Port Authority (HPA), the Institute smartPORT of the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) carries out research in this domain. We investigate aspects of miniature, low-power sensing and actuating devices regarding energy supply from the environment (solar, wind, water flow, vibrations). Furthermore, we assess the usage of low-power energy-harvesting sensors and actuators to integrate cyber-physical systems seamlessly into existing infrastructures. A central aspect is to optimize and schedule power consumption within the boundaries set by environmental energy and time aspects of the sensor values. Since satisfying all scheduling constraints on-the-fly is computational complex, we develop microcontroller-optimized algorithms to solve the underlying problems efficiently. Here, the main goal is to decrease potentially wasted energy, e.g. due to duplicate sensing or outdated sensor values, to increase the benefit for the operator of the sensor network.

Publications

  • Lars Hanschke and Christian Renner (2020). Scheduling Recurring and Dependent Tasks in EH-WSNs. Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems (SUSCOM). 27. [doi]

  • Lars Hanschke and Christian Renner (2018). Time- and Energy-aware Task Scheduling in Environmentally-powered Sensor Networks. Proceedings of the 14th International Symposium on Algorithms and Experiments for Wireless Networks Helsinki, Finnland [www]

  • Lars Hanschke, Alexander Sowarka and Christian Renner (2018). Moving Task Scheduling to Co-Processors in Energy-Harvesting Systems. Proceedings of the 17th GI/ITG KuVS Fachgespräch "Sensornetze" Braunschweig, Germany [www]

  • Lars Hanschke and Christian Renner (2017). Collaborative and Environmentally-Powered Sensors and Actuators for Smart Environments. Proceedings of the IDEA League Doctoral School on Transiently Powered Computing Delft, Netherlands

  • Lars Hanschke, Christian Renner, Jannick Brockmann, Tobias Hamann, Jannes Peschel, Alexander Schell, Alexander Sowarka (2017). Demo Abstract: Light in the Box - Reproducible Lighting Conditions for Solar-Powered Sensor Nodes. Proceedings of the 15th ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems Delft, Netherlands [www]

  • Lars Hanschke, Christian Renner, Jannick Brockmann, Tobias Hamann, Jannes Peschel, Alexander Schell, Alexander Sowarka (2017). Light Insight - Emulation of Radiation Traces for Analysis and Evaluation of Solar-Harvesting Algorithms. Proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Energy Neutral Sensing Systems Delft, Netherlands [www]

  • Lars Hanschke, Jan Heitmann and Christian Renner (2017). Stop Waiting: Mitigating Varying Connecting Times for Infrastructure WiFi Nodes. Proceedings of the 16th GI/ITG KuVS Fachgespräch "Sensornetze" Hamburg, Germany [www]

  • Lars Hanschke, Jan Heitmann and Christian Renner (2016). Challenges of WiFi-Enabled and Solar-Powered Sensors for Smart Ports. Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Energy Neutral Sensing Systems Stanford, CA, USA [www]

  • Lars Hanschke, Jan Heitmann and Christian Renner (2016). On the Feasibility of WiFi-Enabled and Solar-Powered Sensors for Smart Ports. Proceedings of the 15th GI/ITG KuVS Fachgespräch "Sensornetze" Augsburg, Germany [www]