14-17 October 2018

Mantas Sakalas, Niko Joram, Frank Ellinger

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2018 IEEE BiCMOS and Compound Semiconductor Integrated Circuits and Technology Symposium (BCICTS 2018) https://bcicts.org/ 

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Abstract

This paper presents a 1.5 – 54 GHz high dynamic range low noise amplifier (LNA) and mixer combination MMIC, which is the core component of a monostatic multiple input, multiple output (MIMO) imaging radar receiver system. The circuit is implemented in a 0.13 µm SiGe BiCMOS process from IHP and occupies a core area of only 0.6 mm 2. Controlled feedback, common-base mixer inputs, patterned transmission line grounds and a folded differential distributed amplifier topology were employed to optimize the performance. Ultra-wideband operation from 1.5 to 54 GHz, low noise of NF dsb = 4.8 dB, high linearity of Pin 1dB = -1 dBm, controlled conversion gain in the range of 0 – 12 dB and a +20 dBm survivability were measured at a DC power consumption of 194 mW. With respect to these core design parameters, the proposed LNA and mixer combination outperforms the state of the art of its class.

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Paper available for downloading

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23-26 September 2018

Z. Kandylakis, K. Karantzalos, L. Karagiannidis, F. Misichroni and A. Amditis,

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2018 WHISPERS Conference 2018, 9th  Workshop on Hyperspectral Image and Signal Processing : Evolution in Remote Sensing, which will be held on 23rd to 26th  September 2018  in Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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Abstract

In the framework of ZONeSEC EU Project (https://www.zonesec.eu), the i-SENSE Research Group of the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) and the Remote Sensing Laboratory of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) have designed, developed and validated an innovative spectral imaging system for the efficient monitoring and surveillance of widezones through the integration of multiple spectral imaging sensors, as well as interoperable, seamless integration of cutting-edge tools with legacy systems, mission critical communication technologies allowing the real-time processing, alert and alarm transmission and communication with the core ZONeSEC system and all its subcomponents. 

In particular, the integrated multisensor imaging system can acquire data at different spectral regions. In particular, the Spectral Sensing Monitoring System Prototype consists of thermal and hyperspectral cameras, while a short-wave infrared (SWIR)
sensor has been integrated as well, broadening the spectral regions that multiple observations can be acquired. In more detail, the system contains two thermal sensors which are both sensitive at approximately 8μm -13μm through a microbolometer
sensing core. The sensor can acquire data with a spatial resolution of 620x500 pixels with a sensitivity less than 60mK at 9 Hz. Regarding the hyperspectral sensor it is sensitive at the 400nm-700nm spectral region, is lightweight and has low power
consumption. Raw data is acquired and stored through a standard interface. The lens has a focal length of 10mm-35mm. The shortwave infrared (SWIR) sensor is sensitive at the 900nm–1700nm spectral region. It is also lightweight and has low power consumption. As far as spatial resolution is concerned, datasets are acquired at a resolution of 640x512 pixels with high frame rates at 100Hz maximum.

The developed sensing system has been designed to locally process the acquired huge amount of video data and in near realtime provide the detection results and alarms to the ZONeSEC system. This will be performed through an Ethernet or wireless

connection, while the information will disseminated through CSV, JSON, XML, etc files. The developed system has been extensively tested and successfully validated through several both indoor and outdoor experiments at ICCS/ NTUA premises as well as the already performed ZONeSEC On-site Integration Pilots (OIPs) and Pilot Demonstrators at the premises of ZONeSEC’s end-users: (i) Attikes Diadromes SA (urban highway), (ii) Compania Aquaserv SA (water supply and sewerage public service), (iii) ACCIONA Infraestructuras SA (bridges, roads and transportation infrastructures), (iv) DESFA SA (natural Gas transmission system operator). The competitive advantage and innovation lies on the fact that the system was designed (both hardware and software aspects and functionalities) in order to exploit different spectral regions across the spectrum,  be
robust against different critical security conditions and other monitoring parameters like spatial, temporal resolution, field of view, power consumption, etc. delivering alerts and alarms in (near) real-time. The cutting-edge technology was successfully integrated in terms of hardware, while the developed software modules managed to handle the huge amount of video streams acquired from all sensors simultaneously performing at the same time the required pre-processing computations regarding both geometric and radiometric corrections. In addition, a uniform communication layer has been implemented that enables the interoperable, secure and real-time data exchange of the Spectral Sensing Monitoring System Prototype with the ZONeSEC platform.  

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Presentation available for downloading soon

14th – 16th of May, 2018

K. Koncz, L. Kajcsa, G, Inglese , E. Agrafioti, A.G. Papadakis, A. Chalkidou, M. Andeva , J. R. Martinez  and D. Petrantonakis 

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International conference “Efficient Use and Management of Water 2018” during Regional Water Forum Danube Eastern Europe (Conference Proceedings)

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Abstract

The challenges presented by the protection of critical infrastructures (CIs), including water networks represent a pressing issue for the European Union. Physical and cyber threats have to be counteracted by using early detection and situation awareness technologies. Adding to the problem, many European CIs are spread over wide areas. Furthermore, existing security measures has to be integrated with any new sensors. Critically, the ethical and societal aspects have to be addressed from the beginning.

Included on the 7th Framework Program (FP7) projects, ZONeSEC proposes a complete and multidisciplinary solution based on the combination of already existing and novel sensors, taking into account the ethical and societal aspects and setting a framework for security recommendations. The final objective of the project is to create a complete solution framework where novel sensors can be seamless integrated with existing sensor platforms providing data fusion, situation awareness and a common operational picture.

The new sensors involved in ZONeSEC have the requisite of being inexpensive solutions that present the possibility of plug&play and seamless integration. Some of the challenges addressed by the project are related with the interoperability of sensors, the use of heterogeneous networks over arbitrary wide areas, the combination of legacy and new solutions, near real-time requisites, the fusion of data, the use of simulation and the presentation of a common operational picture for the final user.

Ethical and privacy aspects have also being addressed from the early stages of the project. It is very easy to trespass the lines between security and privacy invasion, especially considering the wide area and the use of aerial unmanned solutions (UAVs). The security solutions proposed has to be ethically acceptable to be considered suitable for real installation.

ZONeSEC is the perfect use case to experiment, develop, integrate and test the solutions for these challenges. ZONeSEC has a clear practical vision and it is strongly user oriented; during its lifecycle it includes four On-Site Integration Pilots and three final Pilot demonstrations involving final users of different European countries.

December 2017

A. Ganis, E. Miralles, B. Schoenlinner, U. Prechtel, A. Meusling, C. Heller, T. Spreng, J. Mietzner, C. Krimmer, B. Haeberle, M. Maier, S. Lutz, C. Weckerle, H.-P. Feldle, M. Loghi, A. Belenguer, H. Esteban, V. Ziegler, "A portable 3D imaging FMCW MIMO radar demonstrator with a 24x24 antenna array for medium range applications“

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Journal: IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and remote sensing, Vol. 55, No. 12 

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Short Abstract:

Airbus submitted successfully a paper for publication to the journal IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and remote sensing. It describes technical details and the main aspects of the signal processing of a radar sensor, which provides full 3-dimensional radar data with greatly reduced hardware effort and thus, cost as compared to conventional radar sensors. This is possible through the application of the MIMO (multiple-in, multiple-out) concept.

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September 6, 2017

Conference paper written by ADITESS has been submitted and accepted to the international conference on Remote Sensing in Cyprus.
Nectarios Efstathiou, Michael Skitsas, Chrysostomos Psaroudakis and Nikolaos Koutras, "Ubiquitous UAVs: a cloud based framework for storing, accessing and processing huge amount of video footage in an efficient way", Fifth International Conference on Remote Sensing and Geoinformation of the Environment (RSCy2017), Paphos, Cyprus, March 2017. 

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Short Abstract:

Nowadays, video surveillance cameras are used for the protection and monitoring of a huge number of facilities worldwide. An important element in such surveillance systems is the use of aerial video streams originating from onboard sensors located on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Video surveillance using UAVs represent a vast amount of video to be transmitted, stored, analyzed and visualized in a real-time way. As a result, the introduction and development of systems able to handle huge amount of data become a necessity. In this paper, a new approach for the collection, transmission and storage of aerial videos and metadata is introduced. The objective of this work is twofold. First, the integration of the appropriate equipment in order to capture and transmit real-time video including metadata (i.e. position coordinates, target) from the UAV to the ground and, second, the utilization of the ADITESS Versatile Media Content Management System (VMCMS-GE) for storing of the video stream and the appropriate metadata. Beyond the storage, VMCMS-GE provides other efficient management capabilities such as searching and processing of videos, along with video transcoding. For the evaluation and demonstration of the proposed framework we execute a use case where the surveillance of critical infrastructure and the detection of suspicious activities is performed. Collected video Transcodingis subject of this evaluation as well

doi: 10.1117/12.2275333

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September 27-29, 2017

ATTD presented a paper at the 8th International Conference for the Research in Transportation, ICTR – 27-29 September 2017 Thermi, Thessaloniki. The title of the paper (and subsequent presentations) is “Widezone Security : ZONeSEC Research Project - Pilot demonstration in Attica Tollway".

Paper to download in the following link (word format)

Presentation to download in the following link (ppt. format)

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October 25-27 2017

The Institute of Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) has presented a paper entitled “Multimodal data fusion for effective surveillance of critical infrastructure” to the ISPRS SPEC3D conference  (http://www.mit.jyu.fi/scoma/spec3d/ ),  in Jyväskylä / Finland, 25-27 October, 2017. https://www.int-arch-photogramm-remote-sens-spatial-inf-sci.net/XLII-3-W3/87/2017/)

May 10-12, 2017

University of Southampton IT Innovation Centre prepared paper named “Large Scale Surveillance, Detection and Alerts Information Management System for Critical Infrastructure”. Paper will be presented at International Symposium of Environmental Software Systems (ISESS 2017 ; http://www.isess2017.org/)  in Zadar, Croatia on May  10th -12th  2017.

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Short Abstract: 

A proof-of-concept system for large scale surveillance, detection and alerts in-formation management (SDAIM) is presented in this paper. Various aspects of building the SDAIM software system for large scale critical infrastructure moni-toring and decision support are described. The work is currently developped in the large collaborative ZONeSEC project (www.zonesec.eu). ZONeSEC special-izes in the monitoring of so-called Wide-zones. These are large critical infrastruc-ture which require 24/7 monitoring for safety and security. It involves integrated in situ and remote sensing together with large scale stationary sensor networks, that are supported by cross-border communication. In ZONeSEC, the specific deployed sensors around the critical infrastructure may include: Accelerometers that are mounted on perimeter fences; Underground acoustic sensors; Optical, thermal and hyperspectral video cameras or radar systems mounted on strategic areas or on airborne UAVs for mission exploration. The SDAIM system design supports the ingestion of the various types of sensors platform wide-zones’ envi-ronmental observations and provide large scale distributed data fusion and rea-soning with near-real-time messaging and alerts for critical decision-support. On a functional level, the system design is founded on the JDL/DFIG (Joint Direc-tors of Laboratories/ Data Fusion Information Group) data and information fu-sion model. Further, it is technologically underpinned by proven Big Data tech-nologies for distributed data storage and processing as well as on-demand access to intelligent data analytics modules. The SDAIM system development will be pi-loted and alidated at various selected ZONeSEC project wide-zones. These include water, oil and transnational gas pipelines and motorway conveyed in six European countries.

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Available link to download paper

June 20-23, 2017

Technical university of Dresden paper entitled “A Fully Balanced Ultra-Wide Band Mixer MMIC with Multi-Tanh Triplet Input for High Dynamic Range Radar Receiver Systems” was accepted for ICNF conference in Vilnius, from June 20-23 (http://www.icnf2017.ff.vu.lt/).

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Short Abstract:

This paper presents an ultra-wide band, fully balanced, down converting frequency mixer MMIC that was designed for a high dynamic range radar receiver system. The multi-tanh triplet principle is used to achieve high linearity and good noise matching performance. A state of the art 0.13 μm SiGe BiCMOS process is employed for enabling an ultra-wide band operation. The design features minimum double side band noise figure of 10 dB, conversion gain of 9 dB, very compact active area of 0.014 mm2, whereas the 1 dB compression point is reached at the input power level of -8 dBm. To the best knowledge of the author, the proposed mixer MMIC outperforms the state of the art reported active mixer designs in terms of figure of merit, typically defined for evaluating frequency mixers.

DOI: 10.1109/ICNF.2017.7985956

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Available link to access paper: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/7985956/?reload=true 

September 4-6, 2017

Technical university of Dresden paper entitled “A 6.5 to 15.1 GHz Ultra-Wideband SiGe LC VCO with 80 % Continuous Tuning Range” has been accepted for  ECCTD 2017 in Catania, from Sept 4 to 6th (http://www.ecctd2017.dieei.unict.it/index.html). 

October 19-21, 2017

Technical university of Dresden paper entitled “Fully Differential High Input Power Handling Ultra-Wideband Low Noise Amplifier for MIMO Radar Application” is submitted to conference CSICS in Miami, from Oct 19-21 (https://csics.org/).