Container-based virtualization is a lightweight deployment solution within heterogeneous Fog and Edge Computing (FEC) systems. When used in real-time FEC applications, orchestration is needed to adapt to variations in system behavior, transient overload scenarios, and changes in resource availability. Container-based orchestration can efficiently and automatically deploy, redimension, and relocate containers according to the measured real-time performance of critical applications. This paper presents a highly configurable orchestration framework for real-time containers that improves the scalability and expressiveness of state-of-the-art approaches. We propose three different heuristics for the offline placement and dimensioning of containers on nodes that scale with the size of modern industrial systems and enhance the decision-making of the online hierarchical controller to include time-utility functions which can model more accurately the usefulness of results in the case of deadline misses. We show our framework’s performance and efficiency using synthetic test cases and a real-world test bed.

This article presents and validates active interaction force control and planning for fully actuated and omnidirectional aerial manipulation platforms, with the goal of aerial contact inspection in unstructured environments. We present a variable axis-selective impedance control which integrates direct force control for intentional interaction, using feedback from an on-board force sensor. The control approach aims to reject disturbances in free flight, while handling unintentional interaction and actively controlling desired interaction forces. A fully actuated and omnidirectional tilt-rotor aerial system is used to show capabilities of the control and planning methods. Experiments demonstrate disturbance rejection, push-and-slide interaction, and force-controlled interaction in different flight orientations. The system is validated as a tool for nondestructive testing of concrete infrastructure, and statistical results of interaction control performance are presented and discussed.