Mehran Behjati

Huam Ming Ken, Mehran Behjati

The escalation of urban air pollution necessitates innovative solutions for real-time air quality monitoring and prediction. This paper introduces a novel TinyML-based system designed to predict ozone concentration in real-time. The system employs an Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense microcontroller equipped with an MQ7 sensor for carbon monoxide (CO) detection and built-in sensors for temperature and pressure measurements. The data, sourced from a Kaggle dataset on air quality parameters from India, underwent thorough cleaning and preprocessing. Model training and evaluation were performed using Edge Impulse, considering various combinations of input parameters (CO, temperature, and pressure). The optimal model, incorporating all three variables, achieved a mean squared error (MSE) of 0.03 and an R-squared value of 0.95, indicating high predictive accuracy. The regression model was deployed on the microcontroller via the Arduino IDE, showcasing robust real-time performance. Sensitivity analysis identified CO levels as the most critical predictor of ozone concentration, followed by pressure and temperature. The system's low-cost and low-power design makes it suitable for widespread implementation, particularly in resource-constrained settings. This TinyML approach provides precise real-time predictions of ozone levels, enabling prompt responses to pollution events and enhancing public health protection.

Kong Ka Hing, Mehran Behjati

Hornbills, an iconic species of Malaysia's biodiversity, face threats from habi-tat loss, poaching, and environmental changes, necessitating accurate and real-time population monitoring that is traditionally challenging and re-source intensive. The emergence of Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) offers a chance to transform wildlife monitoring by enabling efficient, real-time da-ta analysis directly on edge devices. Addressing the challenge of wildlife conservation, this research paper explores the pivotal role of machine learn-ing, specifically TinyML, in the classification and monitoring of hornbill calls in Malaysia. Leveraging audio data from the Xeno-canto database, the study aims to develop a speech recognition system capable of identifying and classifying hornbill vocalizations. The proposed methodology involves pre-processing the audio data, extracting features using Mel-Frequency Energy (MFE), and deploying the model on an Arduino Nano 33 BLE, which is adept at edge computing. The research encompasses foundational work, in-cluding a comprehensive introduction, literature review, and methodology. The model is trained using Edge Impulse and validated through real-world tests, achieving high accuracy in hornbill species identification. The project underscores the potential of TinyML for environmental monitoring and its broader application in ecological conservation efforts, contributing to both the field of TinyML and wildlife conservation.

Sara Yarham, Mehran Behjati

Monitoring air quality and environmental conditions is crucial for public health and effective urban planning. Current environmental monitoring approaches often rely on centralized data collection and processing, which pose significant privacy, security, and scalability challenges. Federated Learning (FL) offers a promising solution to these limitations by enabling collaborative model training across multiple devices without sharing raw data. This decentralized approach addresses privacy concerns while still leveraging distributed data sources. This paper provides a comprehensive review of FL applications in air quality and environmental monitoring, emphasizing its effectiveness in predicting pollutants and managing environmental data. However, the paper also identifies key limitations of FL when applied in this domain, including challenges such as communication overhead, infrastructure demands, generalizability issues, computational complexity, and security vulnerabilities. For instance, communication overhead, caused by the frequent exchange of model updates between local devices and central servers, is a notable challenge. To address this, future research should focus on optimizing communication protocols and reducing the frequency of updates to lessen the burden on network resources. Additionally, the paper suggests further research directions to refine FL frameworks and enhance their applicability in real-world environmental monitoring scenarios. By synthesizing findings from existing studies, this paper highlights the potential of FL to improve air quality management while maintaining data privacy and security, and it provides valuable insights for future developments in the field.

Mehran Behjati, Rosdiadee Nordin, Nor Fadzilah Abdullah

This paper presents a reinforcement learning (RL) based approach for path planning of cellular connected unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operating beyond visual line of sight (BVLoS). The objective is to minimize travel distance while maximizing the quality of cellular link connectivity by considering real world aerial coverage constraints and employing an empirical aerial channel model. The proposed solution employs RL techniques to train an agent, using the quality of communication links between the UAV and base stations (BSs) as the reward function. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method in training the agent and generating feasible UAV path plans. The proposed approach addresses the challenges due to limitations in UAV cellular communications, highlighting the need for investigations and considerations in this area. The RL algorithm efficiently identifies optimal paths, ensuring maximum connectivity with ground BSs to ensure safe and reliable BVLoS flight operation. Moreover, the solution can be deployed as an offline path planning module that can be integrated into future ground control systems (GCS) for UAV operations, enhancing their capabilities and safety. The method holds potential for complex long range UAV applications, advancing the technology in the field of cellular connected UAV path planning.