Precision farming technologies refer to a set of cutting-edge tools and strategies implemented to optimize the management of the plantation. Smart meter devices, IoT technologies, and Wireless Sensor Networks are only a few examples of the innovative systems increasingly employed from an Agriculture 4.0 point of view. Recent literature has paid close attention to the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Deep Learning (DL) algorithms in helping farmers and improving soil productivity. In this regard, this paper presents the design of a Wireless Sensor Network based on low-cost, low-power PV-supplied sensor nodes able to acquire data regarding environmental conditions and soil parameters. Among all the implemented sensors, the most critical is the soil moisture sensors because of many issues related to cost, installation, reliability, and calibration. Thus, this paper proposes a deep learning approach based on Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks to provide a virtual soil moisture sensor using only the data acquired by the other transducer installed on the node. Performances estimation of the virtual sensors and an in-depth comparison with other learning-based approaches have been presented in this paper to validate the effectiveness of the proposed soft sensing approach.

The recent development of highly automated machinery and intelligent industrial plants has increasingly enabled the continuous monitoring of their efficiency and condition, with the aim of maintaining high production efficiency and minimal malfunctions. Typical condition monitoring and fault detection applications are often achieved using acoustic and vibrational techniques, but the availability of distributed electrical measurements opens new opportunities for industrial fault detection with minimal impact on electrical systems. Even if artificial intelligence-based approaches can be used to model industrial equipment by means of measures made on electrical systems to which they are connected, machine learning algorithms have been demonstrated to be particularly adequate for this purpose due to the huge amount of data produced by interconnected sensors and devices. In this context, the aim of this work is to propose a new unsupervised analysis methodology for detecting anomalies in industrial machinery using electrical current values and other parameters measured on the power grid. The proposed framework is aimed at incorporating the advantages of Machine Learning algorithms and those of traditional analysis, optimizing their operation to improve performance and execution time; this also incorporates a methodology for analyzing the temporal dynamics of the anomaly based on Short-time Fourier transform to strengthen the performance of the detection. The results obtained showed excellent performance, both compared to the evaluations of a technical expert and to other methodologies used in the literature, with zero false positives detected in all datasets tested and a negligible number of undetected outlier events, less than 4% of the total in the datasets.

Having become aware of how limited all natural resources are, the water leakage problem in piping systems has become a stimulating topic. This problem increased over the last few years even though innovative tools and techniques appeared in the literature and in the consumer market. Identifying water leaks at the nearest point, the household level, is still an unsolved problem because most water meters are mechanical and, therefore, cannot detect leaks. While the issue is not important for water service providers since consumption is charged to the user, the resolution is crucial due to the increasingly relevant concern of saving natural resources. The detection of small but continuous leaks of drinking water in domestic systems is addressed in this work. Machine learning approaches enabled image processing techniques also in uncontrolled environments, overcoming the classical methods but introducing new challenges like power consumption. Using a combination of Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Long Short–Term Memory Networks (LSTM) within an adaptive under–sampling strategy, it is possible to process the images captured from the mechanical water meter dial and identify the Period With Null Consumption (PWNC) or the consumption class. The presented solution can classify the water flow into four different classes, and, in the case of absence or small flow, its function becomes to detect leakages. Analyzing images from a mechanical water meter quadrant, it has been possible to identify PWNC and detect small water leakages in the domestic environment under common consumer flow profiles. In addition to the confusion matrices, the synthetic parameters of Sørensen–Dice coefficient (DSC) and Jaccard Index have been utilized and presented to quantify the performance of the proposed DNN. The conducted experiments on static and dynamic water flow demonstrated the applicability of this approach and the possibility of an increase in PWNC identification thanks to the adaptative increase in the sampling time. Moreover, the reduction of sampling time allows for the reduction of computational load and power consumption in embedded scenarios where limited energy is available.

The accurate estimation of the Remaining Useful Life (RUL) of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) sensors is crucial for enabling effective condition-based maintenance (CBM) and improving system reliability. This is of vital importance in planning machinery replacements before their actual fault, reducing downtime and thus greatly optimizing costs. However, unlike industrial components (such as bearings, rotating machinery, or power devices), current prognostic strategies for MEMS sensors are limited due to the lack of suitable health indexes capable of describing the degradation path of the sensor’s metrological performances. To address this gap, this paper proposes a novel Health Index for MEMS accelerometers based on static accelerometer outputs by combining time-domain and frequency-domain features using a dimensionality reduction technique. By applying dimensionality reduction, the method captures the essential characteristics of sensor degradation, which are then used to train a Deep Learning-based model for predicting the Remaining Useful Life sufficiently in advance to allow for appropriate maintenance. This paper aims to fill an important gap by providing an innovative solution for MEMS sensor prognostics, with broad implications for industrial sectors reliant on precision sensing technologies. The performance of the proposed health indicator is validated through experimental data, demonstrating its ability to enhance the accuracy of MEMS sensor prognostics. Using data from the proposed accelerated life test and the Arrhenius degradation model, the RUL prediction based on the proposed health indicator has been performed at various operating temperatures, including typical conditions of industrial environments with high thermal stress.

Detecting and measuring objects with vision-based systems in uncontrolled environments is a difficult task that today, thanks to the development of increasingly advanced artificial intelligence-based techniques, can be solved with greater ease. In this context, the paper proposes a novel approach for the vision-based measurement of objects in uncontrolled environments using a specific type of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) named YOLO (You Only Look Once) and a Direct Linear Transformation (DLT) process. The case study concerned designing a novel vision-based system for measuring the diameter of wood logs cut and loaded onto trucks. This problem has been occurring in the Swedish forestry industry. In fact, this operation is not carried out with computer vision algorithms because of the high variability of environmental conditions caused by the changing position of the sun, weather conditions, and the variability of truck positioning. To solve this problem, the YOLO network is proposed to locate logs while attempting to maintain a high Intersection over Union (IoU) value for the correct estimation of log size. Furthermore, in order to obtain accurate measurements, the DLT is used to convert into world coordinates the dimensions of the logs themselves. The proposed CNN-based solution is described after briefly introducing today’s methodologies adopted for wood bundle analysis. Particular attention is paid to both the training and the calibration steps. Results report that for 80% of cases, the error reported has been smaller than 4 cm, representing only 8% of the measurement, considering a mean log diameter for the application of 50 cm.

The current technological revolution driven by advances in machine learning has motivated a wide range of applications aiming to improve our quality of life. Representative of such applications are autonomous and semiautonomous Powered Wheelchairs (PWs), where the focus is on providing a degree of autonomy to the wheelchair user as a matter of guidance and interaction with the environment. Based on these perspectives, the focus of the current research has been on the design of lightweight systems that provide the necessary accuracy in the navigation system while enabling an embedded implementation. This motivated us to develop a real-time measurement methodology that relies on a monocular RGB camera to detect the caregiver’s feet based on a deep learning method, followed by the distance measurement of the caregiver from the PW. An important contribution of this article is the metrological characterization of the proposed methodology in comparison with measurements made with dedicated depth cameras. Our results show that despite shifting from 3D imaging to 2D imaging, we can still obtain comparable metrological performances in distance estimation as compared with Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) or even improved compared with stereo cameras. In particular, we obtained comparable instrument classes with LiDAR and stereo cameras, with measurement uncertainties within a magnitude of 10 cm. This is further complemented by the significant reduction in data volume and object detection complexity, thus facilitating its deployment, primarily due to the reduced complexity of initial calibration, positioning, and deployment compared with three-dimensional segmentation algorithms.