A set of systems are considered where there are multiple agents simultaneously active within real-time a environment. These systems are termed SMART systems and are found in domains as diverse as office administration, process control and aviation. Such systems place particular demands on agents that are not present in non-SMART systems. Actions may be time constrained in two ways: i) an action appropriate at one time may not be appropriate at another; ii) the time available for a required action may approximate to the time in which an agent is able to perform that action. In order to be able to function in such environments agents, both human and computer, must be aware of time constraints and the actions necessary to ensure that they do not compromise system goals.

Grocery shopping is a routine task that people perform to fulfill their needs for food. We suspect many people would like to do grocery shopping with the grocery list to save their money and time. While creating a grocery list, people have to follow some steps such as checking the ingredients inventory available in their homes, planning meals for few days or weeks, creating a grocery list based on their meal plan and ingredients inventory status, and looking out for deals or offers, which can be utilized in their grocery purchases. These steps can be repetitive and involve people’s manual effort and a considerable amount of time to carry out effectively that makes the creation of a grocery list difficult to accomplish every time considering people’s busy modern lifestyles. As many grocers begin to leverage technology, they have an opportunity to understand the relationship between the people buying behavior from their purchasing history and stores’ grocery information to make profit-driven decisions and promote the reduction of food waste in stores. This thesis presents SmartGrocer, a context-aware personalized grocery system that dynamically gathers user context including their past purchase history and budget, and store context including clearance grocery inventory that consists of those ingredients that are soon-to-expire or being on sale to recommend personalized coupons to users. The personalized coupons are automatically applied to the missing ingredients of recipes thereby reducing the recipes’ cost and recommending them according to the user’s food budget. Recommendation of personalized coupons to users is an effective promotional strategy to not only saving the user’s money but also promoting the reduction of food waste in stores, which eventually drives more profit to the grocery retail businesses. SmartGrocer also automates the whole process of creating a grocery list with minimal effort and time expended by the user by leveraging the user and store context. / Graduate

abstract: Infrastructure are increasingly being recognized as too rigid to quickly adapt to a changing climate and a non-stationary future. This rigidness poses risks to and impacts on infrastructure service delivery and public welfare. Adaptivity in infrastructure is critical for managing uncertainties to continue providing services, yet little is known about how infrastructure can be made more agile and flexible towards improved adaptive capacity. A literature review identified approximately fifty examples of novel infrastructure and technologies which support adaptivity through one or more of ten theoretical competencies of adaptive infrastructure. From these examples emerged several infrastructure forms and possible strategies for adaptivity, including smart technologies, combined centralized/decentralized organizational structures, and renewable electricity generation. With institutional and cultural support, such novel structures and systems have the potential to transform infrastructure provision and management. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering 2018

No description available.

With our growing population, we are facing great challenges when it comes to our water consumption. As Stockholm is growing in both population and size, the city’s provider of drinking water, Stockholm Water and Waste, is looking into approaches like smart systems and persuasive strategies that tries to help citizens use water for domestic purposes in more sustainable ways. Some see these approaches as a natural part of the future of urban development and they have already been implemented at several locations around the globe. However, smart systems and persuasive strategies have seen an upswing in critique lately and it have been argued that they tend to treat householders as something separated from the socio-technical context they live in. As a response to this critique, a wide range of suggestions for future development of smart systems and persuasive strategies have been made. While a lot of these suggestions are based on studies that evaluates already existing systems and tend to focus on how to improve them, they still convey a scenario where these systems are a natural part of our future urban lives. However, little research has been made that tries to understand the citizens’ perspective on these systems before they are implemented. By using a future study approach that includes citizens in reflective and exploratory activities of non-existing future smart systems for managing domestic water services, this study aims at exploring their concerns and expectations of said systems and questions the wants and needs for them begin with. This study reveals that citizens might have great concerns when it comes to questions of privacy and control and how smart systems and persuasive strategies run the risk of problematizing individuals. This study also reveals that citizens might be more interested in negotiating and improving current services and infrastructure than having technology negotiate their everyday lives. / Vår ökande befolkning ställer oss inför stora utmaningar när det kommer till vår vattenkonsumtion. Då Stockholm växer både till befolkningsmängd och yta undersöker Stockholm Vatten och Avfall, stadens leverantör av dricksvatten, tillvägagångssätt som smarta system och övertalningsstrategier för att hjälpa medborgare bli mer hållbara i sin vattenförbrukning. En del ser dessa tillvägagångssätt som en naturlig del av framtidens urbana utveckling och de har redan blivit implementerade på flera platser runt omkring i världen. Smarta system och övertalningsstrategier har dock sett en uppsjö av kritik på sistone och det har sagts att de tenderar att behandla personer som något separerat från den sociotekniska kontext de lever i. Som en respons till denna kritik har det tagits fram ett antal förslag för den framtida utvecklingen av både smarta system och de övertalningsstrategier de använder sig av. Då många av förslagen som lagts fram är baserade på studier som utvärderar redan existerande system, samt tenderar att fokusera på hur dessa kan förbättras, förutsätter de fortfarande ett scenario där smarta system och övertalningsstrategier är en naturlig del av vår framtida urbana miljö. Dock har endast mycket lite forskning gjorts i syfte att utröna medborgarnas perspektiv på dessa system innan de implementeras. Genom att inkludera medborgare i reflekterande och utforskande aktiviteter angående ännu icke-existerande smarta system som handskas med vattenförbrukningen i hemmet, syftar denna studie till att utforska medborgarnas förväntningar, farhågor och inställning till sagda system och ifrågasätter huruvida dessa system är något de över huvud taget vill ta del av. Denna studie visar hur medborgare kan hysa stor oro när det kommer till frågor berörande kontroll och datasekretess, men även hur smarta system och övertalningsstrategier riskerar att problematisera individer. Studien visar även på möjligheten att medborgare kan vara mer intresserade av att förhandla och förbättra redan existerande tjänster och infrastruktur än att låta teknologi förhandla om deras levnadsvanor.

Large-scale green space in city sometimes can bring isolation and disconnection. And isolation and disconnection make it become negative and even a barrier in urban space with time.

Detta kandidatexamensarbete utvärderar och jämför en befintlig solcellsanläggning med installerat energilager samt en smart växelriktare i Farsta, Stockholm. Jämförelsen ställer denna anläggning mot ett konventionellt solcellssystem med enbart solceller. Studiens syfte är att identifiera mängden egenanvänd solenergi, ta fram optimeringsförslag samt belysa eventuella kostnadsbesparingar. Den smarta växelriktaren har möjliggjort datainsamling via en webbaserad användarportal, portalen loggar och sparar anläggningens energi- och effektdata.   Studien påvisar att systemet inte bidrar med en betydande ökning av egenanvändningen av solenergi, ty batteriets inställningar ofta medför att batteriet är fulladdat under dagens soltimmar. Det smarta systemets mest fördelaktiga funktion är att kapa fastighetens effekttoppar vilket skapar möjlighet till nedsäkring.   Hur stor del av effekttopparna som kan kapas är starkt beroende av batteriets inställningar. Under studien har två olika scenarier testats. Det mest essentiella är att batteriet alltid kan kapa de högsta effekttopparna samtidigt som det aldrig laddas ur helt. Nyttan maximeras när batteriet aktiveras vid förbrukningar över 24 kW. Säkringsanalyserna från studien visar att fastighetens minsta möjliga huvudsäkringar som kan brukas är 35 A, dock rekommenderas nyttjande av huvudsäkringar om 50 A då en säkerhetsmarginal är önskvärd. Den rekommenderade nedsäkringen ger möjlighet att teckna ett billigare elavtal. Slutsatsen är att säkringsabonnemanget TID relativt effektabonnemanget L0,4S ger en kostnadsbesparing om 33 547 kronor per år. / This bachelor thesis is evaluating and comparing an existing photovoltaic system including an energy storage and a smart bidirectional converter in Farsta, Stockholm. This smart system will be compared with a conventional PV plant. The aim of the report is to identify the amount of self-consumed solar energy, give optimizing suggestions and shed light on possible cost savings. The smart converter has given the possibility to collect data from a web-based portal. The portal logs and stores the energy and power data of the system.   The study proves that this smart system does not contribute with an increased amount of self-consumed solar energy, since the battery settings implies a fully charged battery during the day. The most advantageous benefit in the smart system is to cut power peaks, which gives opportunities to use smaller main fuses in the real estate.   The magnitude of the power peaks that can be reduced is depending on the settings of the battery. Two different scenarios have been examined in the study. The most essential is that the battery is always able to cut the highest power peaks without being fully discharged. The maximum utility occurs when the battery is activated when the consumption is higher than 24 kW. Fuse analysis proves that the lowest possible main fuses that could be used in the real estate is 35 A. Though, this study recommends main fuses of 50 A since a safety margin is desired. This gives opportunities to sign a more beneficial electricity contract. Conclusively, the fuse rating contract that can be used is 33 547 SEK cheaper per year than the power rating contract that is used in the real estate today.

Répondant à un besoin grandissant de standardisation et d’adaptabilité pour les systèmes pyrotechniques, nous présentons au travers de ce travail un nouveau concept de leurre infrarouge intelligent, contrôlable à l’aide d’un système d’initiation électronique miniature embarqué. Notre solution innovante se décompose en trois blocs fonctionnels distincts : (1) un bloc d’éjection pyrotechnique contrôlable intégrant trois charges d’éjection dans une seule pièce plastique métallisée, (2) un bloc appelé fonction terminale, constitué d’un pain pyrotechnique infrarouge structuré, couplé à un étage de micro-initiation à base de nano-thermites, adressable et basse énergie, et (3) un bloc de contrôle, connecté et autonome, répondant au STANAG 4187 qui commande l’armement et la mise à feu des fonctions pyrotechniques. Au cours de ce travail, nous avons développé un code de balistique intérieure à paramètres globaux et un superviseur d’optimisation, capable de simuler n’importe quel système à effet mortier, et un code de régression géométrique basé sur la méthode level-set,capable de modéliser la combustion de n’importe quel pain solide multicomposition, compartimenté ou structuré, allumé séquentiellement ou simultanément en plusieurs points.Nous avons montré théoriquement, puis validé expérimentalement, qu’il était possible de contrôler finement la réaction de combustion des pains pyrotechniques IR grâce à un allumage séquentiel de ces derniers, ce qui représente une innovation importante en pyrotechnie. Nous avons validé expérimentalement, qu’il était possible de contrôler la vitesse d’éjection de leurres IR grâce à un allumage partiel d’impulseurs plastroniques. Ce travail a abouti à l’intégration des différents blocs fonctionnels dans un démonstrateur représentatif d’un leurre infrarouge intelligent et miniature : CASSIS. / Answering a growing need for standardization and adaptability in pyrotechnics, we hereby present a smart and safe pyrotechnical infrared (IR) flare electronically controllable through an embedded miniature initiation system. The countermeasure has been designed to fit within a 1”×1”×8” standard cartridge, and consists of three distinct blocks, which are mechanically and electronically interconnected: (1) a pyrotechnical ejection block integrating three ejection charges in a single metalized plastic casing, (2) a micro-initiation stage comprising nanothermite-based micro-initiators and a structured pyrotechnic loaf, (3) a STANAG 4187 compatible electronic control, command and power management block.Throughout this work, we developed a lumped parameter internal ballistics model for the ejection, and conducted a response surface methodology study to extract optimal design parameters. We developed a geometric regression script, based on level set techniques, to model the combustion of multicomponent, sequentially-initiated, partially inerted pyrotechnic loafs. We demonstrated, theoretically then experimentally, that we could control the combustion of IR pyrotechnic loaves using sequential initiation, and that we could control the ejection velocity of IR flares using multipoint mortar ejectors.This work resulted in integrating said technological block in a functional 1’’1’’8’’ controllable, autonomous safe and smart infrared flare demonstrator, CASSIS.

Les récentes découvertes et avancées technologiques dans la compréhension des matériaux ainsi que l'essor des outils informatiques d'aide au calcul ont contribué à la prolifération de matériaux intelligents avec un champ d'applications très large. Cette thèse s'inscrit dans le contexte d'utilisation des actionneurs piézoélectriques plutôt qu'une vision purement matériau. Le but est d'enrichir les bibliothèques de modèles de ces types d'actionneurs afin de faciliter leur prise en compte dans les phases de conception des systèmes complexes les intégrant. Le cahier des charges est que ces modèles incluent le plus possible les non-linéarités tout en restant aisés d'utilisation. Pour atteindre ces objectifs, nous proposons de faire un pont entre le domaine des experts des matériaux et celui de l'ingénieur en suivant une méthodologie claire. Dans un premier temps nous passons en revue les approches existantes dans la littérature ainsi que les solutions offertes par certains logiciels commerciaux. Une analyse des équations constitutives de la piézoélectricité associées aux conditions de fonctionnement de l'actionneur nous permet d'en déduire un premier modèle analogique. Ce dernier est ensuite traduit en bond graph pour en déduire des modèles blocs-diagramme. En plus de cet effort de formalisation, ces premiers modèles se distinguent de ceux proposés par les logiciels commerciaux en prenant mieux en compte la dynamique propre à l'actionneur. Nous proposons deux types de modèles. L'un rend uniquement compte du premier mode de résonance alors que le second rend compte de deux modes de résonance. Ensuite nous proposons des modèles prenant en compte les non-linéarités : l'approche de Preisach pour la modélisation de l'hystérésis statique et l'approche de Voigt dans le cas dynamique. Ces deux approches sont ensuite fusionnées dans le but d'avoir un model plus complet.

viermal im Jahr erscheinender Newsletter für Freunde, Absolventen und Ehemalige der TU Chemnitz