The MODISAT project aimed to integrate satellite technologies (GNSS and SAR) into a single GIS platform and validate their use through field experimentation, correlating the satellite-derived data with dynamic monitoring information and advanced numerical models of bridges and viaducts. After decades of expansion and development, Italian and European transport infrastructure has reached a level of aging that requires operators to make a significant qualitative leap in management and maintenance procedures, in order to ensure an acceptable level of safety over the medium to long term at a sustainable cost. With a view toward infrastructure management optimization, current trends among concession holders are evolving toward an approach based on the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). This model allows for estimating costs over the entire life cycle of the infrastructure; consequently, it becomes possible to deterministically assess the need for routine and extraordinary maintenance in the short to medium term, as well as the potential reconstruction of the structure in the long term, leading to estimated savings of billions of dollars per year. To this end, the MODISAT platform represents a unique and innovative service that can support the optimization of maintenance plans and both short and long term monitoring through: Periodic and automated assessment of infrastructure conditions based on the use of redundant monitoring data (including those derived from satellite technologies), correlated with advanced numerical models that enable accurate estimation of deterioration trends; Ability to adapt maintenance strategies based on priorities determined by the performance of individual infrastructure assets.

Geodetic-grade Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receivers designed to implement permanent stations represent the most complex and costly technology in the field of GNSS instrumentation. On the other hand, a large number of innovative applications, highly demanding in terms of positioning precision and accuracy, is pushing the implementation of networks of permanent stations with a higher and higher spatial density. In this scenario, the development of brand new GNSS reference stations, which combine the most advanced technologies in the field of data availability and integrity together with reduced costs (of instrumentation, installation and management) is becoming of paramount importance. For this reason, in 2019 the EU Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA) has financed a research project, called "next Generation gnss REference stATion-GREAT", aimed at developing and demonstrating the potentiality of a brand new GNSS receiver suitable to implement permanent stations. This paper describes the solution developed by the project consortium, composed of four Small or Medium Enterprises (SMEs) based in Italy, France and Belgium, and the preliminary results achieved in the field tests.

The constant monitoring of active landslides, particularly those located in the proximity of populated areas or touristic places, is crucial for early warning and risk-management purposes. The commonly used techniques deploy expensive instrumentation that can be hardly afforded, especially by small mountain communities in which landslide events often occur repeatedly. In recent years, the scientific community, as well as the private sector, have devoted growing effort to reducing the costs of monitoring systems. In this work, we present a monitoring network based on single-frequency Global Positioning System (GPS) sensors that have been activated to monitor an active landslide in the Carnic Alps, North-Eastern Italy. The system, which was composed of 12 single-frequency GPS stations, one seismometric station coupled with a single-frequency GPS instrument for real-time monitoring, and one permanent dual-frequency GPS station located in a stable area, provided daily reports of the landslide motion to the local authorities and administration. We show that this system is a valuable, flexible, and cost-effective tool for quick landslide characterization, and has high potential to be used as a landslide early warning system in case of emergency situations.

Among the various applications of astrometry in astronomical geodesy we must point out the accurate time frame maintenance, the measurement of the Earth rotation, and the study of the local geoid. At the time, the authors have found being no mention of use of astrometry techniques dedicated to measure variations of inclination of a ground infrastructure. We present herein a device composed by a tiny telescope coupled with a CMOS astronomical camera used to acquire star field images overnight. The pointing angle of the telescope is accurately computed by a process called plate-solving and then actualized to account for Earth precession and nutation. A series of tests was conducted for a preliminary assessment of the instrument performances. The results proved that the sensitivity of this cost-effective device is in the range of 10–20 μrad, while long-term repeatability is of the order of tens μrad, comparable to MEMS inclinometers, but without the need of frequent recalibration operations.

In the last few years, much effort has been devoted to the development of wearable sensing systems able to monitor physiological, behavioral, and environmental parameters. Less has been done on the accurate testing and assessment of this instrumentation, especially when considering devices thought to be used in harsh environments by subjects or operators performing intense physical activities. This paper presents methodology and results of the evaluation of wearable physiological sensors under these conditions. The methodology has been applied to a specific textile-based prototype, aimed at the real-time monitoring of rescuers in emergency contexts, which has been developed within a European funded project called ProeTEX. Wearable sensor measurements have been compared with the ones of suitable gold standards through Bland-Altman statistical analysis; tests were realized in controlled environments simulating typical intervention conditions, with temperatures ranging from 20°C to 45°C and subjects performing mild to very intense activities. This evaluation methodology demonstrated to be effective for the definition of the limits of use of wearable sensors. Furthermore, the ProeTEX prototype demonstrated to be reliable, since it produced negligible errors when used for up to 1 h in normal environmental temperature (20°C and 35°C) and up to 30 min in harsher environment (45°C).

A set of garments capable of monitoring the physiological, activity-related and environmental parameters of emergency operators during their interventions was developed in a European Project called ProeTEX. This work reports the results of the field trials performed with the final prototype release at the APT international Fire Fighting Survival Training Centre in Italy. Four sessions of trials (warm-up, rescue intervention, outdoor fire-fighting intervention and smoky chamber route) were performed in harsh environment by 6 professional Fire-Fighters. The operators wore the ProeTEX prototypes and their Heart Rate (HR), Breathing Rate (BR), Body Temperature (BT), External Temperature (ET), Heat Flux (HF) and GPS speed have been acquired. Percentage of samples out of the physiological range (R%) of the HR, BR and BT, as well as percentage of samples showing high variability (V%) of the HR, BR, BT, ET and HF have been processed. Percentage of GPS samples showing artefacts of their ground speed (S%) have been also computed. The results on the HR, BR and BT signals showed a maximum R% of 2.0, 7.8 and 8.5 respectively, as well as a maximum V% of 14.0, 10.0, 0.2, respectively. Concerning the ET and HH data, a V% lower than 0.0 and 2.9, respectively, was found. Finally, the highest detected value of S% of the GPS speed was 3.5 in all the trials. On the whole these results showed the efficacy of the ProeTEX wearable system and its capability of real-time and continuously monitoring the rescuers while they perform even highly intense activities in harsh environmental conditions.

Miniaturization and portability of new electronics lead up to wearable devices embedded within garments: a European program called ProeTEX developed multi-purpose sensors integrated within emergency operators' garments in order to monitor their health state and the surrounding environment. This work deals with the development of an autonomous Long Range communication System (LRS), suitable to transmit data between operators' equipment and the local command post, where remote monitoring software is set up. The LRS infrastructure is based on Wi-Fi protocol and modular architecture. Field tests carried out on the developed prototype showed a high reliability in terms of correctly exchanged data and recovering capabilities in case of temporary disconnection, due to the operator's movements.

The final generation of ProeTEX prototypes has been delivered in April 2010: it is based on two sets of sensorized garments devoted to monitor the health status of emergency operators working in harsh environments. This new release of garments shows several improvements with respect to the previous ones, and it is characterized by a major specialization to the requirements imposed by the different categories of end-users (Fire-Fighters, Civil Protection rescuers) addressed by the project. Each ProeTEX prototype is provided with a communication infrastructure allowing the real-time remote transmission of data recorded by the wearable sensors, and the presentation of such data to possible managers supervising the activities of the first line responders. After the delivery of the prototypes, an intense validation of the garments is being carried out both in laboratories, specialized in physiological measures, and in simulated fire-fighting scenarios. In such a context, this paper presents the main features characterizing the final ProeTEX prototypes and preliminary results of their laboratory assessment.

Financed by the EuropeanCommission, a consortium of 23 European partners, consisting of universities, research institutions, industries, and organizations operating in the field of emergency management, is developing a new generation of "smart" garments for emergency-disaster personnel. Garments integrate newly developed wearable and textile solutions, such as commercial portable sensors and devices, in order to continuously monitor risks endangering rescuers' lives. The system enables detection of health-state parameters of the users (heart rate, breathing rate, body temperature, blood oxygen saturation, position, activity, and posture) and environmental variables (external temperature, presence of toxic gases, and heat flux passing through the garments), to process data and remotely transmit useful information to the operation manager. The European-integrated project, called Proe-TEX (Protection e-Textiles: Micro-Nano-Structured fiber systems for Emergency-Disaster Wear) started on February, 2006 and will end on July, 2010. During this 4.5 years period, three subsequent generations of sensorized garments are being released. This paper proposes an overview of the project and gives a description of the second-generation prototypes, delivered at the end of 2008.

Assessment of human activity and posture with triaxial accelerometers provides insightful information about the functional ability: classification of human activities in rehabilitation and elderly surveillance contexts has been already proposed in the literature. In the meanwhile, recent technological advances allow developing miniaturized wearable devices, integrated within garments, which may extend this assessment to novel tasks, such as real-time remote surveillance of workers and emergency operators intervening in harsh environments. We present an algorithm for human posture and activity-level detection, based on the real-time processing of the signals produced by one wearable triaxial accelerometer. The algorithm is independent of the sensor orientation with respect to the body. Furthermore, it associates to its outputs a “reliability” value, representing the classification quality, in order to launch reliable alarms only when effective dangerous conditions are detected. The system was tested on a customized device to estimate the computational resources needed for real-time functioning. Results exhibit an overall 96.2% accuracy when classifying both static and dynamic activities.

The recent disaster provoked by the earthquake in middle Italy has pointed out the need for minimizing risks endangering rescuers' lives. An European Project called ProeTEX (Protection e-Textiles: MicroNanoStructured fiber systems for Emergency-Disaster Wear) aims at developing smart garments able to monitor physiological and environmental parameters of emergency operators. The goal is to realize a wearable system detecting health state parameters of the users (heart rate, breathing rate, body temperature, blood oxygen saturation, position, activity and posture) and environmental variables (external temperature, presence of toxic gases and heat flux passing through the garments) and remotely transmitting useful information to the operation manager. This work presents an overview of the main features of the second prototype realized by ProeTEX with particular emphasis to the sensor's body network and the long distance transmission of signals.

The first generation of ProeTEX prototypes has been completed at the end of August 2007. In the following period two main activities have involved the project partners. On one hand new technologies (in terms of sensors and devices) to be integrated in the next releases of prototypes have been developed; on the other hand intensive test sessions on the first prototype (both in laboratory conditions and simulating real operative scenarios) have been carried out. This paper is mainly focused on this second facet. Great efforts have been dedicated to the trials for different reasons: firstly to investigate the appropriateness and efficiency of the system in normal and harsh conditions; secondly to obtain useful indications regarding usability and efficacy by the end-users involved in the project. The results of the trials have been used to define the specifications of the second generation of prototypes, that will be released within the end of 2008.

The main purpose of the European project ProeTEX is to develop equipment to improve safety, coordination and efficiency of emergency disaster intervention personnel like fire-fighters or civil protection rescuers. The equipment consists of a new generation of ";smart"; garments, integrating wearable sensors which will allow monitoring physiological parameters, position and activity of the user, as like as environmental variables of the operating field in which rescuers are working: both commercial and newly developed textile and fibre based sensors will be included. The garments will also contain an electronic box to process data collected by the sensors and a communication system enabling the transmission of data to the other rescuers and to a monitoring station. Also a ";smart"; victim patch will be developed: a wearable garment which will allow monitoring physiological parameters of injured civilians involved in disasters, with the aim of optimizing their survival management.

Proetex is a European Integrated Project dedicated to micro- and nano-technology-based wearable equipment for emergency operators. During the first year of work, a careful analysis of several emergency scenarios has been carried out and has resulted in the design of a complete "smart" uniform for fire-fighters and emergency rescuers. These garments aim at monitoring both physiological parameters, position and posture of the operators and the presence of external potential sources of danger and to send these data to a remote coordinating unit. In the following, the main issues of the design flow will be described and discussed.

Based on a simple robotic toolkit, we have developed a robotic arm control system to be used as a humanoid benchmark for testing trajectory planning models and control hypotheses for both reaching and corrective movements during reaching. The developed system integrates visual sensory feedback of the end-effector of the arm allowing controlling its movement online. The system may operate in 1) open-loop configuration providing the servos at the joints of the robot one point of an initially planned trajectory every 20 ms; 2) correction closed loop configuration using visual feedback only for planning the corrective movement trajectory or 3) continuous closed loop configuration using initial conditions derived from visual feedback information and computing the next trajectory point at every time step. Although the planning and control of reaching movements has been extensively investigated, not much is know on the planning of corrective movements. The research tool we developed will be used to implement and test different trajectory planning and movement control models.