Keynote speakers

Monday September 10 Aula Magna 9:00 - 10:30
Gerard-Andre Capolino (IEEE Fellow Chair Professor of Electrical Engineering)

Gérard-André Capolino (A’77–M’82–SM’89–F’02) was born in Marseille, France. He received the B.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the Ecole Centrale de Marseille (ECM), Marseille in 1974, the M.Sc. degree from the Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité (Supelec), Paris, France, in 1975, the Ph.D. degree from the AixMarseille University (AUM), Marseille, in 1978, and the D.Sc. degree from the Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble (Grenoble INP), Grenoble, France, in 1987. He had several faculty positions in Yaoundé, Cameroun, Le Creusot, France and Marseille, France. In 1994, he joined the University of Picardie “Jules Verne,” Amiens, France, as a Full Professor and was appointed Chair Professor in 2013. Since 1975, he has published more than 450 papers in scientific journals and conference Proceedings. He has been the principal investigator for more than 50 research contracts.

Dr. Capolino is an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, of the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS and of the IEEE ACCESS. He is also the acting Chair for the Steering Committee of the International Conference on Electrical Machines (ICEM). During 2012–2013, he was the President of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society (IES). He has been also the IEEE France Section Chair (2005-2007).
Energy efficiency improvement for electrical machines: a challenge

The principle of electrical machines has been known for at least 500 years with the first electrostatic machines invented around 1600. The first electromagnetic machines have been imagined later in the 17th century after the discovery of the electromagnetism principle. However, it has been necessary to wait up to the end of the 19th century to have rotating electrical machines structures close to what they are nowadays. Basically, the presentation starts from the classical definition of units for power and energy. Then, the definition of energy efficiency is discussed and developed before giving the current status of efficiency in modern electrical machines. The last part of the presentation is dedicated to trends for improving the efficiency by both design and manufacturing processes. A short highlight of fault tolerance, even if not fully related to energy efficiency, is also presented since it is an actual need for systems using electrical machines for both motoring and generating.

Invited speakers

Monday September 10

Monday September 10 Room 1 - Track 1 10:30 - 12:45
1.1 Smart electric energy systems
Roberto Candela (Prysmian Electronics)
From an Idea to a True Company
In 2006 as professor of University of Palermo I’ve developed together with A. Di Stefano, G. Fiscelli and C. Giaconia a patent. This patent came out from a dream that, at that time, was a very common desire for peoples that performs PD measurements. Do it wireless. Starting from this success research and investing in this idea we founded a company with Prysmian Group that reached the break even after only one year and today we have a company with 20 employees and 15M€ revenues and a CAGR 99.7%. This entity is called Prysmian Electronics SRL as legal entity and internally in Prysmian Group we define it as an integrated BU simply called Electronics. The BU develops, produces, sells and installs devices for monitor all the parameter (voltage, current, pressure, temperature, intrusion, fault location and finally PD), that can be used to drive an energy cable system, all around the world. The business that we are managing is growing continuously due to a number of other patents and innovations introduced by us in energy market and we hope to grow also in the future starting from this model.
Monday September 10 Room 2 - Track 2 10:30 - 12:45
2.8 Biomechanical models in tissue engineering
Nicola Francesco Lopomo University of Brescia, Italy
Sensing Scaffolds for Cell Monitoring in Tissue Engineering
Advanced progresses in technologies and methodologies have been happening now more than ever in the biotechnological field. Researchers are constantly looking for more efficient and effective methods able to quantitatively monitor processes related to cell cultures - such as adhesion, growth and differentiation-, addressing specific applications in pharmacology, regenerative medicine, and tissue engineering. The possibility to interact with cell cultures growing in a 3D environment and with their products, using cost-effective and non-invasive procedures and obtaining real-time feedbacks, represents in fact one of the most actual challenges. Information about cells adhesion, growth, differentiation, can be indeed achieved integrating sensing elements in scaffold or cell culture support, aiming to correlate phases of cell cycle with measurable changes in several electrical characteristics. This approach led to the definition of a specific technique known as Electrochemical Cell-Based Impedance Spectroscopy (ECIS), which represent one of the most interesting solution to the problem of real-time monitoring cell behavior. Interestingly, information about the environment - in which cells are growing - and/or about the condition-related metabolic products present in the biological samples, can be obtained by specifically integrating electrically sensing elements into cell cultures, modifying scaffold materials and/or printing dedicated electrodes into bioreactor structure. Considering all these fields of interest, in the last decades a high number of researches started to investigate various strategies to achieve highly precise and sensitive sensing elements, addressing mainly non-invasive and biocompatible solutions, thus to obtain reliable feedbacks on the biological processes, but without interfering with them. The present lecture specifically addresses the problem of monitoring cell culture in their 3D environment, trying to give a comprehensive view of all the strategies developed in the last decade to achieve an effective and non-invasive feedback, both in term of techniques realized to obtain conductive scaffold fabrication and how electrical parameters can be specifically correlated with events of the cell cycle.
Monday September 10 Room 3 - Track 2 10:30 - 12:45
2.5 Photonic technologies for industry 4.0
Cosimo Gerardi 3SUN - Catania
High efficiency Si - HJT solar cells:innovative PV technology for reducing energy generation costs
A   Today, silicon is the mainstream commercial technology in the photovoltaic market. The last years have seen huge cost reductions, which have favoured large-scale PV expansion. The PV market, with a volume of about 100GWp of modules manufactured in 2017, is dominated by multicrystalline-Si (mc-Si) and monocrystalline-Si (c-Si). Though characterized by limited innovation, such technologies take many advantages from mature manufacturing processes, standardized materials and scale economy. To compete in a tough market PV manufacturers are more and more focussing on technologies able to reduce energy cost, leveraging on high efficiency solar cells, module durability and higher average energy
generation. In such a context, the innovative hydrogenated amorphous Si / crystalline Si heterojunction technology (Si - HJT) is very important since it exhibits several fundamental characteristics allowing PV modules to generate more energy for longer time. Such properties have remarkable effects on the reduction of the levelized cost of energy (LCOE), which is the relevant parameter of PV installations. Si - HJT cells are intrinsically bifacial and can be fabricated with a simple industrial process flow at low temperatures (<200°C), thus enabling the use of thinner silicon wafers and facilitating the implementation of emerging materials, which are typically less compatible with high temperature processes. Therefore, the technology roadmap of silicon heterojunction solar cells can rely on the development of several innovations, such as efficient selective contacts and nanotechnology solutions for improving transparent contacts performances and light trapping in the absorber material. This work will report the most recent research and industrial developments for the Si - HJT solar cells, describing the technology roadmap as well as the expected advantages with respect to conventional technologies.
Monday September 10 Room 3 - Track 2 10:30 - 12:45
2.5 Photonic technologies for industry 4.0
Fabrizio Buccheri Prysmian Electronics
Distributed Fiber Sensing Techniques for the Power Cable Industry
This tutorial discusses the use of Distributed Fiber Sensing techniques in the Power Cable Industry. Through these techniques a standard optical fiber designed for telecommunication can be used as a sensor for monitoring temperature, strain and vibrations of long power cables. The measurands can be recorded with spatial resolution in order of few meters for distances up to 100 km.
Monday September 10 Room 1 - Track 1 16:30 - 18:30
1.11 Power Electronics and Drives for Sustainable Transportation
Giorgio Spiazzi University of Padova, Italy
Bidirectional Converter Topologies for Low-Voltage battery Interface: a Comparison
The growing interest toward bidirectional converter topologies for interfacing low-voltage (48 V) batteries with a high DC link voltage needed to supply a grid-connected inverter, in renewable applications or a motor drive in hybrid vehicles, has led the scientific community to search for solutions capable of doing this task with maximum efficiency and reliability. This paper compares three different battery charger topologies in terms of device voltage and current stress, forecasted efficiency, quality of the current delivered to the battery, and dynamic performance.
Monday September 10 Room 2 - Track 2 16:30 - 18:30
2.2+2.3 Robotics and autonomous systems
Emanuele Garone Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
It's not MPC ! An Explicit Reference Governor for the supervision of constrained nonlinear systems
This paper presents the first release of the Explicit Reference Governor Toolbox (ERGT). The ERGT provides a user-friendly interface for the design of an Explicit Reference Governor, which is an add-on unit that provides constraint handling capabilities to closed loop systems. At the present stage, the toolbox can be used to design an ERG for the constrained control of linear systems subject to the union and intersection of linear constraints. The paper describes several ERGT resources, such as i) built-in Matlab functions for the design phase, ii) Simulink blocks for performing simulations, and iii) a simple tutorial of how to use the toolbox. Additionally, this paper extends the ERG scheme to deal with constraints in the form of union of convex polyhedra.
Monday September 10 Room 3 - Track 3 16:30 - 18:30
3.2 Sensor networks
Luca Zaccarian University of Trento, Italy
Distributed estimation based on multi-hop subspace decomposition
This paper deals with the problem of distributedly estimating the state of an LTI plant through an interconnected network of agents. The proposed approach results in an observable structure that incorporate consensus among the agents and that can be distributedly designed, achieving a robust solution with a good estimation performance. The developed solution is based on an iterative decomposition of the plant in the local observable staircase forms. The proposed observer has several positive features compared to recent results in the literature, which include milder assumptions on the network connectivity and the ability to set the convergence rate.

Tuesday September 11

Tuesday September 11 Room 1 - Track 1 9:00 - 10:30
1.2 Electricity from renewable energy A
Diego Arnone Engineering SpA
Smart solutions for balancing power grid with high penetration of renewable
The widespread availability of renewable energy sources is the main pathway towards decarbonization but it is well known how partial unpredictability, uncontrollability and territoriality of renewables make the power grid more and more unstable and unreliable: voltage and frequency fluctuations occur whenever the energy demand is not balanced by energy supply because of unpredicted injection of power into the grid as well as passive power lines that become active and generate power reverse flows through substations towards higher voltage lines. New technologies must be developed and deployed to mitigate the negative effects of renewables on the grid and innovative IT solutions can support this transition by making the grid smarter and smarter. Engineering I.I. S.p.A. is a big Italian IT company, founded 38 years ago, that gets more than one forth of its revenues from the Energy and Utilities domain. Thanks to huge investments in research and development activities (30 million in 2017), Engineering is actually participating to more than 60 research co-funded initiatives, mainly H2020 research projects. A significant number of these projects are focused on the design and development of innovative IT solutions for the power grid, the energy producers and the consumers. In the role of key technology provider, Engineering has taken part of more than 15 research projects concerning the collaboration between power grid and flexible prosumers and this allows the company to offer reliable solutions to big customers like TERNA, ENEL, IREN and many other players in the energy domain. The speech will be a bird’s eye view of some of the “smart energy projects” that are currently ongoing in the Engineering Research and Development Laboratory.
Tuesday September 11 Room 2 - Track 2 9:00 - 10:30
2.9 A Advanced numerical modelling A
Michele Piana University of Genova, Italy
An I4.0 technology for space weather using satellite data
Space weather can be rather intriguingly interpreted as an Industry 4.0 issue. One of the most systematic attempt to deal with space weather according to I4.0 perspective is probably represented by the Horizon 2020 research and innovation action “Flare Likelihood and Region Eruption Forecating (FLARECAST) ” which realized a technological platform for machine learning algorithms with the objective of providing the space weather community with a prediction service for solar flares. FLARECAST service shows how the methods implemented in the platform allow both flare prediction and a quantitative assessment of how the information contained in the space data utilized in the analysis may impact the forecasting process.
Tuesday September 11 Room 3 - Track 3 9:00 - 10:30
3.1 Experimental research and prototyping towards 5G and beyond
Ivan Seskar Rutgers University, USA
Towards the Next Generation of Wireless Networking Testbeds
Wireless network testbeds are important for realistic, at-scale experimental evaluation of new radio technologies, protocols and network architectures. A number of existing wireless testbeds are being used for experimental research on a wide variety of research topics including dynamic spectrum access, full duplex, massive and distributed MIMO, cmWave and mmWave, cognitive radio networks, DTN, vehicular networks and so on. With a somewhat belated reality check on 5G, larger tests and demonstration sites have become essential in the validation of next generation wireless platforms. This talk will introduce COSMOS (“Cloud enhanced Open Software defined MObile wireless testbed for city-Scale deployment”) project that creates a city-scale platform for advanced wireless research that is being deployed over the period 2018 - 2023 in New York City. The technical focus of the COSMOS platform is on ultra-highbandwidth and low-latency wireless communications, with tightly coupled edge computing with emphasis on the millimeter-wave radio communications and dynamic optical switching.
Tuesday September 11 Room 2 - Track 2 14:30 - 16:30
2.9 Advanced numerical modelling B
S. Carcangiu University of Cagliari, Italy
A Locally Recurrent Neural Network Based Approach for the Early Fault Detection
In this work, a fault detection approach for diagnosis of nonlinear systems is presented. This diagnostic approach is performed resorting to a neural predictor of the output of the system, and by using the error prediction as a feature for the diagnosis. The neural predictor is a locally recurrent neural network, which is dynamically trained by using a gradient-based algorithm, where the gradient of the error function is expressed in closed form. The residuals of the prediction are affected by the deviation of the parameters from their nominal values, so that an early detection of the faults can be performed by observing the dynamic of the residuals. The Willamoski-Rössler reaction is used as case study in order to validate the diagnostic approach.
Tuesday September 11 Room 3 - Track 3 14:30 - 16:30
3.5 Blockchain technologies: challenges and opportunities
Ivan Visconti University of Salerno, Italy
Blockchain Technology Beyond Cryptocurrencies
Following the innovation introduced by the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, several other applications of the Blockchain technology have been proposed and in some cases implemented. Nevertheless, serious legal issues (e.g., GDPR, ICO regulations) might block or slowdown the spread of this technology. Given this state of affairs, the speech will explore some advanced cryptographic tools that can relax the tension between pros and cons of the Blockchain technology, therefore allowing simultaneously both data persistence and privacy protection.
Tuesday September 11 Room 1 - Track 1 17:00 - 19:00
1.3 Advanced materials for photovoltaic applications
Sara Pescetelli University Roma Tor Vergata
Graphene and related 2D materials: a winning strategy for enhanced efficiency and stability in perovskite photovoltaics
In this work, we proposed the successful application of graphene and related 2D materials in the field of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) by engineering the standard mesoscopic n-i-p structure. The use of 2D materials has the dual role in improving both the stability and the overall efficiency of the proposed 2D-engineered PSC structure with respect to existing devices. The easy and successfully demonstrated device scaling-up allowed the realization of efficient large area graphene/perovskite modules.
Tuesday September 11 Room 1 - Track 1 17:00 - 19:00
1.3 Advanced materials for photovoltaic applications
Rosaria Puglisi CNR- IMM – Catania, Italy
Silicon nanowires obtained by plasma based CVD for application in solar cells
Abundance, stability and non-toxicity are the silicon properties which have undoubtedly made it the leading actor in solar cells market in the last decades. The roadmap forecasts this will last for other years to come, but  demands a product cost cut and an efficiency increment. To do so silicon nanowires have been proposed as the cell emitter active layer thanks to their optical properties, like the blue shift and the intensity increase in the photoluminescence signals, expected when their mean diameter is less than the free exciton size (5 nm) in the bulk silicon. The talk will discuss the common methods to fabricate these types of nanostructures focusing on chemical vapor deposition, one of the most controlled methods in terms of synthesis parameters and final morphological results. It will also discuss the issues related to their synthesis when the goal of obtaining sizes below 5 nm is targeted.
Tuesday September 11 Room 2 - Track 2 17:00 - 19:00
2.1 Computer vision
Alessandro Capra STMicroelectronics
Computer Vision in Embedded Devices
An overview of the evolution of embedded devices dedicated to image processing and computer vision for consumer devices will be presented during this talk. The speaker will highlight the challenges a semiconductor company faces in this domain, how it interacts with the research communities and with customers in the definition of a product roadmap. Finally, an overview on occurring technology trends and new opportunities for industries and research institutions will be outlined.
Tuesday September 11 Room 3 - Track 3 17:00 - 19:00
3.7 Contact Management in connected Society & Enterprises
Sylvie Despres Université Paris Nord, France
Modular Ontology Overview and Usecases. What advantages for the industry?
After presenting the two main approaches for the construction of modular ontologies: modularization of existing ontologies and construction by composition. I will then present several examples of such constructions: NosRecettes ontology in the field of digital cooking, IDOSCHISTO in the field of epidemiology and MEMORAeCore2 in the field of collaborative work. I will then analyze the advantages and disadvantages of such an approach in the industrial field.

Wednesday September 12

Wednesday September 12 Room 1 - Track 1 9:00 - 11:00
1.9 Remote sensing models and methods to support sustainable development and disaster management A
Daniele Riccio Univ. Napoli Federico II, Italy
Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radars for the Next Decade

One decade, too long a time frame to provide reasonable expectations in almost all fields of Science. In almost all areas of science and technology, the predictions of scientists and technologists over the next decade are generally unattractive and will probably only come about marginally. Predicting what will happen in the next decade is in fact very often linked to phenomena external to the scientific world that often imply reflections on human relationships and require a good dose of creativity: until the foretelling becomes a matter of science fiction and human sciences experts.

I believe this is not the case with Earth observation through SAR technologies.
The new generation of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) sensors that will operate in the next decade is already in the designing and planning phase. Already now, we almost know the specifications of the upcoming space platforms, which together with the new configurations and operating modes will increase the flexibility of SAR sensors to obtain even multidimensional images and data, in a wide range of resolutions and coverages both in space and time. We can even anticipate the availability of open and free SAR data relevant to the entire Globe, as well as software tools addressing the fundamentals of SAR processing and hardware structures to implement them. Hence, forecasting scientific results that take advantage of technological issues should seem reasonable. However, this unprecedented development in SAR technologies requires the definition of new models, algorithms, techniques and tools for the exploitation, evaluation and validation of SAR data. The forecast results in these areas are still almost unpredictable since these latter activities are mainly related to human creativity and inventions. Predicting the human contribution to  expected technological results is an intriguing and open problem that can provide ideas on actual advances in Sciences.
I think it is worth discussing about that at the conference.

Wednesday September 12 Room 2 - Track 2 9:00 - 11:00
2.6 Nanotechnologies for industry 4.0
Alberto Pasquarelli Ulm University, Germany
Nanowire technology for sensing applications
Inorganic nanowires grown either by vapor-liquid-solid or vapor-solid-solid synthesis look very promising as building blocks for sensors and other electronic devices, especially in the fields of chemistry and life sciences, biological and analytical applications. This contribution reports on enabling technologies and related devices developed in our institution. They span from bottom-up growth to transfer and alignment, from in-place growth to surface coating with nanodiamond films. These yield a facile and efficient nanowire device fabrication, thus easing the construction of nanosensors and sensor arrays with improved sensitivity for chemical and biological signals during extra- and intracellular measurements.
Wednesday September 12 Room 3 - Track 3 9:00 - 11:00
3.6 5G, from technology to its enabled applications
Samuela Persia Fondazione Ugo Bordoni, Italy
EMF Exposure evaluations for Future Networks Based on TDD and Massive MIMO: New International Regulations
Future networks will allow to reach high level of connectivity and capacity in order to respond to the growing traffic needs of the next years. It means that, future fifth generation of mobile network (5G) will relay not only on the expansion of existing fourth (4G) Long Term Evolution (LTE) network, but thanks to the introduction of new radio access in the millimetre wave bands will allow to meet these new requirements. Specifically, future networks will be characterized by a very large installations deployment in terms of macro/micro/femto cells. In addition, 5G New radio (NR) is characterized by advanced antenna technologies such as massive MIMO (Multiple Input, Multiple Output) and beamforming techniques, for which the beam is steered in the directions where it is needed, rather than to constantly transmit energy in a wide sector. It suggests that, an exposure evaluation based on traditional conservative approach where theoretical maximum power is transmitted in each possible direction for a long time period is unrealistic. By these considerations, it appears that the RF EMF (Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Field) compliance assessments with the regulatory requirements for human exposure for the installation permission needs to be revised accordingly. As a measure for harmonization of the member States the European Commission indicated in the “5G Action Plan” the importance of all European Countries to align their policies and legislations for EMF exposure, according to the International Commission on Non-ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), in order to promote an efficient 5G roll-out. In particular, in order to promote a collaborative interaction of all countries for 5G development, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) within the framework ITU Regional Initiative for Europe on Development of Broadband Access and Adoption of Broadband, promoted European Country Case Studies to evaluate the impact of national legislation to the introduction of future 5G mobile network. By evaluations, it emerged that countries characterized by more restrictive limitations with respect to the ICNIRP guidelines could experiment difficulty to introduce broadband wireless networks. This situation already experimented in 3G-4G migration, could become more critical for the future network deployment, such as 5G. For this reason, in order to cope with the new challenges posed by the innovative 5G radio access networks, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), in the TC106 “Methods for the assessment of electric, magnetic and electromagnetic fields associated with human exposure” has developed an improvement of exposure assessment methodologies including 5G frequencies in the Standard IEC 62232 Ed.2 where the actual maximum power instead of the nominal one, defined as the 95th percentile of the measured values, has been considered. This approach takes into account the long-term behavior of spatial multiplexing capabilities of Massive MIMO antennas, as well as radio resource utilization and TDD transmission intervals. As a consequence, the Italian Electro technical Committee [CEI], established the importance to introduce in the technical guides CEI 211-7E and CEI 211-10 (needed to evaluate EMF according to the Italian Regulations), new updates by considering novel EMF metrics. As Massive MIMO and TDD will be the main components of future 5G networks, the statistical model is likely to be the most appropriate for the EMF compliance assessment of future networks, and thus the regulations will be updated accordingly.
Wednesday September 12 Room 1 - Track 1 11:30 - 13:00
1.5 Smart communities for resilient and innovative cities
Roberto Lippi Coordinador para los Países Andinos, Bogotá - Programa de Naciones Unidas para los Asentamientos Humanos, ONU-HABITAT
Open Cities: Towards a New Governance of Cities and Territory
Over half of the world's population living in urban areas: it is necessary to rethink how we have to plan and govern cities in an innovative way. The adoption of the New Urban Agenda, result of the Third UN Conference on Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III), offers a new vision on how to build, plan and manage cities in more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable ways. The use of technology offers enormous opportunities both for planning and control of the territory and for developing more incisive and inclusive governance mechanisms, increasing and improving the participation of citizens in the construction of more efficient and responsible cities. The scale and speed with which people access information and interact with each other are unprecedented and institutions must react to these new ways of exercising citizenship. Transparency and open governance are solid tools to make cities more efficient, cohesive and attractive. Citizens, administrations and development actors can help make cities better, especially for the
most vulnerable ones. Governments, at any level, must open up to the idea of governing with different schemes, together with citizens, civil society, and the private sector. This implies inclining towards an innovative and "open" governance of cities and territories since the challenges we face are too big to be tackled by every single actor and as we have always done so.
Wednesday September 12 Room 2 - Track 2 11:30 - 13:00
2.6 Nanotechnologies for industry 4.0 B
Yogendra Kumar Mishra Kiel University, Germany
Flame based ZnO tetrapod nanomaterials for multifunctional applications
With wide direct band of ~3.37 eV, hexagonal-wurtzite crystal structure, large exciton binding energy (~60 meV), the ZnO material has been among one of the most pioneering materials towards nanostructuring and large number of applications. A wide variety of nanostructural shapes from ZnO are being synthesized and utilized for several applications. The role of structural aspects, such as complex tetrapodal and multipodal, shape, still needs to be addressed. Inspired by novel capabilities of zinc oxide, we recently developed a new flame based nanostructuring process, called flame transport synthesis (FTS) approach, which offers very simple fabrication of tetrapod shaped ZnO nano- and microstructures in desired quantities. The 3D shape feature enables these tetrapods to be used as unique building blocks for fabricating highly porous interconnected 3D network materials as flexible ceramics which can be used in advanced technologies. These structures can be used as unique fillers to design advanced composite materials. They can be used as solid backbones for synthesizing hybrid porous materials or can also be used as sacrificial templates for growth of new porous 3D tetrapodal networks from various other materials. ZnO tetrapod applications in: (i) Nanoelectronics Sensing, (ii) Optics and Optoelectronics, (iii) Smart 3D Polymer Composites, (iv) Biomedical Engineering, (v) Hybrid and new materials nanostructuring opportunities, such as, Aerographite, carbon nanotubes tubes (CNTT), will be briefly discussed in this talk.
Wednesday September 12 Room 3 - Track 3 11:30 - 13:15
3.10 High Integrity and High Accuracy for Intelligent Transportation Systems
Roberto Capua SOGEI, Italy
GNSS High Precision for Anyone: Dream or Reality?
Since the early GPS era, the relevance of GNSS carrier phase for High Precision and High Accuracy (using the correct metric parameter referred to the true value) satellite positioning has been recognised. Differential techniques came up suddenly, showing the possibility to eliminate common errors between a reference station and a rover receivers. The consequence of that was the possibility to solve the so called ambiguities (initial number of cycles in a satellite to user distance measurement), needed for dealing with carrier phase. This allowed achieving centimeter level positioning through long post processing (hours to tenths of minutes, depending on the relevant interdistance and level of measurements errors and noise). After that, RTK (Real-Time Kinematic) technique raised, allowing the same accuracy in tenths of seconds. This leaded to the development of costly and dense Reference Station networks (being the maximum interdistance limited by the decorrelation of errors in the covered area) for allowing RTK on a local area. Network-RTK allowed a modelling of errors in a wider area, reducing the need of Reference Stations (interdistance in the order of 70 km). Nowadays, the technology is rapidly evolving and allows advantages in terms of costs, coverage and flexibility. While high precision was limited in the past to professional use (e.g. geodesy, mapping, land surveying), today such requirement is becoming relevant for emerging applications, like autonomous driving. PPP (Precise Point Positioning) is the ultimate objective of the Current GNSS Research. Such technique is based on the precise estimation of errors by a control centre (e.g. precise ephemeris and clock for each satellite). Such estimation requires a very sparse monitoring network of reference stations at global level and allows the implementation of High Precision for anyone. Unfortunately, a long convergence time is needed, but new techniques and the availability of multiple constellations and frequencies are very well promising. The European Galileo programme is believing in that possibility and foresaw the broadcasting of such corrections directly from any satellite. This could lead to the possibility of having High Precision cm level positioning for anyone at low cost in a few years. Furthermore, ubiquitous positioning is leading to the PNT (Positioning, Navigation and Timing) concept. The integration of other positioning means (mobile communication, Bluetooth, WiFi) will allow high accuracy positioning everywhere. Receiver technology is rapidly evolving, through the availability of multi-frequency and multiconstellations GNSS chipsets within smartphones. Integrity and reliability of high accuracy positioning are also important for the safety of life applications and standardization bodies are dealing with that point (e.g. new brand RTCM SC-134 Committee). The present lecture will show the above steps of evolution of high precision positioning systems and how it could become a reality that will revolutionise our life in the incoming years.

Thursday September 13

Thursday September 13 Room 1 - Track 1 9:00 - 10:30
1.7 Sustainable marine transportation
Bruno Tevené Chief Technology Office - Underwater Systems, Leonardo Defence Systems
Modern Marine Transportation Systems: Safety, Security and Environmental Aspects
The design of a "large lithium battery" for marine transportation can be conducted at various levels of complexity depending on the severity of the requirements, the standard regulations be followed and the level of safety to be achieved. This speech will provide a description of the "Protone" research and development project focused on optimizing rechargeable lithium batteries for marine applications. The first part of the speech will provide a brief description of the Protone project (objective, participants, expected results, etc.). It will describe the general criteria adopted in the design of the lithium battery which will be installed, in the first half of 2019, on board of a demonstration vessel. The second part will focus on a safety problem common to all "large lithium batteries", i.e. the possible propagation of the thermal runaway from a defective (or abused) cell to the surrounding cells and / or to the rest of the battery. This event must be considered potentially catastrophic, especially in the case of large batteries to be installed on board small boats.
Thursday September 13 Room 2 - Track 2 9:00 - 10:30
2.7 Compliant non-destructive testing
Luca De Rai Prysmian Group
Use of non-disruptive electrical tests for selection and characterization of materials for EHV cables
Prysmian Group is the largest cable manufacturer in the world and with the recent acquisition of General Cables has become by far the leader of this industry, especially in the Energy sector. The continuous engagement and investments in R&D is focused to keep also the technological leadership, mainly in the advanced applications as EHV and Submarine. In this specific sector, design and material characterization are the key success factors for a fast and sustainable product development. In many years of history Prysmian Labs have developed a number of testing procedures to select among different alternatives the most promising solutions to bring to the full scale qualifications. The three main phases of the selection process are: mathematical modelization and simulation, mechanical and electrical tests on material samples and tests on cables and accessories (models and full size). These techniques constitute also the basis for qualification and after installation tests. The evolution in this field is represented by the implementation of continuous monitoring systems which allow to control and assess the conditions in real time using smart sensors embedded into the cable system.
Thursday September 13 Room 3 - Track 2 9:00 - 10:30
2.4 Safety, Security and Privacy for Cyber-Physical Systems
Franco Davoli University of Genova, Italy
Building trusted and reliable services over Cyber- Physical Systems
Evolving business models are progressively reshaping the scope and structure of ICT services, through the creation of multi-domain and complex business chains that span several technological and administrative domains and tightly interact with the physical environment. Convergence among existing software paradigms, such as cloud computing, software-defined networking, and the Internet of Things (IoT) is expected for this purpose, leveraging autonomicity and dynamic composition through the massive introduction of virtualization paradigms, as well as service-oriented and everything-as-as-service models applied to cyber-physical systems. This approach has undoubtedly brought more agility in service deployment and operation, even though the need to share infrastructure and data brings additional security and privacy concerns that have not been addressed in a satisfactory way yet.
Current cyber-security paradigms, still largely based on the security perimeter model and the deployment of discrete independent security appliances, are already revealing their substantial inability to cope with dynamic, mutable, and often partially unknown service chains, running over multi-domain and multi-tenancy infrastructures. In this talk, we elaborate on the need for tighter integration of security aspects in service engineering and business processes. The ground concept of our vision is the architectural separation between analysis and data sources, mediated by proper abstraction for the cyber-security context; we discuss how this paradigm will result in an open, modular, pluggable, extendable, and scalable security framework. Key benefits behind our approach include but are not limited to: i) increasing the information base for analysis and detection, while preserving privacy, ii) improving the detection capability by data correlation between domains and sources, iii) verifying reliability and dependability by formal methods that take into account configuration and trust properties of the whole chain.
Thursday September 13 Room 1 - Track 1 14:00 - 16:00
1.8 Environmental monitoring and prediction
Anne Johannet IMT, Mines d’Alès, France
Extracting Information from a neural Network: from Statistics to Physical Processes. Application in Hydro(géo)logy
Neural networks are generally used to perform black box modelling because no physical assumption is available on the system to model, or because they can accelerate the calculation time. For these reasons, neural networks are more and more used in hydrology or hydrogeology. Indeed, hydrosystems are heterogeneous, quite impossible to observe accurately, and thus difficult to model. Nevertheless, due to the supply of fresh water, or their ability to reduce or generate flooding, more in-depth knowledge of their behavior proves critical. In this context, this conference proposes addressing this challenging issue of extracting information from a neural network allowing then to “open the black box”. This method is called “KnoX” as Knowledge eXtraction” and is presented herein so as to better understand the hydrodynamic behavior of complex hydrosystems. This method operates in three steps: first propose a “postulated model” describing the conceptual presupposed behavior of the system, (ii) second, build a specific architecture based on the multilayer perceptron implementing this conceptual vision, and (iii) perform the training and extract the knowledge from the parameters. This methodology has been successfully applied to the difficult case of the Lez karst basin, near Montpellier (France) yielding improved knowledge on basin behavior (water resources and flooding) and a revised delimitation of its feeding basin.
Thursday September 13 Room 2 - Track 2 14:00 - 16:00
2.10 Smart technologies and modelling for avionics
Alberto Reatti University of Firenze, Italy
Resonant circuits for Wireless Power Transfer and possible application to avionics
The most important feature of an Inductive Wireless Power Transfer (I-WPT) is as high-power transmission efficiency. An Inductive Wireless Power Transfer system consists of two coupled inductors called primary and secondary where the primary side is usually constituted by a dc-ac resonant inverter which feed the primary inductor with a nearly sinusoidal current waveforms. This produces an alternative magnetic field. A part of this magnetic field, according to the coupling coefficient between the primary and secondary coils reaches the secondary coil and, therefore, an electromotive force is induced cross the secondary coil turns. A higher part of the magnetic field produced on the primary reaches the secondary, the higher is the voltage across the secondary coil terminals and, for any given load resistance, the higher is the output power delivered to the load. The resonance is achieved by utilizing capacitors in combinations with the primary and secondary inductors. Since at the resonance the circulating reactive power is reduced, the transmission of real power over relatively large distances among the primary and secondary coils is achieved at increased efficiencies. Depending on the connection between the capacitors and coils, four main topologies can be identified: Series - Series, Series - Parallel, Parallel - Series, and Parallel - Parallel. In the following section, these resonance compensations schemes are analyzed, and the advantages and disadvantages of each topology are highlighted. Possible application to avionics are proposed.
Thursday September 13 Room 3 - Track 3 14:00 - 16:00
3.4 Distributed ICT for health and wellness
Pietro Siciliano IMM-CNR Lecce, Italy
Smart Devices for Health and AAL in the new concept of Smart Living
Social changes and needs, demographic change and an aging population, the need to improve the quality of life and well being of citizens as well as environmental sustainability require a redesign and a radical transformation of living conditions - urban space, domestic space, work environments, mobility, accessibility of services, welfare - according to a user-centric approach. In this context, "Smart Living Technologies" aims to make all the environments in which people spend their _me, be it business, social, and at home, etc., more adapted to the needs of those persons, whether they are in good physical condition in terms of frailty and disability, disease and social exclusion, in different age groups (children, adults or elderly people, in poor health, etc., ...). In particular, this work refers to the use of Key Enabling Technologies and Smart System Integration for the development of advanced technological solutions for the realization of products (sensors, devices, etc.) and services which, according to a pattern of "Ambient Assisted Living" and "Ambient Intelligence", enable to redesign the sense of “Smart Living” to ensure inclusion, safety, welfare, comfort, care, health care, environmental sustainability.