Background With the rapid development of network communication technologies and remote applications, the volume of data traffic generated by users and various IoT systems has significantly increased, especially during the recent pandemic. Cloud-based file storage services have been widely used for storing large amounts of user data as they provide...

Background Air traffic control is a crucial part of aviation safety, ensuring that aircraft are safely guided through the airspace and landed or taken off from airports. Effective workload management of air traffic controllers (ATCos) is an important component of maintaining safety within the aviation domain. One component of effective workload management...

Background Utility pipes are a crucial component of public health and safety infrastructure, and it is critical to conduct regular inspections to ensure functionality. Currently, most pipes are inspected by human operators, which can pose safety concerns as well as inaccuracy and limited accessibility. As an alternative, in-pipe robots are increasingly...

Inverters are devices typically used in solar power generation systems to convert electric current to a more useful type, but are prone to failure and are the main cause of malfunction in solar power systems. Using transformer-less (TL) inverters is a desirable alternative because of their higher efficiency, lower size, and lower cost. However, TL inverters...

Background Multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) involves a number of agents interacting within a common environment to jointly maximize a long-term reward. However, the key challenge with MARL is the combinatorial nature, which results in high computational complexity. The behavior of each individual agent relies on what has been learned by the...

Background Hydrogen (H2) offers a promising solution in the global energy transition toward net-zero-carbon, particularly for decarbonizing challenging sectors like long-distance transportation, heavy industries, and renewable energy storage. However, most hydrogen is now produced by large-scale natural gas reforming without carbon capture and storage. Water...

Background Smart device-based human-robot systems provide a wide range of possibilities to enhance the flexibility and robustness of human-robot interactions. These include navigating mobile robots using a single smartwatch, automated monitoring of vital body functions through smartwatches, and the coordination of multi-robot systems. The utilization...

Background There has been a recent rise in the number of people impersonating delivery workers, and is partially due to home alarms only being sold to secure closed doors. By analyzing the interaction between homeowners and burglars, it was apparent burglars can exploit this flaw by assuming a fake identity to persuade homeowners to disable their alarm...

Background Food and water shortages are leading to the development of new technologies aimed at sourcing these resources from the air. Atmospheric water harvesting is an emerging field where atmospheric moisture, such as fog and clouds, is collected to obtain liquid water from the atmosphere (in addition to traditional rainwater harvesting). Recent...

Background Unmanned vehicles such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can be used for performing surveillance, reconnaissance, and exploration tasks in a wide variety of environments for military and civilian applications. A UAV may be manually controlled by a remote user, or may operate in a semi-autonomous or fully autonomous manner. Such UAVs can...