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ABSTRACT: This paper describes the project of a measurement system for the estimation of the hand-arm exposure to vibration due to percussion machines. The system permits checking the observance of the safety requirements for the worker health during the use of vibrating tools. Pathologies affecting the neurological and vascular systems may be possible consequences due to the frequent exposure to high levels of vibration. The attention is focused on handheld percussion machines. Consequently, the main effects concern syndromes of the bones and muscles of the hand-arm system. Thus, to prevent or reduce possible hazards for health, national laws and international regulations fix maximum tolerable levels for daily vibration exposure. In this view, the authors have projected a measurement system that is able to acquire and process the acceleration levels transmitted to the hand-arm system. The system project has been improved by using radio frequency modules. This way, noises and potential damages to the processing board have been reduced. In fact, wireless communication allows the sensor, which is worn by the workman, to transfer data and available information to a remote DSP unit operating within the covered range. As a result, the vibration affects only the sensing unit. The sensor consists of three accelerometers orthogonally displaced. According to the guidelines of the Standard ISO 5349, the DSP board has the task to remotely process the acquired data by means of embedded algorithms to estimate the daily vibration exposure value. Two memory devices store information on the workman identity and on the metrological characteristics of the measurement system, respectively. When the estimated value of vibration absorption overcomes the safety limits, an acoustic alarm and a warning message on display alert the user to stop the use of the vibrating machine. A Web page keeps track of the vibration exposure history of the worker. Further advances and experimental results concerning-
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the system characterization have allowed the computing algorithms to be optimized. The accuracy and reliability of the system's computation have been improved to reduce possible fault occurrences. The aim of the proposed project is to provide a prevention device for assuring safe working conditions during the exposure to vibration. Therefore, the system assists the exposed workman to avoid the absorption of high levels of vibration according to the regulations.
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 11/2010; · 1.21 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: The opportunity for cardiac patients to have constantly monitored their health state at home is now possible by means of telemedicine applications. In fact, today, portable and simple-to-use devices allow one to get preliminary domestic diagnoses of the heart status. In this paper, the authors present an original ECG measurement system based on web-service-oriented architecture to monitor the heart health of cardiac patients. The projected device is a smart patient-adaptive system able to provide personalized diagnoses by using personal data and clinical history of the monitored patient. In the presence of a pathology occurrence, the system is able to call the emergency service for assistance. An ECG sensor has the task to acquire, condition, and sample the heart electrical impulses, whereas a personal digital assistant (PDA) performs the diagnosis according to the measurement uncertainty and, in case of a critical situation, calls the medical staff. The system has two removable and updatable memory devices: the first memory device stores the clinical and personal data of the patient, and the second memory device stores information on the metrological status of the measurement system. This way, according to the personal data and historical information of the patient, the measurement system adapts itself by selecting the best fitted ECG model as a reference to configure the computing algorithm. Further information on the measurement uncertainty is used to qualify the reliability of the final clinical response to reduce the occurrence of a faulty diagnosis. Through the PDA graphic interface, the user can display his personal data, observe the graph of his ECG signal, and read diagnosis information with the relative reliability level. Moreover, the patient can choose to print his ECG graph through a Bluetooth printer or to send it to a specialist by a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) modem.
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 11/2010; · 1.21 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: In the paper the authors discuss about the numerical analysis of specific problems regarding the energy accounting operated under unbalanced conditions. The considered case study refers to grid-connected Photovoltaic (PV) plants. In several countries fiscal incentives support the use of alternative energy sources; so that, as in Italy, national incentives have entailed a wide dissemination of PV-plants. Specific procedures and contractual conditions regulate the connection of the energy production plants to the national electric grid. In several countries, monopoly of energy supply is cause of an inadequate market which does not safeguard the user. In the paper specific problems affecting the energy accounting in presence of unbalanced generation are characterized. Numerical results are adopted for the analysis. In detail the authors deal with the gaps of the current metrics used for the electrical energy accounting. Therefore technical and economic aspects are considered according to the IEEE Standard 1459.
Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference (I2MTC), 2010 IEEE; 06/2010
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XXVI National Conference on Electrical and Electronic Measurements; 09/2009
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ABSTRACT: Regulations and laws about exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) require that it constantly remains below some fixed limits. It is demanded therefore that the experimenter make a decision about the conformity of measured values to such limits. The statement may indeed be reliable only up to a certain degree because of the uncertainty that affects the available measurements; thus, the possibility that the wrong decision is made because of the limited amount of knowledge available about the process must be considered. Ultimately, the task is to determine the most reliable condition of the EMF while minimizing the cost caused by a wrong decision. Based on a distributed system of mobile probes, a fuzzy logic approach to a decision-making procedure is presented in this paper and applied to the results obtained during a measurement campaign.
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 04/2009; · 1.21 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: From a metrological point of view, a measurement process rarely consists of a direct measurement but, rather, of digital signal processing (DSP) performed by one or more instruments. The measurement algorithm makes the numerical results available as functions of acquired samples from input signals. Moreover, when repeated direct measurements are performed, one may speak about interactions in subsequent results (and it may be dependent on the type of instrument being used). With mathematical formalism, the complex relations involved can be described, although again, an indirect measurement result would be obtained. Regardless, no matter what kind of process is being examined, the distribution of the uncertainty associated with the measurement needs to be known. To express a measurement result with its associated uncertainty, the recommendations of the ISO Guide need to be met. Many published papers have proposed the use of fuzzy intervals to describe both the systematic and statistical effects of repeated measurements on the distribution of their results. In this paper, we use a random-fuzzy model, the single measure is represented as a fuzzy set, and the propagation of the possibility distribution through the DSP stage (which simply consists of an average operation) is performed using the extension principle of Zadeh based on a particular triangular norm: the so-called Dombi's.
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 03/2009; · 1.21 Impact Factor
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G. Andria,
A. Baccigalupi,
M. Borsic,
P. Carbone,
P. Daponte, C. De Capua,
A. Ferrero,
D. Grimaldi,
A. Liccardo,
N. Locci,
A.M.L. Lanzolla,
D. Macii,
C. Muscas,
L. Peretto,
D. Petri,
S. Rapuano,
M. Riccio,
S. Salicone,
F. Stefani
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ABSTRACT: The Remote Didactic Laboratory Laboratorio Didattico Remoto -LA.DI.RE. “G. Savastano” is an e-learning measurement laboratory supported by the Italian Ministry of Education and University. It provides the students of electric and electronic measurement courses with access to remote measurement laboratories, delivering different didactic activities related to measurement experiments. The core of the software architecture is the integration of the Learning Management System (LMS) with the remotely accessible measurement laboratories through web services and thin client paradigm, providing a new approach to remote experiments on measurement instrumentation. The overview of this paper is on the different solutions concerning the thin client technology, and the solution implemented is described. This solution takes into account the delivered services to students and teachers and permits optimization of the communication performances. The results of the comparison among the performances of different implementations of the thin client paradigm highlight the advantages of the adopted solution. As a consequence, the description of the thin client protocol implemented, together with the presentation of the LMS and delivered services given in a previous paper, makes an exhaustive analysis of the software architecture of the LA.DI.RE. “G. Savastano.”
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 09/2007; · 1.21 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: In this paper, the authors deal with a smart total harmonic distortion (THD) meter that is able to determine the uncertainty of the measurements that it executes. Such an instrument, which is used for power quality monitoring through the measure of an index, acquires the signal samples from the low-voltage network and evaluates the THD factor. To estimate the uncertainty associated with this last result, a theoretical characterization of the whole instrument realized according to the International Organization for Standardization Guide recommendations (transducer stage included) is discussed first. This approach application has proved to be very useful to justify the necessity of looking for an alternative technique. Therefore, the authors proposed the ldquogrey boxrdquo calibration procedure. Considerations about the comparison of the two procedures have been made.
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 09/2007; · 1.21 Impact Factor
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G. Andria,
A. Baccigalupi,
M. Borsic,
P. Carbone,
P. Daponte, C. De Capua,
A. Ferrero,
D. Grimaldi,
A. Liccardo,
N. Locci,
A.M.L. Lanzolla,
D. Macii,
C. Muscas,
L. Peretto,
D. Petri,
S. Rapuano,
M. Riccio,
S. Salicone,
F. Stefani
[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: The Remote Didactic Laboratory Laboratorio Didattico Remoto - LA.DI.RE. ldquoG. Savastanordquo is the e-learning measurement laboratory supported by the Italian Ministry of Education and University. It involves about 20 Italian universities and provides students of electric and electronic measurement courses with access to remote measurement laboratories delivering different didactic activities related to measurement experiments. In order to demonstrate the versatility for didactic use, the overview of some experiments is given. The didactic experiments summarized in this paper concern measurement characterization of instruments and communication systems, measurement devices for remote laboratories, basic electrical measurements, magnetic measurements, electromagnetic-interference measurements, and signal processing for measurement applications.
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement 09/2007; 56(4):1135-1147. · 1.21 Impact Factor
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ABSTRACT: This paper proposes an innovative virtual assistant able to check the safety requirements concerning vibration exposure of workers using hand-held percussion machines. Typically, the exposition to high and continual vibrations with the passing of time may facilitate the onset of pathologies affecting vascular and neurological systems, or be cause of syndromes to hand-arm bones and muscles. So Standards and regulations impose exposure limits in order to prevent health hazards. The projected system is able to measure and estimate the daily worker exposure to vibration according to the Standard ISO 5349. User identification is performed by a personal memory device storing data and information concerning the worker and his daily activity. Three orthogonal transducers measure the acceleration transmitted to the hand-arm system and a DSP unit has the task to process data in order to estimate the vibration exposure during the working activity. If the law safety limits are overcome, the device shows on display an alert message followed by an acoustic alarm so to force the worker to stop the machine usage. The aim of the proposed system is to provide a prevention tool for assuring safe working conditions. The system assists the worker exposed to vibrations in order to avoid the absorption of levels above the maximum tolerable or permitted daily limit.
Virtual Environments, Human-Computer Interfaces and Measurement Systems, 2007. VECIMS 2007. IEEE Symposium on; 07/2007
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ABSTRACT: In this work the authors describe the realization of a "radio-frequency identification system" for the improvement of the metrological activities of a measuring laboratory. Some radio- frequency modules, called by the authors RF smart points ("radio-frequency smart points"), have been designed to store into their memories all data which are necessary for the instruments tracking (the type of instruments, their identification numbers or serial numbers, the manufacturer, the date when they have been admitted to the installed base of the laboratory, their working state, the elapsed time from the last calibration procedure). The insertion of the data and the inquiry of the instruments are executed by the technical staff of the laboratory through a PDA (personal digital assistant) or a PC, which manage the radio-frequency communication by using the RS 232 interface for sending messages to a RF transceiver. The executable software for managing the communication between the smart points and the "PDA/PC-controllers" is realized in LabVIEW graphical programming environment.
Virtual Environments, Human-Computer Interfaces and Measurement Systems, 2007. VECIMS 2007. IEEE Symposium on; 07/2007
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ABSTRACT: This paper proposes an innovative design of a Web-sensor network for environmental monitoring of the electromagnetic pollution. A remote control application allows to process acquired data and available information by an original data fusion procedure. The aim is to verify the compliance of the exposure levels to electromagnetic field with the limits established from law. The measurement system is a configurable network of wireless and smart Web-sensors distributed along an urban area. The implemented sensing units measure the electromagnetic field in high and low frequency ranges and, by General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) communication, acquired data are transmitted to WEB pages. By means of an original algorithm the whole area is divided in several local zones, where an equal number of sensors has the task to monitor specific zones. The clustering algorithm uses environmental and topographical information in order to configure the network and the monitoring map. So, the number and size of the zones are variable according to the desired resolution. A proposed Statistical Model allows to estimate the reliability curve over time of each sensor in order to get knowledge on its operating state. Starting from the available information, a remote workstation performs the data fusion procedure. Alarm and warning occurrences are singled out. A final report shows the zones which require greater attention so to plan suitable interventions on the area. Quality indexes provide indication on reliability and consistency of the result.
Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference Proceedings, 2007. IMTC 2007. IEEE; 06/2007
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[show abstract]
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ABSTRACT: The present paper proposes an original smart and patient-adaptive electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement system. The projected instrument is able to configure the embedded diagnosis models according to the available information about patient to be tested. In details, a removable and updatable memory device is used to store the clinical and personal patient data. An additional internal and read-only memory stores information on the metrological status of the measurement system. So, the electrical activity of heart is measured and analyzed in order to characterize possible abnormalities of its regular working. Main feature of the present contribution is to provide a practical solution in the design of smart medical instrumentation for fault-tolerant diagnoses. In fact, the innovative contribution is due to embedded information on the system metrological performances and on patient data. So the implemented system is able to diagnose possible cardiac arrhythmias occurrences reducing the happening of faults. In this way, according to personal data and historical medical information of patient, the measurement system adapts itself by selecting the best fit ECG model as reference, so to configure the computing algorithm. Further information on the measurement uncertainty is used in order to qualify the reliability of the final clinical response.
Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference Proceedings, 2007. IMTC 2007. IEEE; 06/2007
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ABSTRACT: In this paper a telemedicine application in support of heart patients homecare is proposed. Diagnosis of cardiac arrhythmias typically requires heart monitoring for 24 or 48 consecutive hours, so it causes long waiting lists in hospital. In this sight the authors have projected an user-friendly virtual assistant able to acquire and analyze patient ECG signals by soft computing procedures. The system is based on a PDA equipped with a DAQ card acquiring, to a fixed sampling frequency, the heart electrical impulses by means of an ECG sensor. Then an embedded algorithm allows to depict the graph of the electrocardiogram on the PDA display. By build-in models the ECG waveform is analyzed in order to diagnose possible arrhythmias occurrences or the happening of a heart attack. In fact, the developed computational intelligence application enables the system to perform a patterns recognition taking into account information on the measurement uncertainty. In this way, according to some patient parameters like age, sex and physical constitution, a set of warning lights on display provides information on the current heart status of the patient. Consequently the heart report can be sent by a GPRS modem to a confidential Web page containing patient personal data. The M2M application allows information to be made available to expert medical staff of hospital or clinic for a further remote analysis. In presence of a potential emergency, an online doctor can decide the typology of intervention for the patient assistance
Computational Intelligence for Measurement Systems and Applications, Proceedings of 2006 IEEE International Conference on; 08/2006
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ABSTRACT: In the present work the authors present a procedure for the determination of the optimal calibration intervals of a measurement instrument according to the reference Standard. Generally speaking, the goal of a calibration process is to reduce out-of tolerance occurrences to an acceptable level with respect to the desired quality target. The approach is based on the monitoring of the capability of an instrument in making measurements in conformity with the accuracy declared in the datasheet provided by the manufacturer. Periodic actions are required for the metrological confirmation, effected in a laboratory of tests, using for this purpose a reference instrument. In this paper is presented the implementation of an automatic station of measurement which performs an original procedure able to forecast the time to wait for the next calibration process
Virtual Environments, Human-Computer Interfaces and Measurement Systems, Proceedings of 2006 IEEE International Conference on; 08/2006
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ABSTRACT: In the present work the authors present the realization of a virtual instrument implementing a self-calibrating THD meter. The instrument is able to draw an electrical signal provided from a phase of the electrical distribution network, and to evaluate its total harmonic distortion (THD). Actually the instrument calibration process is developed in two times: at first a "black box calibration" is executed (it concerns the system consisting, for a quite general purpose digital device, in: voltage/current transducers + ADCs + Data Processing including the FFT calculation and the determination of the amplitude of the fundamental frequency component); the process is performed by using a reference instrument every time it is consider necessary (that's to say every time the period of use might be cause of not too good performances of the instrument). The results, opportunely stored as a matrix of partial accuracies in the non-volatile memory of the data processing unit, allow the determination of the uncertainty related to the THD calculation through an algorithm in conformance with The ISO Guide on the expression of the uncertainty of indirect measurements (this last represents the second step of the calibration procedure). For this reason the whole calibration act is defined by the authors of the present paper as a "grey box calibration". During the measurement, in fact, the instrument gets ready to the self-calibration by using a fuzzy representation of the harmonic components, so to achieve the expression of the cited power quality index in terms of an interval defined for a specified confidence level selected by the user. The proposed methodology proves to be of fast and simple application not only for virtual instruments, but also for stand-alone measurers based on DSP or FPGA technologies
Virtual Environments, Human-Computer Interfaces and Measurement Systems, Proceedings of 2006 IEEE International Conference on; 08/2006
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ABSTRACT: In this paper we propose an instrument for the power quality monitoring, through the measure of PQ indexes (in particular we refer in this work to the THD index meter) and its characterization. The realized instrument is able to acquire the signal samples (opportunely conditioned) from the power network, to calculate the THD index and to estimate the uncertainty by which the last result is affected. The implementation makes use of a FPGA (field programmable gate array) Xilinx Virtex-II programmed in VHDL. This electronic device is a valid solution to speed, dissipated power and costs problems, and may be revisited every time the algorithm it implements becomes too obsolete (e.g. when new PQ indexes need to be substituted for old ones) or when one wants (for different needs) vary even one parameter of the structure. The utilized development system traduces the code (VHDL is a universal and highly compatible programming language) into the circuital specification that the platform has to assume
Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, 2006. IMTC 2006. Proceedings of the IEEE; 05/2006
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ABSTRACT: This paper proposes a new approach to transform the probability distribution of N repeated measurement results into a possibility distribution in presence of both A-type and B-type uncertainty. The technique presents the final measurement result in terms of a fuzzy set which easily expresses the levels of confidence for the final uncertainty to be determined as a-cuts. In this treatment the statistical independence of the measurement data permit the assumption that the samples are derived from a normal distribution. The fuzzy set representation of measurement uncertainty is preferable in cases where acquisitions have to be further processed and where, in these events, a conversion into symbolic format may be also necessary reasoning systems. As a case study, the propagation of uncertainty in presence of decision rules is considered
Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, 2006. IMTC 2006. Proceedings of the IEEE; 05/2006
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[show abstract]
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ABSTRACT: For last years, a large number of universities have been focusing their attention on the opportunity of making students capable to observe experimental activities, from their home and at any time, through Internet. The realization of remote laboratories for engineering disciplines, in particular for a measurement course, presents further problems, since it is required that students interact with remote circuit and handle measurement instruments. The crucial task is, hence, to implement Web/Internet-enabled applications that can be fully controlled and monitored from remote locations. There is a wide variety of solutions enabling the remote control of measurement instrumentation; each one is characterized by its peculiarities, advantages, and drawbacks. In the paper an overview on the most adopted technologies is performed. Particular attention is paid on Web services technology that proves to be a general solution, suitable for each type of application
Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, 2006. IMTC 2006. Proceedings of the IEEE; 05/2006
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[show abstract]
[hide abstract]
ABSTRACT: The present paper proposes a procedure in order to test the operating state and faulty occurrences for measurement instrumentation. The task of a calibration process is to estimate the availability of the tested instrument, but the inevitable uncertainty associated with the same calibration could affect the measurement results, so entailing wrong decisions. The working state of a measurement system may be in three possible conditions: in-tolerance, out-of-tolerance or in a faulty status. The proposed model allows taking into account the influence of calibration process uncertainty on making a decision about the operating state of instrumentation. The suggested approach, first, gets the probability of wrong decision, then, by using the Dempster-Shafer theory, it provides the degree of belief and plausibility about the possible alternatives. So, confidence intervals give a measure of the most plausible decision and information on a possible faulty state condition. Purpose of paper is to get a support to the calibration procedures in order to qualify the instrumentation management and its maintainability
Instrumentation and Measurement Technology Conference, 2006. IMTC 2006. Proceedings of the IEEE; 05/2006
