This paper considers targets coverage in energy harvesting Internet of Things (IoT) networks. Specifically, solar-powered sensor devices employ network virtualization technology to partition their resources, such as energy, memory, and computation workload, in order to serve requests with different coverage requirements. Our objective is to maximize the revenue from completing requests. To this end, we outline a mixed integer linear program (MILP) to optimize the start time of each request and the set of nodes that serve a request. We also propose a heuristic, called energy harvesting aware request placement (EHARP), to determine requests to be deployed in each time slot based on energy harvesting conditions and the resource state of sensor nodes. Furthermore, we propose two model predictive control (MPC) approaches, called MPC-MILP and MPC-EHARP, respectively, which deploy requests based on energy arrival at devices over a given time window as predicted by a Gaussian mixture model (GMM). Simulation results show that EHARP, MPC-MILP, and MPC-EHARP are 94.75%, 88.73%, and 87.6% optimal. In addition, the revenue obtained by EHARP is 173.8% higher than a competing approach.

This paper studies virtual network function (VNF) scheduling in energy harvesting virtualized Internet of Things (IoT) networks. Unlike prior works, sensor devices leverage imprecise computation to vary their computational workload to conserve energy at the expense of computation quality. In this respect, an optimization problem of interest is to maximize the minimum VNF computation/execution quality. To this end, this paper presents the first mixed integer linear program (MILP) that optimizes i) the VNFs executed by each sensor device, ii) the computational resources allocated to VNFs, iii) sampling rate or amount of data supplied by sensor devices to VNFs, iv) the routing of samples to VNFs and forwarding of computation results, and v) link scheduling. In addition, this paper also proposes a heuristic, called sampling control and computation scheduling (SCACS), for large-scale networks. The simulation results show that SCACS reaches 81.66% of the optimal quality. In addition, the application completion rate when using SCACS is at most 39% higher than a benchmark that randomly selects nodes to sample targets and execute VNFs.

As technological advancements progress and energy conservation and emission reduction policies gain traction, an increasing amount of clean energy is being integrated into the power grid system. This influx of new energy imposes stringent demands on the transmission lines within the power grid system. In recent years, the State Grid has implemented a plethora of intelligent transmission line inspection strategies, with the intelligent inspection of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) transmission lines receiving significant promotion and widespread application. However, practical application has revealed that the prevalent transmission line detection algorithms yield a substantial quantity of false detections, particularly in the detection of nut defects in small-sized metallic fittings, voltage balancing ring defects, and defects in uninsulated conductors. To address these issues, this paper employs deep learning algorithms for target detection, critical point detection, and instance segmentation, focusing on aspects such as algorithmic logic, algorithmic models, and data processing. The aim is to enhance the precision of these three types of defect detection, diminish the rate of false detections, and augment the practicality of intelligent grid inspection.

This article studies the complete targets coverage problem in a novel and practical context: sensor nodes operating in an Internet of Things (IoT) network that have a dual-battery system with nonideal properties. Specifically, sensor nodes have batteries that cannot be charged and discharged simultaneously. Also, sensor nodes must fully discharge/charge a battery before it is charged/discharged again. We outline a mixed-integer linear program (MILP) and use it to optimize the activation schedule of sensor nodes. Its objective is to maximize complete targets coverage lifetime. We also propose a heuristic solution named battery switching aware algorithm (BSAA) to solve large problem instances. Simulation results show the performance of BSAA achieves approximately 98% of the coverage lifetime of MILP. In addition, equipping sensor nodes with a dual battery system prolongs the coverage lifetime by up to 70.2%.