ES3

Embedded Systems and Smart Sensors

Contacts

Research Topics

The research group ES3 started its activity in late '90s about sensor interface ciruits and digital communications, with a special attention to industrial applications. More recently, the research activity is focused on the following three main topics.

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Smart Grid and Renewable Energies

Since 2015, ES3 group has been involved in several founded research projects related to smart grids, building efficiency and monitoring (Building Management Systems), renewable energy sources with storage systems and metering, including electric vehicles (EVs) and the integration of Electric Vehicle Supply Equipments (EVSE) into the distribution grid.

The group has developed the first living lab of the University of Brescia, eLUX (Energy Laboratory as University eXpo). The lab is equipped with real-time ICT infrastructures for distributed monitoring, modeling and prognostics, including Power-Hardware in the Loop Real-Time Emulation.

Among other topics, communications for smart grids have been studied, with a focus on synchronization and real-time behavior. ES3 members are partners of the IEEE1588 working group. ES3 members also participate to the working group of the IEEE / PES SA P2418.5 Standard for Blockchain in Energy.

More details about the research activities carried out by the ES3 members on these topics are available at the home page of the following research projects: SCUOLA, Brescia Smart Living, BS202020, ELISIR, Virtual-eGateway, MoSoRe and NG-UWB.

Contacts: Stefano Rinaldi, Marco Pasetti

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The Internet of Smart Things: IoT and IIoT

In the last years, wearable sensors and Internet of Things (IoT) are of great interest and the ES3 group has been involved in many financed projects on these topics (see Smart Aging, Smart Break, Smart Break 2, Smart ECG, #studioxlavita, and W2P2 projects).

The IoT is also affecting the industrial communications scenario, in agreement with the Industry 4.0 paradigm. The group expertise, including participations in IEC/CEI WGs, in the PROFIBUS-PROFINET Competence Center c/o CSMT, and the development of RTE solutions (as in the AIRnet project), influenced the activities in the Industrial IoT (IIoT) domain, as an evolution of legacy fieldbus solutions.

Recently, the group has been involved in research activities with software defined radios and simulators, in order to better study and exploit new low power technologies, as LoRaWAN, for smart cities and unconventional industrial applications.

The need for gateways in the IoT frameworks yielded to the project SAndroidE, where external sensors can be managed under Android OS as if they were embedded into mobile devices. SAndroidE is an open technology developed by the ES3 group (see Github) and it is supported by the Google Developer Group and IEEE Student Branch of Brescia.

The use of IoT sensors for monitoring the structural and energetic state of infrastructures and buildings has been exploited in ELISIR and MoSoRe projects, whereas an IoT-based control access system has been designed in S3 project.

Contacts: Paolo Ferrari, Emiliano Sisinni

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Instrumentation for Health and Environment

ES3 group members design measurement instrumentation and solutions for different kinds of scenarios, such as environmental (see SWaRM-Net and AQMASC projects), health (see Smart ECG project) and structural (see MoSoRe project) monitoring.

Particular care is given to the design and characterization of innovative sensor interfaces, with both analog and digital (µC, DSP and FPGA) approaches. Some examples are: interface of gravimetric sensors with small frequency shift with respect to the baseline; interface of MOX devices with large-value sensor resistance (from few kilhoms to tens of gighoms); differential capacitive sensors with stray capacitance on the order of the sensor baseline.

ES3 group is involved in many activities in the health care and ambient assisted living, especially for elderly, often in cooperation with medical researchers. Smart ECG, Brescia Smart Living and Smart Aging are three financed projects concerning these topics.

Wearable devices and machine learning techniques are usually employed for data acquisition and processing, respectively. Examples of such activities are: the monitoring of vital parameters (ECG, respiratory rate, temperature) and stress conditions of non-professional racecar and motorbike drivers; supervision of fitness exercises with wearable IMU devices; neurodegenerative disease diagnosis through transcranial magnetic stimulation and EMG acquisition.

ES3 group members are inventors of several patents deriving from the research work in this topic.

Contacts: Alessandro Depari, Paolo Bellagente


Projects and Collaborations

Financed projects involving ES3 group in the last ten years are listed hereinafter:

ES3 has collaborations with other research groups, both italian (e.g., University of Trento, University of Padova, University of Cagliari, University of L'Aquila, Politecnico of Milan, ENEA, CNR) and international (e.g., RWTH Aachen University, Hanyang University, University of Applied Sciences - Upper Austria, University of São Paulo at São Carlos, Mid Sweden University, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, Universidade Estadual Paulista at Sorocaba, Kaunas University of Technology, University of Lisbon, The National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology - INMETRO). It is also deeply involved in projects with companies like A2A, STM, ABB, Pepperl+Fuchs and it is responsible of the first italian PROFIBUS-PROFINET Competence Center.

ES3 components partecipate to standard development and working groups (IEC - TC65C, IEC - SC 65C, CEI - SC 65C, IEEE 1588 WG, IEEE SA P2418.5 "BLOCKCHAIN IN ENERGY").


Team

Professors


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Dennis Brandão

Associate Professor

Email: dennis.brandao(at)unibs.it

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Marco Pasetti

Assistant Professor (Researcher)

Email: marco.pasetti(at)unibs.it

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Paolo Bellagente

Assistant Professor (Researcher)

Email: paolo.bellagente(at)unibs.it

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Salvatore Dello Iacono

Assistant Professor (Researcher)

Email: salvatore.delloiacono(at)unibs.it

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Davide Astolfi

Assistant Professor (Researcher)

Email: davide.astolfi(at)unibs.it

PhD Candidates


Research Fellows


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Alessandro Musatti

Email: alessandro.musatti(at)unibs.it

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Antony Vasile

Email: antony.vasile(at)unibs.it

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Chiara Franzoni

Email: c.franzoni014(at)studenti.unibs.it

Technicians



Classes

The ES3 group is involved in teaching several classes in both Bachelor and Master degree courses at the University of Brescia. Classes active in the Academic Year 2022-23 are listed hereinafter:

1 CFU (crediti formativi universitari) credit = 1 ECTS (European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System) credit

Further information about courses in University of Brescia can be found here.


PhD

Normally, PhDs deal with the typical topics of the research group or as developments linked to research projects. Some PhDs are in cooperation with local and foreign companies. Proposal from students are welcome. Some examples of such PhD programs are listed hereinafter:

Further information about PhD programs in University of Brescia can be found here.


Publications

The ES3 group has nearly 500 publications in international journals, books and conference proceedings since 1997. The most recent 20 publications on international journals are listed hereinafter:

The full list of international publications is available here.


Patents

Members of the ES3 group are inventors of more than ten italian and international patents, also in cooperation with local companies. The full list of patents is provided hereinafter:


Last update: January 22, 2024