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About

About

I received my Master's Degree from FEUP (Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto), in Electrical and Computer Engineering. My thesis was titled Generation of Reconfigurable Circuits from Machine Code, a work which continued throughout my PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering, also at FEUP, and in association with INESC-TEC.

Having completed my PhD thesis, Generation of Custom Run-time Reconfigurable Hardware for Transparent Binary Acceleration, I am now a post-doc researcher with INESC-TEC on the topic of special compilers for hardware, and also an Auxiliary Assistant Professor with the Department of Informatics at FEUP.

Interest
Topics
Details

Details

  • Name

    Nuno Miguel Paulino
  • Role

    Assistant Researcher
  • Since

    01st July 2012
006
Publications

2023

Self-Localization via Circular Bluetooth 5.1 Antenna Array Receiver

Authors
Paulino, N; Pessoa, LM;

Publication
IEEE ACCESS

Abstract
Future telecommunications aim to be ubiquitous and efficient, as widely deployed connectivity will allow for a variety of edge/fog based services. Challenges are numerous, e.g., spectrum overuse, energy efficiency, latency and bandwidth, battery life and computing power of edge devices. Addressing these challenges is key to compose the backbone for the future Internet-of-Things (IoT). Among IoT applications are Indoor Positioning System and indoor Real-Time-Location-Systems systems, which are needed where GPS is unviable. The Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.1 specification introduced Direction Finding to the protocol, allowing for BLE devices with antenna arrays to derive the Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) of transmissions. Well known algorithms for AoA calculation are computationally demanding, so recent works have addressed this, since the low-cost of BLE devices may provide efficient solutions for indoor localization. In this paper, we present a system topology and algorithms for self-localization where a receiver with an antenna array utilizes the AoAs from fixed battery powered beacons to self-localize, without a centralized system or wall-power infrastructure. We conduct two main experiments using a BLE receiver of our own design. Firstly, we validate the expected behaviour in an anechoic chamber, computing the AoA with an RMSE of 10.7 degrees conduct a test in an outdoor area of 12 by 12 meters using four beacons, and present pre-processing steps prior to computing the AoAs, followed by position estimations achieving a mean absolute error of 3.6 m for 21 map positions, with a minimum as low as 1.1 m.

2023

Challenges and Opportunities in C/C++ Source-To-Source Compilation (Invited Paper)

Authors
Bispo, J; Paulino, N; Sousa, LM;

Publication
14th Workshop on Parallel Programming and Run-Time Management Techniques for Many-Core Architectures and 12th Workshop on Design Tools and Architectures for Multicore Embedded Computing Platforms, PARMA-DITAM 2023, January 17, 2023, Toulouse, France.

Abstract
The C/C++ compilation stack (Intermediate Representations (IRs), compilation passes and backends) is encumbered by a steep learning curve, which we believe can be lowered by complementing it with approaches such as source-to-source compilation. Source-to-source compilation is a technology that is widely used and quite mature in certain programming environments, such as JavaScript, but that faces a low adoption rate in others. In the particular case of C and C++ some of the identified factors include the high complexity of the languages, increased difficulty in building and maintaining C/C++ parsers, or limitations on using source code as an intermediate representation. Additionally, new technologies such as Multi-Level Intermediate Representation (MLIR) have appeared as potential competitors to source-to-source compilers at this level. In this paper, we present what we have identified as current challenges of source-to-source compilation of C and C++, as well as what we consider to be opportunities and possible directions forward. We also present several examples, implemented on top of the Clava source-to-source compiler, that use some of these ideas and techniques to raise the abstraction level of compiler research on complex compiled languages such as C or C++. The examples include automatic parallelization of for loops, high-level synthesis optimisation, hardware/software partitioning with run-time decisions, and automatic insertion of inline assembly for fast prototyping of custom instructions. © João Bispo, Nuno Paulino, and Luís Miguel Sousa.

2022

A Flexible HLS Hoeffding Tree Implementation for Runtime Learning on FPGA

Authors
Sousa, LM; Paulino, N; Ferreira, JC; Bispo, J;

Publication
2022 IEEE 21ST MEDITERRANEAN ELECTROTECHNICAL CONFERENCE (IEEE MELECON 2022)

Abstract
Decision trees are often preferred when implementing Machine Learning in embedded systems for their simplicity and scalability. Hoeffding Trees are a type of Decision Trees that take advantage of the Hoeffding Bound to allow them to learn patterns in data without having to continuously store the data samples for future reprocessing. This makes them especially suitable for deployment on embedded devices. In this work we highlight the features of a HLS implementation of the Hoeffding Tree. The implementation parameters include the feature size of the samples (D), the number of output classes (K), and the maximum number of nodes to which the tree is allowed to grow (Nd). We target a Xilinx MPSoC ZCU102, and evaluate: the design's resource requirements and clock frequency for different numbers of classes and feature size, the execution time on several synthetic datasets of varying sizes (N) and the execution time and accuracy for two datasets from UCI. For a problem size of D=3, K=5, and N=40000, a single decision tree operating at 103MHz is capable of 8.3x faster inference than the 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A53 core. Compared to a reference implementation of the Hoeffding tree, we achieve comparable classification accuracy for the UCI datasets.

2022

Design and Experimental Evaluation of a Bluetooth 5.1 Antenna Array for Angle-of-Arrival Estimation

Authors
Paulino, N; Pessoa, LM; Branquinho, A; Gonçalves, E;

Publication
13th International Symposium on Communication Systems, Networks and Digital Signal Processing, CSNDSP 2022, Porto, Portugal, July 20-22, 2022

Abstract
One the of the applications in the realm of the Internet-of-Things (IoT) is real-time localization of assets in specific application environments where satellite based global positioning is unviable. Numerous approaches for localization relying on wireless sensor mesh systems have been evaluated, but the recent Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.1 direction finding features based on Angle-of-Arrival (AoA) promise a low-cost solution for this application. In this paper, we present an implementation of a BLE 5.1 based circular antenna array, and perform two experimental evaluations over the quality of the retrieved data sampled from the array. Specifically, we retrieve samples of the phase value of the Constant Tone Extension which enables the direction finding functionalities through calculation of phase differences between antenna pairs. We evaluate the quality of the sampled phase data in an anechoic chamber, and in a real-world environment using a setup composed of four BLE beacons. © 2022 IEEE.

2022

Optimizing Packet Reception Rates for Low Duty-Cycle BLE Relay Nodes

Authors
Paulino, N; Pessoa, LM; Branquinho, A; Almeida, R; Ferreira, I;

Publication
IEEE SENSORS JOURNAL

Abstract
In order to achieve the full potential of the Internet-of-Things, connectivity between devices should be ubiquitous and efficient. Wireless mesh networks are a critical component to achieve this ubiquitous connectivity for a wide range of services, and are composed of terminal devices (i.e., nodes), such as sensors of various types, and wall powered gateway devices, which provide further internet connectivity (e.g., via Wi-Fi). When considering large indoor areas, such as hospitals or industrial scenarios, the mesh must cover a large area, which introduces concerns regarding range and the number of gateways needed and respective wall cabling infrastructure, including data and power. Solutions for mesh networks implemented over different wireless protocols exist, like the recent Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) 5.1. While BLE provides lower power consumption, some wall-power infrastructure may still be required. Alternatively, if some nodes are battery powered, concerns such as lifetime and packet delivery are introduced. We evaluate a scenario where the intermediate nodes of the mesh are battery powered, using a BLE relay of our own design, which acts as a range extender by forwarding packets from end-nodes to gateways. We present the relay's design and experimentally determine the packet forwarding efficiency for several scenarios and configurations. In the best case, up to 35% of the packets transmitted by 11 end-nodes can be forwarded to a gateway by a single relay under continuous operation. A battery lifetime of 1 year can be achieved with a relay duty cycle of 20%.

Supervised
thesis

2022

Specializing Risc-V Cores for Performance and Power

Author
Henrique Veloso de Sousa

Institution
UP-FEUP

2022

Generating Hardware Modules via Binary Translation of RISC-V Binaries

Author
João Miguel Curado Conceição

Institution
UP-FEUP

2021

An Exploration of FPGAs as Accelerators for Graph Analysis via High-Level Synthesis

Author
Pedro Filipe Vilhena de Campos Oliveira e Silva

Institution
UP-FEUP

2021

Indoor Bluetooth Low Energy Direction Finding via Circular Antenna Array

Author
Catarina Alexandra Rodrigues Marques

Institution
IPP-ISEP

2021

Generating Hardware Modules via Binary Translation of RISC-V Binaries

Author
João Miguel Curado Conceição

Institution
UP-FEUP