SPECIAL SESSION TITLE

Recent trends in factory communications in the IIoT and Industry 4.0 era

SESSION ORGANIZERS

Prof. Emiliano Sisinni, University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy

EMILIANO SISINNI (S ’01, M ’05) has received the M.S. degree and the Ph.D. in Electronic Engineering from the University of Brescia in 2000 and 2004, respectively. He is currently a Full Professor in Electronics in the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Brescia. His research activity, originally focused on sensor signal conditioning, has recently moved to industrial and bio-medical applications of Wireless Sensor Networks and Real-Time Ethernet. Research topics include time synchronization issues; the development of innovative communication protocols; and the adoption of Software Defined Radios. In the last period, he investigated industrial applications of Smart Grid paradigm and Power-Line Communications as well. He can claim professional expertise in various sectors, including real-time embedded systems based on microprocessors, DSPs and FPGAs. Starting from 2008, he holds various positions within the technical committees of national and international standardization bodies in the field of industrial communications, including CEI (Italian Electrotechnical Committee, CEI65C) and IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission, IECTC65 WG17, IECSC65C WG16 and WG17). He is member of the IES TCFA committee since 2014 and of IMS TC-37 since 2017. He serves in the Program Committee of several IEEE-organized international conferences, including ISPCS, SAS and I2MTC. He is also co-author of more than 170 peer reviewed papers in International conferences and Journals. Prof. Sisinni is a member of the IEEE (and IEEE Instrumentation and Measurement Society) and of the Italian Society for Electronics (SIE) and the Italian Group of Electrical and Electronic Measurements (GMEE).

Emiliano Sisinni has been recipient of the “BEST PAPER AWARD” of the 2010 IEEE Symposium on Precision Clock Synchronization for Measurement Control and Communication (ISPCS) and the “BEST ACADEMIC PAPER AWARD” of the 2017 International IEEE Workshop on Measurements and Networking (M&N), two conferences sponsored by the IMS society.

Contacts:

Emiliano Sisinni Department of Information Engineering, University of Brescia, Via Branze, 38
25123 – BRESCIA – Italy
Email: [email protected]
Web Site: http://emiliano-sisinni.unibs.it/ | http://es3.unibs.it/

Prof. Mikael Gidlund, Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden

Mikael Gidlund (M’98–SM’16) received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden, in 2000 and 2005, respectively. In 2005, he was a Visiting Researcher with the Department of Informatics, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway. From 2006 to 2007, he was a Research Engineer and a Project Manager with Acreo AB, Kista, Sweden, where he was responsible for wireless broadband communication. From 2007 to 2008, he was a Senior Specialist and a Project Manager with Nera Networks AS, Bergen, where he was responsible for next-generation IP-based radio solutions. From 2008 to 2013, he was a Senior Principal Scientist and a Global Research Area Coordinator of wireless technologies with ABB Corporate Research, Västerås, Sweden, where he was responsible for technology and strategy plans, standardization, and innovation in the wireless automation area. He has pioneered the area of industrial wireless sensor network. Since 2014, he has been a Full Professor of computer engineering with Mid Sweden University. He has authored or co-authored over 100 scientific publications in refereed journals and conferences. He holds over 20 patents (granted and pending applications) in the area of wireless communications. His current research interests include wireless communication and networks, wireless sensor networks, medium access protocols, and security.

Dr. Gidlund received the Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Industrial IT in 2014. He is currently the Vice-Chair of the IEEE IES Technical committee on Cloud and Wireless Systems for Industrial Applications. He is an Associate Editor of the IEEE TRANSACTION ON INDUSTRIAL INFORMATICS, Journal of Information Processing Systems and area editor for SENSORS (MDPI).

Assistant Prof. Aamir Mahmood, Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden

Aamir Mahmood received the B.E. degree in electrical engineering from the National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Pakistan, in 2002, and the M.Sc. and D.Sc. degrees in communications engineering from the Aalto University School of Electrical Engineering, Finland, in 2008 and 2014, respectively. He worked as a Research Intern at the Nokia Researcher Center, Finland, in 2014, Visiting Researcher at Aalto University, from 2015 to 2016, and a Postdoctoral Researcher at Mid Sweden University (MIUN), Sweden, from 2016 to 2018. Since 2019, he has been an Assistant Professor with the Department of Information Systems and Technology, MIUN.

Dr. Aamir has authored more than 50 scientific publications in the field of wireless communications, and he actively works on modeling, design, and analysis of low-power wireless connectivity and medium access solutions for industrial IoT, RF interference and coexistence, over-the-air time synchronization, and energy-reliability-aware radio resource allocation. He won the Best Paper award in IEEE Wireless Communications and Networking Conference (WCNC), 2013. He served as Publications Chair for IEEE International Workshop on Factor Communication Systems (WFCS), 2019. In 2020, he held a tutorial on “Wireless connectivity for the Industrial IoT” at IEEE I2MTC’20. He has also served as a TPC member at IEEE ETFA’20, I2MTC’20, and SAS’20, and an active reviewer for IEEE Transactions of Industrial Informatics since 2018

Dr. Luca Beltramelli, Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden

Luca Beltramelli received the B.E. degree in electronics and telecommunications engineering and the M.Sc. degree in electronics engineering from the University of Brescia, Brescia, Italy, in 2012 and 2015, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in computer and system sciences from Mid Sweden University, Sundsvall, Sweden, in 2020. Since 2020, he has been a Post-Doctoral Researcher with the Department of Information Systems and Technology, Mid Sweden University. His research interests include medium access control (MAC) design for massive connectivity in low-energy technologies, and analysis and optimization of low-power wide-area network technologies.

SESSION SYNOPSIS

The latest generation of wired and wireless technologies, as the TSN, WiFi6, 5G etc, are profoundly changing the Factory Communication area, especially after the advent of the Industrial Internet of Things in the automation domain. Sensors (and actuators) are no more “smart” devices, but evolved into intelligent things, which are able to communicate on a geographical scale. Wireless technologies offer better and better performance thanks to enhancements from the consumer market. However, requirements of the industrial domain pose additional constraints in terms of reliability and real-time performance, just to mention a few, which require solutions yet to come, and in turn translates into ever and ever evolving research efforts. On the other hand, wired communication is also substantially changing. Application of ubiquitous and pervasive computing, permitting innovative distributed control applications, has an increasing demand in terms of seamless, standardized, transparent device integration. As a matter of fact, challenging questions arise both for wireless and wired communication systems in the industrial domain, wherein security is one of the major concerns.

This special session aims to bring together academic and industry professionals to a session where the most recent studies, implementations, and proposals about the issues mentioned above can be presented.

SESSION TOPICS

Fields of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Communication Systems and Technologies for industrial applications
• Protocols and Standards for Networked Embedded and Cyber-Physical Systems
• Real-time, Safety, Security and Maintenance of Automation Systems and Networks
• Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applications to enhance and Communication Technologies for Industry 4.0
• Low-power and Green Communication in Industry
• Recent advances in research domains with similar communication requirements.