AnsuR Technologies (Norway)

During natural disasters, situational awareness is needed to understand the situation and respond accordingly. A key need is assessing open roads for transporting emergency support to victims. This can be done via analysis of photos from affected areas with known location. This paper studies the problem of detecting blocked/open roads from photos during floods by applying a two-step approach based on classifiers: does the image have evidence of road? If it does, is the road passable or not? We propose a single double-ended neural network (NN) architecture which addresses both tasks simultaneously. Both problems are treated as a single class classification problem with the use of a compactness loss. The study was performed on a set of tweets, posted during flooding events, that contain (i) metadata and (ii) visual information. We studied the usefulness of each data source and the combination of both. Finally, we conducted a study of the performance gain from ensembling different networks. Through the experimental results, we prove that the proposed double-ended NN makes the model almost two times faster and the load on memory lighter while improving the results with respect to training two separate networks to solve each problem independently.

In this paper, we present the functional design and experimental validation of network coding technology over hybrid networks including satellite links. We first describe our design framework based on a holistic modelling of (overlay) heterogeneous networking satellite scenarios. We then define different types of logical nodes depending on their encoding, re-encoding and decoding functionalities and whether or not the satellite (overlay) application designer has control over them. Nodes are assumed strategically chosen to recode, which may result in a small number of re-encoding nodes that suffice to optimize selected performance metrics. Our main contribution is a system-oriented functional design of network coding that enables flexible instantiation of different types of network codes via configurable network coding (C-NC) functions. Random or structured NC coefficients can be remotely or locally generated and a packet scheduler can forward packets according to different policies. The choice of coefficients and overall NC scheme depend on the SATCOM-specific performance target, namely delay or bandwidth constraints. Here, we present a preliminary design and experimental testebed validation for the case of delay constrained transmission. Our results show the practical benefits of re-encoding and performance tradeoffs of different network coding schemes. In particular, our results show the good structural properties and delay-reliability tradeoffs of our novel proposal of structured network codes using Pascal matrices due to the regenerative properties of the coding coefficients.

This paper investigates the latest status of DVB-RCS as well as the impact of the BRASIL project support for DVB-RCS in Latin America. We analyze the situation in general and specifically assess the situation for the next generation DVB-RCS work both in terms of input to the standardization process and in terms of impact of the future standard DVB-RCS system as it is currently know to be. The key focus is on how DVB-RCS best can continue to support the bridging of the digital divide.

The DVB-RCS specification, the first true broadband satellite standard, was first published, to high expectations, in 1999. Technically, it is an excellent standard for the physical layer. However, the structure of the DVB-RCS business has recently undergone significant changes and the subscriber count is still lower than expected some time back. The motivation for this paper is based on the present situation for DVB-RCS, while the purpose is to review the present status of DVB-RCS and to provide some visions of possible future directions. The authors provide the views based on a technological and an operational point of view