December 2024 - In this interview, Paolo Pagano introduces JLAB, a special laboratory of the CNIT Research Organization in Italy. JLAB is dedicated to ICT research applied to the maritime sector. He also describes his group’s activities in relation to the effective management of ports, logistics and shipping using IoT and data capabilities.
Q: Would you begin with by introducing your background and professional responsibilities?
PP: Well, I would say that I am a specialist in digital logistics with an extensive background in engineering principles, project leadership, and the effective application of research in technological contexts.
My background is in experimental physics; I received my PhD working in a High Energy Physics experiment at CERN.
Since 2009, I have been working with the Consorzio Nazionale Interuniversitario per le Telecommunicazioni - CNIT (in English: National, Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications). In 2015, I became the Director of the CNIT laboratory on Advanced Sensing and Networking in Sea Ports in Livorno supervising 10 to 15 co-workers. I am responsible for public and private research grants, and standardization initiatives in the domain of large-scale complex digital infrastructures.
In October 2022, I joined the Space for Maritime Task Force, which was jointly established by the Italian Coast Guard and the European Space Agency to implement their respective mandates around “smart and uncrewed shipping”.
I also serve as the Chair of ETSI’s CDM (European Common Information Sharing Environment Service and Data Model) technical body.
Q: How would you describe CNIT and its activities?
PP: CNIT is a non-profit consortium that was established in 1995. It brings together forty-two public Italian universities to perform research, innovation, and education/training activities in the field of the Information and Communication Technology. We are active across Italy and the European continent. Through HORIZON EUROPE, for example, CNIT has obtained twenty-four projects and coordinates nine of them.
The CNIT laboratory at the port of Livorno is in the north-western part of Italy. Coming from the sea, Livorno is the doorway to Tuscany. It is a multi-purpose port handling passenger and freight traffic which means that we come across a wide variety of use cases. One other consideration about our port environment is that we are very open to the idea of using the Internet. Some other industrial domains are more resistant to the concept for many reasons, most coming from background activities and legacy assets. On the other hand, port communities have to deal with many users and interactions which is where the Internet provides a useful foundation.
Q: How did your journey with IoT begin?
PP: About fifteen years ago, there was a lot of activity around real time networks. That led people to think about middle-ware technologies for combining sensor and wireless LAN technologies. As we investigated the area, one of my research students at that time warned me about the risks of focusing on a specific middleware architecture. His advice was to focus on IoT devices and platforms in a way that gave maximum flexibility to working with IoT data.
Of course, it took time for technologies to mature. By 2017 we reached a point where we implemented a platform to “Store & Share” data. In this way, we decoupled the sensing layer from the application layer.
Q: It seems that your approach to the IoT has evolved over the years. What is the framework you use to think about IoT systems now?
PP: The use of middleware technologies to decouple sensing from applications still makes sense. Our early experience taught us about complexity in networks, in devices and in the firmware for devices. That is problematic. It requires system architects to move complexity away from the component pieces and into the platform layer, especially when dealing with constrained devices, for example. Of course, this is the horizontal approach that is present in the oneM2M architecture.
One other factor that determined how we view IoT systems results from our operating environment. An important requirement is to manage multiple vendors because the nature and range of sensors is very broad in the port ecosystem. Our architectural and technical framework needs the flexibility to handle different technologies and the protocols that are embedded in the equipment on maritime vessels and on the port landside.
Q: How did your group get involved with oneM2M?
PP: We work closely with Telecom Italia and got involved in oneM2M when we needed to select a proper platform for Store & Share of IoT data. We selected Mobius by OCEAN and we still rely on that solution.
We also participate in many EU projects. One of them was the Autopilot project where we have been tasked to support the autonomous driving by means of the IoT. We also proved how different IoT platforms could work with one another by conforming to international standards.
An important finding from the project was oneM2M’s ability to implement and work with multiple IoT protocols such as CoAP, MQTT and HTTP. That is important when you consider our ports scenario and the requirement to manage multiple equipment vendors, their devices, and communications protocols.
Q: You mentioned Telecom Italia and Ericsson as key partners. What are some examples of CNIT and TIM collaboration? What kind of relationship you have with Ericsson?
PP: With Telecom Italia, we are engaged in two technological projects, both framed into European Space Agency development programs and funded by the Italian Space Agency. One concerns freight container tracking and the other one focuses on uncrewed shipping.
I would say that Telecom Italia is looking at ICT offerings for the Port of the Future. This covers logistics, environmental protection, navigation, and other opportunities.
Ericsson has teamed with us since the very beginning of our journey to customize 5G networks for port and maritime use cases. We have been among the very first scientists to look at these scenarios which are considered as very promising for 5G industrial applications.
Q: What current projects are you excited about?
PP: We are currently very busy completing a project with the European Space Agency (ESA). This involves handling data from ships at sea to explore the feasibility of autonomous navigation and digital port systems.
To this extent the data coming from automatic identification system (AIS) streams, the onboard digital system (i.e., ECDIS – electronic chart display and information system), and the meteo-marine monitoring system are conveyed to our oneM2M platform. We also store and share warnings and alarms coming from data processing and AI.
Another project we are excited about adds a layer of complexity to the horizontal architecture we have been discussing for IoT systems. When organizations build systems with IoT platforms, they can collect and share IoT data. However, those data lacks meaning because platforms do not automatically provide users with an ontology. We are working on an ontology for the maritime sector so that sensor providers and users can benefit from standardized data models, sensor characteristics and application-oriented functionality. With the help of ETSI we are framing the maritime ontology into the SAREF framework.
Q: What advice would you offer to organizations getting involved in the IoT?
PP: I would suggest that organizations consider standards as a pre-requisite. We are available to help, based on our experience. We can offer insights into the use of oneM2M in complex environments like those of ports and in dedicated applications such as intermodal logistics, environmental protection, and smart navigation.
