{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,18]],"date-time":"2025-10-18T15:05:43Z","timestamp":1760799943356,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":52,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2016,8,8]],"date-time":"2016-08-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1470614400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Sensors"],"abstract":"<jats:p>This work presents a robotic application aimed at performing environmental monitoring in data centers. Due to the high energy density managed in data centers, environmental monitoring is crucial for controlling air temperature and humidity throughout the whole environment, in order to improve power efficiency, avoid hardware failures and maximize the life cycle of IT devices. State of the art solutions for data center monitoring are nowadays based on environmental sensor networks, which continuously collect temperature and humidity data. These solutions are still expensive and do not scale well in large environments. This paper presents an alternative to environmental sensor networks that relies on autonomous mobile robots equipped with environmental sensors. The robots are controlled by a centralized cloud robotics platform that enables autonomous navigation and provides a remote client user interface for system management. From the user point of view, our solution simulates an environmental sensor network. The system can easily be reconfigured in order to adapt to management requirements and changes in the layout of the data center. For this reason, it is called the virtual sensor network. This paper discusses the implementation choices with regards to the particular requirements of the application and presents and discusses data collected during a long-term experiment in a real scenario.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/s16081255","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2016,8,8]],"date-time":"2016-08-08T10:14:38Z","timestamp":1470651278000},"page":"1255","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":19,"title":["A Novel Cloud-Based Service Robotics Application to Data Center Environmental Monitoring"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8617-8966","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Ludovico","family":"Russo","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca Abruzzi 24, Turin 10129, Italy"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6458-6344","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Stefano","family":"Rosa","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca Abruzzi 24, Turin 10129, Italy"}]},{"given":"Marcello","family":"Maggiora","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Infrastructure IT Division, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca Abruzzi 24, Turin 10129, Italy"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-4924-9144","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Basilio","family":"Bona","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Control and Computer Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca Abruzzi 24, Turin 10129, Italy"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,8,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rosa, S., Russo, L.O., Air\u00f3 Farulla, G., Carlone, L., Antonini, R., Marco, G., and Bona, B. (2014, January 15\u201319). An application of laser-based autonomous navigation for data-center monitoring. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference IAS-13, Padova, Italy.","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-08338-4_8"},{"key":"ref_2","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rosa, S., Russo, L.O., and Bona, B. (2014, January 16\u201319). Towards a ROS-based autonomous cloud robotics platform for data center monitoring. Proceedings of the 2014 IEEE Emerging Technology and Factory Automation (ETFA), Barcelona, Spain.","DOI":"10.1109\/ETFA.2014.7005212"},{"key":"ref_3","unstructured":"The 2020 Climate and Energy Package, EU Climate Action. Available online: http:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/clima\/policies\/strategies\/2020\/indexen.htm."},{"key":"ref_4","unstructured":"Koomey, J. (2011). Growth in Data Center Electricity Use 2005 to 2010, Analytical Press."},{"key":"ref_5","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Patterson, M.K. (2008, January 28\u201331). The effect of data center temperature on energy efficiency. Proceedings of the 11th Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems, Orlando, FL, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/ITHERM.2008.4544393"},{"key":"ref_6","unstructured":"Brill, K.G. (2007). Data Center Energy Efficiency and Productivity, The Uptime Institute. Technical Report."},{"key":"ref_7","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"5","DOI":"10.2298\/TSCI0802005A","article-title":"Thermal management of electronics: A review of literature","volume":"12","author":"Anandan","year":"2008","journal-title":"Therm. Sci."},{"key":"ref_8","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"484","DOI":"10.1016\/j.egypro.2015.12.168","article-title":"Cooling systems in data centers: State of art and emerging technologies","volume":"83","author":"Capozzoli","year":"2015","journal-title":"Energy Procedia"},{"key":"ref_9","unstructured":"Villars, R.L. (2012). The Datacenter\u2019s Role in Delivering Business Innovation, CA Technologies. Technical Report."},{"key":"ref_10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"639","DOI":"10.1007\/s11227-011-0704-3","article-title":"Review of performance metrics for green data centers: A taxonomy study","volume":"63","author":"Wang","year":"2013","journal-title":"J. Supercomput."},{"key":"ref_11","unstructured":"Patel, C.D., Bash, C.E., Belady, C., Stahl, L., and Sullivan, D. (2001, January 8\u201313). Computational fluid dynamics modeling of high compute density data centers to assure system inlet air specifications. Proceedings of the Pacific Rim\/ASME International Electronic Packaging Technical Conference and Exhibition, Kauai, HI, USA."},{"key":"ref_12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Patel, C.D., Bash, C.E., Sharma, R., Beitelmal, M., and Friedrich, R. (2003, January 6\u201311). Smart cooling of data centers. Proceedings of the ASME 2003 International Electronic Packaging Technical Conference and Exhibition, Maui, HI, USA.","DOI":"10.1115\/IPACK2003-35059"},{"key":"ref_13","unstructured":"Ranganathan, P., Leech, P., Irwin, D., and Chase, J. Ensemble-level Power Management for Dense Blade Servers. ACM SIGARCH Computer Architecture News. Available online: http:\/\/www.ecs.umass.edu\/~irwin\/hp.pdf."},{"key":"ref_14","unstructured":"Bash, C.E., Patel, C.D., and Sharma, R.K. (June, January 30). Dynamic thermal management of air cooled data centers. Proceedings of the Tenth Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronics Systems (ITHERM\u201906), San Diego, CA, USA."},{"key":"ref_15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Nathuji, R., Isci, C., and Gorbatov, E. (2007, January 11\u201315). Exploiting platform heterogeneity for power efficient data centers. Proceedings of the the Fourth International Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC\u201907), Jacksonville, FL, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICAC.2007.16"},{"key":"ref_16","unstructured":"Das, R., Kephart, J.O., Lefurgy, C., Tesauro, G., Levine, D.W., and Chan, H. (2008, January 12\u201316). Autonomic multi-agent management of power and performance in data centers. Proceedings of the 7th International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems: Industrial Track, Estoril, Portugal."},{"key":"ref_17","unstructured":"Parolini, L., Sinopoli, B., and Krogh, B.H. (2008, January 7). Reducing data center energy consumption via coordinated cooling and load management. Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 2008 Conference on Power Aware Computing and Systems, San Diego, CA, USA."},{"key":"ref_18","unstructured":"Choi, W., Park, K.-W., and Park, K.H. (2011, January 21\u201323). Scout: Data center monitoring system with multiple mobile robots. Proceedings of the 2011 7th International Conference on Networked Computing and Advanced Information Management (NCM), Gyeongju, Korea."},{"key":"ref_19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Lenchner, J., Isci, C., Kephart, J.O., Mansley, C., Connell, J., and McIntosh, S. (2011, January 14\u201318). Towards data center self-diagnosis using a mobile robot. Proceedings of the 8th ACM International Conference on Autonomic Computing, ICAC 2011, Karlsruhe, Germany.","DOI":"10.1145\/1998582.1998597"},{"key":"ref_20","unstructured":"Kiva Systems. Available online: http:\/\/www.kivasystems.com."},{"key":"ref_21","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"185","DOI":"10.1007\/s11370-014-0151-0","article-title":"Supervision and monitoring of logistic spaces by a cooperative robot team: Methodologies, problems, and solutions","volume":"7","author":"Bona","year":"2014","journal-title":"Intell. Serv. Robot."},{"key":"ref_22","first-page":"27","article-title":"Three engineers, hundreds of robots, one warehouse","volume":"7","author":"Guizzo","year":"2008","journal-title":"IEEE Specturm"},{"key":"ref_23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hamann, H.F., Schappert, M., Iyengar, M., van Kessel, T., and Claassen, A. (2008, January 28\u201331). Methods and techniques for measuring and improving data center best practices. Proceedings of the IEEE 11th Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems, ITHERM 2008, Orlando, FL, USA.","DOI":"10.1109\/ITHERM.2008.4544390"},{"key":"ref_24","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"10","DOI":"10.1147\/JRD.2009.5429023","article-title":"Uncovering energy-efficiency opportunities in data centers","volume":"53","author":"Hamann","year":"2009","journal-title":"IBM J. Res. Dev."},{"key":"ref_25","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"677","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ejor.2004.09.020","article-title":"Survey of research in the design and control of automated guided vehicle systems","volume":"170","author":"Vis","year":"2006","journal-title":"Eur. J. Oper. Res."},{"key":"ref_26","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"24","DOI":"10.1109\/MRA.2007.901317","article-title":"Field and service applications\u2014An infrastructure-free automated guided vehicle based on computer vision\u2014An effort to make an industrial robot vehicle that can operate without supporting infrastructure","volume":"14","author":"Kelly","year":"2007","journal-title":"IEEE Robot. Autom. Mag."},{"key":"ref_27","unstructured":"Thrun, S., Burgard, W., and Fox, D. (2005). Probabilistic Robotics, MIT Press."},{"key":"ref_28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"333","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1008854305733","article-title":"Globally consistent range scan alignment for environment mapping","volume":"4","author":"Lu","year":"1997","journal-title":"Auton. Robots"},{"key":"ref_29","unstructured":"Lavalle, S.M. Rapidly-Exploring Random Trees: A New Tool for path planning, Iowa State University. Technical Report."},{"key":"ref_30","unstructured":"Ulrich, I., and Borenstein, J. (1998, January 16\u201320). Vfh+: Reliable obstacle avoidance for fast mobile robots. Proceedings of the 1998 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Leuven, Belgium."},{"key":"ref_31","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"23","DOI":"10.1109\/100.580977","article-title":"The dynamic window approach to collision avoidance","volume":"4","author":"Fox","year":"1997","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Robot. Autom."},{"key":"ref_32","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"69","DOI":"10.1109\/MRA.2011.941632","article-title":"A world wide web for robots","volume":"18","author":"Waibel","year":"2011","journal-title":"IEEE Robot. Autom. Mag."},{"key":"ref_33","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"2787","DOI":"10.1016\/j.comnet.2010.05.010","article-title":"The internet of things: A survey","volume":"54","author":"Iera","year":"2010","journal-title":"Comput. Netw."},{"key":"ref_34","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"793","DOI":"10.1016\/j.robot.2008.06.007","article-title":"Network robot systems","volume":"56","author":"Hagita","year":"2008","journal-title":"Robot. Auton. Syst."},{"key":"ref_35","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Hunziker, D., Gajamohan, M., Waibel, M., and D\u2019Andrea, R. (2013, January 6\u201310). Rapyuta: The roboearth cloud engine. Proceedings of the 2013 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA), Karlsruhe, Germany.","DOI":"10.1109\/ICRA.2013.6630612"},{"key":"ref_36","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Du, Z., Chen, Y., and Garc\u00eda-Acosta, M. (2010, January 4\u20135). Robot as a service in cloud computing. Proceedings of the 2010 Fifth IEEE International Symposium on Service Oriented System Engineering (SOSE), Nanjing, China.","DOI":"10.1109\/SOSE.2010.44"},{"key":"ref_37","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Menezes, P., Quintas, J., and Dias, J. (2011, January 9\u201313). Cloud robotics: Towards context aware robotic networks. Proceedings of the International Conference on Robotics, Shanghai, China.","DOI":"10.2316\/P.2011.752-062"},{"key":"ref_38","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"28","DOI":"10.1109\/MNET.2012.6201213","article-title":"Cloud networked robotics","volume":"26","author":"Hagita","year":"2012","journal-title":"IEEE Netw."},{"key":"ref_39","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1162","DOI":"10.1016\/j.robot.2013.04.003","article-title":"Ubiquitous robotics: Recent challenges and future trends","volume":"61","author":"Chibani","year":"2013","journal-title":"Robot. Auton. Syst."},{"key":"ref_40","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"398","DOI":"10.1109\/TASE.2014.2376492","article-title":"A survey of research on cloud robotics and automation","volume":"12","author":"Kehoe","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Autom. Sci. Eng."},{"key":"ref_41","first-page":"5","article-title":"ROS: An open-source robot operating system","volume":"3","author":"Quigley","year":"2009","journal-title":"ICRA Workshop Open Source Softw."},{"key":"ref_42","unstructured":"Richardson, L., and Ruby, S. (2008). RESTful Web Services, O\u2019Reilly Media, Inc."},{"key":"ref_43","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"481","DOI":"10.1109\/TASE.2014.2329556","article-title":"Rapyuta: A cloud robotics platform","volume":"12","author":"Mohanarajah","year":"2015","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Autom. Sci. Eng."},{"key":"ref_44","unstructured":"Robotics in Concert. Available online: http:\/\/www.robotconcert.org."},{"key":"ref_45","unstructured":"Gmapping ROS Package. Available online: http:\/\/wiki.ros.org\/gmapping."},{"key":"ref_46","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"34","DOI":"10.1109\/TRO.2006.889486","article-title":"Improved techniques for grid mapping with rao-blackwellized particle filters","volume":"23","author":"Grisetti","year":"2007","journal-title":"IEEE Trans. Robot."},{"key":"ref_47","unstructured":"Fox, D. (2001). Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 14, MIT Press."},{"key":"ref_48","unstructured":"Move_Base ROS Package. Available online: http:\/\/wiki.ros.org\/move_base."},{"key":"ref_49","unstructured":"the Flask Microframework. Available online: http:\/\/flask.pocoo.org\/."},{"key":"ref_50","unstructured":"Robot Web Tools. Available online: http:\/\/robotwebtools.org\/tools.html."},{"key":"ref_51","unstructured":"The Rosserial Package. Available online: http:\/\/wiki.ros.org\/rosserial."},{"key":"ref_52","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rowekamper, J., Sprunk, C., Tipaldi, G.D., Stachniss, C., Pfaff, P., and Burgard, W. (2012, January 7\u201312). On the position accuracy of mobile robot localization based on particle filters combined with scan matching. Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), Vilamoura, Portugal.","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS.2012.6385988"}],"container-title":["Sensors"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/16\/8\/1255\/pdf","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,10,11]],"date-time":"2025-10-11T19:27:58Z","timestamp":1760210878000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/www.mdpi.com\/1424-8220\/16\/8\/1255"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2016,8,8]]},"references-count":52,"journal-issue":{"issue":"8","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,8]]}},"alternative-id":["s16081255"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/s16081255","relation":{},"ISSN":["1424-8220"],"issn-type":[{"type":"electronic","value":"1424-8220"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2016,8,8]]}}}