arXiv subjects

Paula Fraga-Lamas

Publications and source records attributed to Paula Fraga-Lamas.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Towards a Blockchain and Opportunistic Edge Driven Metaverse of Everything

Decentralized Metaverses, built on Web 3.0 and Web 4.0 technologies, have attracted significant attention across various fields. This innovation leverages blockchain, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), Extended Reality (XR) and advanced technologies to create immersive and interconnected digital environments that mirror the real world. This article delves into the Metaverse of Everything (MoE), a platform that fuses the Metaverse concept with the Internet of Everything (IoE), an advanced version of the Internet of Things (IoT) that connects not only physical devices but also people, data and processes within a networked environment. Thus, the MoE integrates generated data and virtual entities, creating an extensive network of interconnected components. This article seeks to advance current MoE, examining decentralization and the application of Opportunistic Edge Computing (OEC) for interactions with surrounding IoT devices and IoE entities. Moreover, it outlines the main challenges to guide researchers and businesses towards building a future cyber-resilient opportunistic MoE.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2025

Design, Implementation and Practical Energy-Efficiency Evaluation of a Blockchain Based Academic Credential Verification System for Low-Power Nodes

The educational system manages extensive documentation and paperwork, which can lead to human errors and sometimes abuse or fraud, such as the falsification of diplomas, certificates or other credentials. In fact, in the last years, multiple cases of fraud have been detected, which have a significant cost to society, since they harm the trustworthiness of certificates and academic institutions. To tackle such an issue, this article proposes a solution aimed at recording and verifying academic records through a decentralized application that is supported by a smart contract deployed in the Ethereum blockchain and by a decentralized storage system based on Inter-Planetary File System (IPFS). The proposed solution is evaluated in terms of performance and energy-efficiency, comparing the results obtained with a traditional Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus protocol and the new Proof-of-Authority (PoA) protocol. The results shown in this paper indicate that the latter is clearly greener and demands less CPU load. Moreover, this article compares the performance of a traditional computer and two SBCs (a Raspberry Pi 4 and an Orange Pi One), showing that is possible to make use of the latter low-power devices to implement blockchain nodes but at the cost of higher response latency. Furthermore, the impact of Ethereum gas limit is evaluated, demonstrating its significant influence on the blockchain network performance. Thus, this article provides guidelines, useful practical evaluations and key findings that will help the next generation of green blockchain developers and researchers.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2025

Towards an Emotion-Aware Metaverse: A Human-Centric Shipboard Fire Drill Simulator

Traditional XR and Metaverse applications prioritize user experience (UX) for adoption and success but often overlook a crucial aspect of user interaction: emotions. This article addresses this gap by presenting an emotion-aware Metaverse application: a Virtual Reality (VR) fire drill simulator designed to prepare crews for shipboard emergencies. The simulator detects emotions in real time, assessing trainees responses under stress to improve learning outcomes. Its architecture incorporates eye-tracking and facial expression analysis via Meta Quest Pro headsets. The system features four levels whose difficulty is increased progressively to evaluate user decision-making and emotional resilience. The system was evaluated in two experimental phases. The first phase identified challenges, such as navigation issues and lack of visual guidance. These insights led to an improved second version with a better user interface, visual cues and a real-time task tracker. Performance metrics like completion times, task efficiency and emotional responses were analyzed. The obtained results show that trainees with prior VR or gaming experience navigated the scenarios more efficiently. Moreover, the addition of task-tracking visuals and navigation guidance significantly improved user performance, reducing task completion times between 14.18\% and 32.72\%. Emotional responses were captured, revealing that some participants were engaged, while others acted indifferently, indicating the need for more immersive elements. Overall, this article provides useful guidelines for creating the next generation of emotion-aware Metaverse applications.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Design, Implementation and Practical Evaluation of an Opportunistic Communications Protocol Based on Bluetooth Mesh and libp2p

The increasing proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has created a growing need for more efficient communication networks, especially in areas where continuous connectivity is unstable or unavailable. Opportunistic networks have emerged as a possible solution in such scenarios, allowing for intermittent and decentralized data sharing. This article presents a novel communication protocol that uses Bluetooth 5 and the libp2p framework to enable decentralized and opportunistic communications among IoT devices. The protocol provides dynamic peer discovery and decentralized management, resulting in a more flexible and robust IoT network infrastructure. The performance of the proposed architecture was evaluated through experiments in both controlled and industrial scenarios, with a particular emphasis on latency and on the impact of the presence of obstacles. The obtained results show that the protocol has the ability to improve data transfer in environments with limited connectivity, making it adequate for both urban and rural areas, as well as for challenging environments such as shipyards. Moreover, the presented findings conclude that the protocol works well in situations with minimal signal obstruction and short distances, like homes, where average latency values of about 8 s have been achieved with no losses. Furthermore, the protocol can also be used in industrial scenarios, even when metal obstacles increase signal attenuation, and over long distances, where average latency values of about 8.5 s have been obtained together with packet losses of less than 5%.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2025

HELENE: An Open-Source High-Security Privacy-Preserving Blockchain Based System for Automating and Managing Laboratory Health Tests

In the last years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, precision medicine platforms emerged as useful tools for supporting new tests like the ones that detect the presence of antibodies and antigens with better sensitivity and specificity than traditional methods. In addition, the pandemic has also influenced the way people interact (decentralization), behave (digital world) and purchase health services (online). Moreover, there is a growing concern in the way health data are managed, especially in terms of privacy. To tackle such issues, this article presents a sustainable direct-to-consumer health-service open-source platform called HELENE that is supported by blockchain and by a novel decentralized oracle that protects patient data privacy. Specifically, HELENE enables health test providers to compete through auctions, allowing patients to bid for their services and to keep the control over their health test results. Moreover, data exchanges among the involved stakeholders can be performed in a trustworthy, transparent and standardized way to ease software integration and to avoid incompatibilities. After providing a thorough description of the platform, the proposed health platform is assessed in terms of smart contract performance. In addition, the response time of the developed oracle is evaluated and NIST SP 800-22 tests are executed to demonstrate the adequacy of the devised random number generator. Thus, this article shows the capabilities and novel propositions of HELENE for delivering health services providing an open-source platform for future researchers, who can enhance it and adapt it to their needs.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2024

Towards the Industrial Metaverse: A Game-Based VR Application for Fire Drill and Evacuation Training for Ships and Shipbuilding

This paper details the creation of a novel Virtual Reality-based application for the Industrial Metaverse aimed at shipboard fire emergency training for fire drill and evacuation, aligned with the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention requirements. Specifically, the application includes gamified scenarios with different levels (e.g., varying fire intensities in engine rooms and galleys). The paper details comprehensively the VR development while providing a holistic overview and practical guidelines. Thus, it can guide practitioners, developers and future researchers to shape the next generation of Industrial Metaverse applications for the shipbuilding industry. Moreover, the paper includes the results of a preliminary user evaluation aimed at quantifying user decision-making and risk assessment skills. The presented results of the experiments provide insights into user performance and allow for pointing out at different future challenges.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

Tactical Edge IoT in Defense and National Security

The deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) systems in Defense and National Security faces some limitations that can be addressed with Edge Computing approaches. The Edge Computing and IoT paradigms combined bring potential benefits, since they confront the limitations of traditional centralized cloud computing approaches, which enable easy scalability, real-time applications or mobility support, but whose use poses certain risks in aspects like cybersecurity. This chapter identifies scenarios in which Defense and National Security can leverage Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) Edge IoT capabilities to deliver greater survivability to warfighters or first responders, while lowering costs and increasing operational efficiency and effectiveness. In addition, it presents the general design of a Tactical Edge IoT communications architecture, it identifies the open challenges for a widespread adoption and provides research guidelines and some recommendations for enabling cost-effective Edge IoT for Defense and National Security.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2024

IoT Architectures for Indoor Radon Management: A Prospective Analysis

The demand for real-time Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) management has increased recently, since low-cost and modern sensors such as Particulate Matter (PM), Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Carbon Dioxide (CO2), Radon (Rn), among others, have been put forward with considerable accuracy. Although these low-cost sensors cannot be considered measurement instruments, they are very useful for a vast number of application domains, such as home automation, smart building management, IAQ management, risk exposure assessment, to name a few. This paper presents a literature review and a prospective analysis and discussion regarding Internet of Things (IoT) technologies adopted to deal with scenarios that present known indoor Radon gas problems. Specifically, the main requirements for developing IoT-enabled radon management solutions are reviewed. Thus, a traditional IoT architecture is described, its main components are analyzed and some of the most recent academic solutions are reviewed. Finally, novel approaches for deploying IoT radon management architectures are presented together with the most relevant open challenges. In this way, this article presents a holistic review of the past, present, and future of indoor radon management in order to provide guidelines for future designers and developers.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2024

Advancing NASA-TLX: Automatic User Interaction Analysis for Workload Evaluation in XR Scenarios

Calculating the effort required to complete a task has always been somewhat difficult, as it depends on each person and becomes very subjective. For this reason, different methodologies were developed to try to standardize these procedures. This article addresses some of the problems that arise when applying NASA-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX), a methodology to calculate the mental workload of tasks performed in industrial environments. In addition, an improvement of this methodology is proposed to adapt it to the new times and to emerging Extended Reality (XR) technologies. Finally, a system is proposed for automatic collection of user performance metrics, providing an autonomous method that collects this information and does not depend on the users' willingness to fill in a feedback questionnaire.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

A Cost-Effective Thermal Imaging Safety Sensor for Industry 5.0 and Collaborative Robotics

The Industry 5.0 paradigm focuses on industrial operator well-being and sustainable manufacturing practices, where humans play a central role, not only during the repetitive and collaborative tasks of the manufacturing process, but also in the management of the factory floor assets. Human factors, such as ergonomics, safety, and well-being, push the human-centric smart factory to efficiently adopt novel technologies while minimizing environmental and social impact. As operations at the factory floor increasingly rely on collaborative robots (CoBots) and flexible manufacturing systems, there is a growing demand for redundant safety mechanisms (i.e., automatic human detection in the proximity of machinery that is under operation). Fostering enhanced process safety for human proximity detection allows for the protection against possible incidents or accidents with the deployed industrial devices and machinery. This paper introduces the design and implementation of a cost-effective thermal imaging Safety Sensor that can be used in the scope of Industry 5.0 to trigger distinct safe mode states in manufacturing processes that rely on collaborative robotics. The proposed Safety Sensor uses a hybrid detection approach and has been evaluated under controlled environmental conditions. The obtained results show a 97% accuracy at low computational cost when using the developed hybrid method to detect the presence of humans in thermal images.

cs.RO↗

arXiv2024

Practical Evaluation of Wize and Bluetooth 5 Assisted RFID for an Opportunistic Vehicular Scenario

Wireless communications are critical in the constantly changing environment of IoT and RFID technologies, where thousands of devices can be deployed across a wide range of scenarios. Whether connecting to cloud servers or local fog/edge devices, maintaining seamless communications is difficult, especially in demanding contexts like industrial warehouses or remote rural areas. Opportunistic networks, when combined with edge devices, provide a possible solution to this challenge. These networks enable IoT devices, particularly mobile devices, to redirect information as it passes via other devices until it reaches an edge node. Using different communication protocols, this paper investigates their effects on response times and total messages received for a opportunistic assisted RFID system. Specifically, this article compares two communications technologies (Bluetooth 5 and Wize) when used for building a novel Opportunistic Edge Computing (OEC) identification system based on low-cost Single-Board Computers (SBCs). For such a comparison, measurements have been performed for quantifying packet loss and latency. The tests consisted in two experiments under identical conditions and scenarios, with a node located roadside, transmitting identification information, and a node located inside a moving vehicle that was driven at varying vehicle speeds. The obtained results show for Bluetooth 5 average latencies ranging between 700 and 950 ms with packet losses between 7% and 27%, whereas for Wize the average delay as between 150 and 370 ms with packet losses between 20% and 52%.

cs.NI↗

arXiv2024

Practical Evaluation of Low-Frequency Vibration Energy Harvesting for Creating Green RFID and IoT Devices

One of the main limitations for the development and deployment of many Green Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and Internet of Things (IoT) systems is the access to energy sources. In this aspect batteries are the main option to be used in energy constrained scenarios, but their use is limited to certain cases, either because of the constraints imposed by a reduced-form factor, their limited lifespan, or the characteristics of the environment itself (e.g. operating temperature, risk of burning, need for fast response, sudden voltage variations). In this regard, supercapacitors present an interesting alternative for the previously mentioned type of environment, although, due to their short-term capacity, they must be combined with an alternative energy supply mechanism. Energy harvesting mechanisms, in conjunction with ultra-low-power electronics, supercapacitors and various methods to improve the efficiency of communications, have enabled the emergence of battery-less passive electronic devices such as sensors, actuators or transmitters. This paper presents a novel analysis of the performance of an energy harvesting system based on vibrations for Green RFID and IoT applications in the field of maritime transport. The results show that the proposed system allows for charging half of a 1.2 F supercapacitor in about 72 minutes, providing a stable current of around 210 uA and a power output of 0.38 mW.

eess.SP↗

arXiv2024

A Comprehensive Survey on Green Blockchain: Developing the Next Generation of Energy Efficient and Sustainable Blockchain Systems

Although Blockchain has been successfully used in many different fields and applications, it has been traditionally regarded as an energy-intensive technology, essentially due to the past use of inefficient consensus algorithms that prioritized security over sustainability. However, in the last years, thanks to the significant progress made on key blockchain components, their energy consumption can be decreased noticeably. To achieve this objective, this article analyzes the main components of blockchains and explores strategies to reduce their energy consumption. In this way, this article delves into each component of a blockchain system, including consensus mechanisms, network architecture, data storage and validation, smart contract execution, mining and block creation, and outlines specific strategies to decrease their energy consumption. For such a purpose, consensus mechanisms are compared, recommendations for reducing network communications energy consumption are provided, techniques for data storage and validation are suggested and diverse optimizations are proposed both for software and hardware components. Moreover, the main challenges and limitations of reducing power consumption in blockchain systems are analyzed. As a consequence, this article provides a guideline for the future researchers and developers who aim to develop the next generation of Green Blockchain solutions.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2024

Forging the Industrial Metaverse -- Where Industry 5.0, Augmented and Mixed Reality, IIoT, Opportunistic Edge Computing and Digital Twins Meet

The Metaverse is a concept that proposes to immerse users into real-time rendered 3D content virtual worlds delivered through Extended Reality (XR) devices like Augmented and Mixed Reality (AR/MR) smart glasses and Virtual Reality (VR) headsets. When the Metaverse concept is applied to industrial environments, it is called Industrial Metaverse, a hybrid world where industrial operators work by using some of the latest technologies. Currently, such technologies are related to the ones fostered by Industry 4.0, which is evolving towards Industry 5.0, a paradigm that enhances Industry 4.0 by creating a sustainable and resilient world of industrial human-centric applications. The Industrial Metaverse can benefit from Industry 5.0, since it implies making use of dynamic and up-to-date content, as well as fast human-to-machine interactions. To enable such enhancements, this article proposes the concept of Meta-Operator: an Industry 5.0 worker that interacts with Industrial Metaverse applications and with his/her surroundings through advanced XR devices. This article provides a description of the technologies that support Meta-Operators: the main components of the Industrial Metaverse, the latest XR technologies and the use of Opportunistic Edge Computing communications (to interact with surrounding IoT/IioT devices). Moreover, this paper analyzes how to create the next generation of Industrial Metaverse applications based on Industry 5.0, including the integration of AR/MR devices with IoT/IIoT solutions, the development of advanced communications or the creation of shared experiences. Finally, this article provides a list of potential Industry 5.0 applications for the Industrial Metaverse and analyzes the main challenges and research lines. Thus, this article provides useful guidelines for the researchers that will create the next generation of applications for the Industrial Metaverse.

cs.ET↗

arXiv2024

Fake News, Disinformation, and Deepfakes: Leveraging Distributed Ledger Technologies and Blockchain to Combat Digital Deception and Counterfeit Reality

The rise of ubiquitous deepfakes, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda and post-truth, often referred to as fake news, raises concerns over the role of Internet and social media in modern democratic societies. Due to its rapid and widespread diffusion, digital deception has not only an individual or societal cost (e.g., to hamper the integrity of elections), but it can lead to significant economic losses (e.g., to affect stock market performance) or to risks to national security. Blockchain and other Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs) guarantee the provenance, authenticity and traceability of data by providing a transparent, immutable and verifiable record of transactions while creating a peer-to-peer secure platform for storing and exchanging information. This overview aims to explore the potential of DLTs and blockchain to combat digital deception, reviewing initiatives that are currently under development and identifying their main current challenges. Moreover, some recommendations are enumerated to guide future researchers on issues that will have to be tackled to face fake news, disinformation and deepfakes, as an integral part of strengthening the resilience against cyber-threats on today's online media.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2024

Home Automation System based on Intelligent Transducer Enablers

This paper presents a novel home automation system named HASITE (Home Automation System based on Intelligent Transducer Enablers), which has been specifically designed to identify and configure transducers easily and quickly. These features are especially useful in situations where many transducers are deployed, since their setup becomes a cumbersome task that consumes a significant amount of time and human resources. HASITE simplifies the deployment of a home automation system by using wireless networks and both self-configuration and self-registration protocols. Thanks to the application of these three elements, HASITE is able to add new transducers by just powering them up. According to the tests performed in different realistic scenarios, a transducer is ready to be used in less than 13 s. Moreover, all HASITE functionalities can be accessed through an API, which also allows for the integration of third-party systems. As an example, an Android application based on the API is presented. Remote users can use it to interact with transducers by just using a regular smartphone or a tablet.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2024

A Review on Internet of Things for Defense and Public Safety

The Internet of Things (IoT) is undeniably transforming the way that organizations communicate and organize everyday businesses and industrial procedures. Its adoption has proven well suited for sectors that manage a large number of assets and coordinate complex and distributed processes. This survey analyzes the great potential for applying IoT technologies (i.e., data-driven applications or embedded automation and intelligent adaptive systems) to revolutionize modern warfare and provide benefits similar to those in industry. It identifies scenarios where Defense and Public Safety (PS) could leverage better commercial IoT capabilities to deliver greater survivability to the warfighter or first responders, while reducing costs and increasing operation efficiency and effectiveness. This article reviews the main tactical requirements and the architecture, examining gaps and shortcomings in existing IoT systems across the military field and mission-critical scenarios. The review characterizes the open challenges for a broad deployment and presents a research roadmap for enabling an affordable IoT for defense and PS.

eess.SY↗

arXiv2024

Smart Pipe System for a Shipyard 4.0

As a result of the progressive implantation of the Industry 4.0 paradigm, many industries are experimenting a revolution that shipyards cannot ignore. Therefore, the application of the principles of Industry 4.0 to shipyards are leading to the creation of Shipyards 4.0. Due to this, Navantia, one of the 10 largest shipbuilders in the world, is updating its whole inner workings to keep up with the near-future challenges that a Shipyard 4.0 will have to face. Such challenges can be divided into three groups: the vertical integration of production systems, the horizontal integration of a new generation of value creation networks, and the re-engineering of the entire production chain, making changes that affect the entire life cycle of each piece of a ship. Pipes, which exist in a huge number and varied typology on a ship, are one of the key pieces, and its monitoring constitutes a prospective cyber-physical system. Their improved identification, traceability, and indoor location, from production and through their life, can enhance shipyard productivity and safety. In order to perform such tasks, this article first conducts a thorough analysis of the shipyard environment. From this analysis, the essential hardware and software technical requirements are determined. Next, the concept of smart pipe is presented and defined as an object able to transmit signals periodically that allows for providing enhanced services in a shipyard. In order to build a smart pipe system, different technologies are selected and evaluated, concluding that passive and active RFID are currently the most appropriate technologies to create it. Furthermore, some promising indoor positioning results obtained in a pipe workshop are presented, showing that multi-antenna algorithms and Kalman filtering can help to stabilize Received Signal Strength (RSS) and improve the overall accuracy of the system.

eess.SY↗