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LOCALIZATION AND TRACKING WITH INERTIAL SENSORS FOR

AGRI-FOOD APPLICATIONS (LTIS)

TO GUARANTEE VERY HIGH ENERGY EFFICIENCY OPERATIONS

obtained through the integration of some proprietary algorithms that have been developed by Winet in the last years

TO INTRODUCE A NEW TYPE OF MOBILE NODE

equipped with inertial sensing capabilities in order to add location awareness to Winet IoTsolution employing the EuroCPS platform STM32 NUCLEO

TO LOCALIZE AND TRACK A WIDE SET OF OBJECTS OF INTEREST

in agri-food productionenvironments, both outdoor and indoor: fruit bins, farming vehicles, cattle and people

Project objectives

WINET nodes represent the infrastructure enabling the communication to/from the LTIS nodes during the fruit picking and sorting operations

LTIS system scenario

o The state-of-the-art of outdoor localization and tracking of objects is represented mainly by the GPS technology.

o In order to guarantee real time localization, GPS devices usually have high-energy consumptions.

o The new LTIS device provide a different approach beyond the state-of-the-art in objectlocalization and tracking for agri-food applications, where the energy efficiency is moreimportant than the real-time requirement and the use of inertial sensors allows to measureobject position in both indoor and outdoor environments.

Problem and Solution

oWinet SRL employs the EuroCPS platform STM32 NUCLEO, provided bySTMicroelectronics, to implement node location awareness for IoT solutions.

o The new device autonomously determines its position by applying inertial navigationtechniques in which measurements provided by accelerometers, gyroscopes andmagnetometers are jointly used to track movements.

o The competence center CIRI-ICT at UNIBO guided the design of the state-of-the-artinertial navigation algorithms, taking into account complexity and system requirements.

o EuroCPS has helped to support the integration process of the new localization algorithmswith the existing Winet network infrastructure towards the LTIS solution.

How did EuroCPS help?

NUCLEO STMF401REo STM32 micro on boardo Inertial sensing on board

X- NUCLEO-IKS01A1 o Compatible with STM32 NUCLEOo Inertial sensing on board

WINET NODEo Wireless connectiono Reliable tracking info delivery

= LTIS+First hardware integration test

oAccurate vehicle localization

oComplete itinerary available

o Efficient low-energy wireless data delivery

TrackingAnd

LocalizationAlgorithms

Preliminary tests in urban scenario

Final tests in agricultural scenarioo Acquistion Board

o NUCLEO STMF401REo X- NUCLEO-IKS01A1

o Winet AQ Boardo Interaction with Winet anchor nodeso Saving the global position of the anchor nodes

o SD Cardo Saving the inertial data for post processing

o Batteryo Autonomous system for reliable tests on board

of a tractor

Final tests in agricultural scenario

S

S

E

E

Start point

End point

Winet Node

Traveled path

Linear trajectory

90° Left-turn

Test in agricultural scenario: objectives

1. Using accelerometer data for estimating the linear displacement

2. Using gyroscope data for detecting vehicle turn

3. Using compass data for projecting the tracked position in a global reference system

4. Detecting the presence of Winet nodes in proximity of the path for updating the global vehicle position and minimizing errors (e.g. drifts) in the tracking estimation

Test resultso The agricultural scenario is very challenging, the tractor vibrations and the irregular surface of the

soil introduces a rather huge amount of noise in the collected data

o Gyroscope and magnetometer allow identifying when the tractor is stationary or when it ischanging the direction

o Accelerometer filtering operations require accurate parameter tuning to remove the noise inagricultural scenarios

o The density of anchor nodes (i.e. Winet nodes) is typically low. To improve the precision of trackingalgorithms, it could be useful to increase the number of nodes

o LTIS nodes installation on board of tractors must require the design of aspecific box adopting absorbing materials as well as the implementation of cushioning systems

AchievementsoTask1 (4 Months)

oPlatform choiceo Integrated development environment

choiceoX-Nucleo test sensors boardoHardware integration between XNUCLEO

and Winet boards

oTask2 (6 Months)o State-of-the-art about inertial navigation

techniqueso Tracking algorithm definition

oTask3 (9 Months)o Inertial sensors calibrationoProgramming of the ST boardo Implementation of the tracking

algorithm in MATLAB environmentoPreliminary tests in simple scenario

oTask4 (3 Months)oProgramming of anchor nodes and of

LTIS nodeoAgricultural scenario testsoAnalysis of obtained results

Conclusion (1/2)

oResults are good and satisfactory in general

oA new IoT system was implemented at device level as well as at system architecture level

o Tracking algorithms are implemented:o Target (i.e., vehicle or people) position and displacement is detected by fusing inertial sensor data and

information from WSN anchor nodeso GPS usage is avoided in order to perform indoor tracking and to optimize the energy consumptions

oGood results in urban scenarios (regular soil)o The system can be used without particular changes in indoor scenarios

Conclusions (2/2)oPromising results from agricultural scenarios

o The worst agricultural scenario has been choseno Suboptimal but promising results are reachedo Well-known tracking algorithms are modelled for this type of environments

oNovel communication protocols are designed between LTIS and WSN anchor nodes

o The proposed solution is a fully portable solution designed to optimize the energyconsumption

o The proposed solution respects the modularity paradigm:o The inertial platform can be easily replaced with more precise sensors

o The radio interface can be substituted to communicate using different standards (e.g., Bluetooth, LoRa)

Market perspectives and timingo The solution will be proposed to the B2B marketoPrimary customer segment: agricultural cooperatives that already are clients of Winet

o To exploit the same WSN infrastructure currently used to gather environmental dataoWinet aims at enlarging its group of clients to new cooperatives

o Winet will upgrade its range of products by adding LTIS to the WSN monitoring systems

oPreliminary, the market that Winet aims to address will be limited to Italy during the firsttwo years after the LTIS launch (early 2018):o This approach will allow Winet to follow personally the first installations and to solve possible technical

problemso Starting from 2019, the product will be sold in other European countries:

o Thanks to collaborations with local distributorso Thanks to partnerships with other SMEs operating in the agri-food sector

Market Strategies and InvestmentsoDirect production of LTIS boards will not foresee particular investments

o Investment on the certification of the LTIS node is mandatory

o To approach new market segments, Winet will invest in marketing actions

oGiven the good performance that can conduct to obtain a valid product, Winet will not foresee particular investments in research activities

oProduct improvements will be taken into consideration in case the revenues will respect the forecasts

o Investments to generate a patent on this product will be accurately taken into account

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THANK YOU

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BACKUP SLIDES

Task

1

Task 1 dedicated to the hardware integration between STM32system and Winet board.Duration 4 months.

Task

2

Task 2 devoted to the study on algorithms for inertial navigation.Duration 6 months. Ta

sk 3

Task 3 dedicated to implement inertial navigation algorithms as well as communication protocol.Duration 9 months.

Task

4

Task 4 devoted to testing the LTIS devices on agricultural field.Duration 3months.

The duration of the experiment was 22 months and was organized in 4 tasks

Work plan

Acquired data in agricultural scenariooVery noisy data: data filtering is necessary

o Low-pass filtering removes high-frequency noise componentsoHigh-pass filtering remove possible drifts and continuous components (e.g.,

gravitational component)

oCalibration corrects axes misalignments and offsets

Filtered data and post-processing results: gyroscope

o Yellow area: detection when the vehicle is stationary

o Green area: detection when the vehicle is moving on a linear trajectory

o Red area: detection when the vehicle is turning on the left

Filtered data and post-processing results: gyroscope

Filtered data and post-processing results: accelerometer

o Yellow area: detection when the vehicle is stationary

oGreen area: detection when the vehicle is moving on a linear trajectory

oRed area: detection when the vehicle is turning on the left

oUsing acceleration data for calculating the vehicle displacement

oDetection of Winet Nodes on the path (pink dotted lines) for optimizing the tracking procedure

Filtered data and post-processing results: magnetometero Yellow area: detection when the vehicle

is stationaryoGreen area: detection when the vehicle

is moving on a linear trajectoryoRed area: detection when the vehicle is

turning on the leftoUsing acceleration data for calculating

the vehicle displacementoDetection of Winet Nodes on the path

(pink dotted lines) for optimizing the tracking procedure

oUsing magnetometer data for a global coordinate reference system.

Market entryo LTIS is focused on agri-food production companies: it implements a localization and

tracking system of fruit bins in agricultural fields and warehouses

o The proposed system constitutes a useful tool to support decisions and control of a varietyof agricultural activities: fruit/vegetable collection, product quality monitoring, and allaspects of agri-food storage and logistics

o The LTIS node design aims at a very high-energy efficiency, obtained through theintegration of dedicated algorithms, and accurate positioning in both outdoor and indoorenvironments

o LTIS inertial navigation systems is preferred to traditional satellite-based solutions, whichare not suitable to indoor applications

Market Disseminationo First step: creation of interest using different forms of media such as: web advertisements,

social media, sector magazines

o Second step: customer interests and contact potential customers recruitment through different channels such as the company's website or agents

oDissemination activity on technological journals will be further taken into account

o LTIS will be preliminary presented to current customers advertising the new solution on the company’s website and specialized magazines

oMain exhibitions in the agri-food sector (e.g., Macfrut, etc.) at national and European level will be attended