Ultrasonic sensors in urban traffic driving-aid systems

Currently, vehicles are often equipped with active safety systems to reduce the risk of accidents, most of which occur in urban environments. The most prominent include Antilock Braking Systems (ABS), Traction Control and Stability Control. All these systems use different kinds of sensors to constantly monitor the conditions of the vehicle, and act in an emergency. In this paper the use of ultrasonic sensors in active safety systems for urban traffic is proposed, and the advantages and disadvantages when compared to other sensors are discussed. Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) for urban traffic based on ultrasounds is presented as an application example. The proposed system has been implemented in a fully-automated prototype vehicle and has been tested under real traffic conditions. The results confirm the good performance of ultrasonic sensors in these systems. ©2011 by the authors.

The Learning of the Mathematical Models to Aid Decision Making in the High Level Engineering Schools?

At present, in the University curricula in most countries, the decision theory and the mathematical models to aid decision making is not included, as in the graduate program like in Doctored and Master´s programs. In the Technical School of High Level Agronomic Engineers of the Technical University of Madrid (ETSIA-UPM), the need to offer to the future engineers training in a subject that could help them to take decisions in their profession was felt. Along the life, they will have to take a lot of decisions. Ones, will be important and others no. In the personal level, they will have to take several very important decisions, like the election of a career, professional work, or a couple, but in the professional field, the decision making is the main role of the Managers, Politicians and Leaders. They should be decision makers and will be paid for it. Therefore, nobody can understand that such a professional that is called to practice management responsibilities in the companies, does not take training in such an important matter. For it, in the year 2000, it was requested to the University Board to introduce in the curricula an optional qualified subject of the second cycle with 4,5 credits titled " Mathematical Methods for Making Decisions ". A program was elaborated, the didactic material prepared and programs as Maple, Lingo, Math Cad, etc. installed in several IT classrooms, where the course will be taught. In the course 2000-2001 this subject was offered with a great acceptance that exceeded the forecasts of capacity and had to be prepared more classrooms. This course in graduate program took place in the Department of Applied Mathematics to the Agronomic Engineering, as an extension of the credits dedicated to Mathematics in the career of Engineering.

AUTOFLY-Aid: Flight Deck Automation Support with Dynamic 4D Trajectory Management for Responsive and Adaptive Airborne Collision Avoidance

AUTOFLY-Aid Project aims to develop and demonstrate novel automation support algorithms and tools to the flight crew for flight critical collision avoidance using “dynamic 4D trajectory management”. The automation support system is envisioned to improve the primary shortcomings of TCAS, and to aid the pilot through add-on avionics/head-up displays and reality augmentation devices in dynamically evolving collision avoidance scenarios. The main theoretical innovative and novel concepts to be developed by AUTOFLY-Aid project are a) design and development of the mathematical models of the full composite airspace picture from the flight deck’s perspective, as seen/measured/informed by the aircraft flying in SESAR 2020, b) design and development of a dynamic trajectory planning algorithm that can generate at real-time (on the order of seconds) flyable (i.e. dynamically and performance-wise feasible) alternative trajectories across the evolving stochastic composite airspace picture (which includes new conflicts, blunder risks, terrain and weather limitations) and c) development and testing of the Collision Avoidance Automation Support System on a Boeing 737 NG FNPT II Flight Simulator with synthetic vision and reality augmentation while providing the flight crew with quantified and visual understanding of collision risks in terms of time and directions and countermeasures.

Public Private Partnerships in the Humanitarian Aid

This master thesis is intended to perform an exploratory approach for the potential to Public-Private Partnerships as a tool for advanced collaboration between businesses and the cooperation system in the specific context of humanitarian action. It intends to conduct a case study analysis of representative interactions between the public and private actors in the humanitarian aid, and in conjunction with a profound revision of the existing literature, creates a set of conclusions and recommendations that can serve as a prototype for possible inclusion guide the private sector in humanitarian action through new paradigms that go beyond the classical donor-recipient model.

Merit function for the evaluation of color uniformity in the far field of LED spot lights

The scope of the present paper is the derivation of a merit function which predicts the visual perception of LED spot lights. The color uniformity level Usl is described by a linear regression function of the spatial color distribution in the far field. Hereby, the function is derived from four basic functions. They describe the color uniformity of spot lights through different features. The result is a reliable prediction for the perceived color uniformity in spot lights. A human factor experiment was performed to evaluate the visual preferences for colors and patterns. A perceived rank order was derived from the subjects’ answers and compared with the four basic functions. The correlation between the perceived rank order and the basic functions was calculated resulting in the definition of the merit function Usl. The application of this function is shown by a comparison of visual evaluations and measurements of LED retrofit spot lamps. The results enable a prediction of color uniformity levels of simulations and measurements concerning the visual perception. The function provides a possibility to evaluate the far field of spot lights without individual subjective judgment. © (2014) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.

Architecture Global Aid - Origami Houses (after tsunami houses), Tokyo, Miyagi, Giappone, 2013

This publication approaches the element of the "refuge" by showing several built prototypes designed and built by the author of this Ph.D and Yuko Ono that were effectively used as temporary shelters in Japan by the refugees in 2013. They consist on seven small wooden houses that can float and can also be packed into boxes and used as shelters following natural disasters. This publication explains both in Italian, English, Japanese and through small drawn diagrams the construction of these prototypes thanks to the help group "Architecture Global Aid" created by the author of this Ph.D in Japan (www.facebook.com/architectureglobalaid). Finally, this refuges can be as well seen in pages 660-664 of the Ph.D text were several kinds of architectures for shelters are analyzed. Esta publicación analiza el elemento del ?refugio? a través de varios ejemplos diseñados y construidos por la autora de este doctorado y la arquitecta Yuko Ono que fueron utilizados en la recuperación de Japón en el año 2013. Consisten en siete refugios de madera que pueden flotar y doblarse e introducirse en cajas del mismo material y de este modo, ser extraídos y empleados tras un desastre natural. Esta publicación explica en italiano, inglés, japonés y mediante varios diagramas, la construcción de estos prototipos gracias al grupo de ayuda ?Architecture Global Aid? creado por la autora de este doctorado en Japón (www.facebook.com/architectureglobalaid). Por último, la referencia a la investigación acerca de estos prototipos se puede encontrar en las páginas 660-664 de la tesis doctoral, entre las que se investiga también acerca de otras arquitecturas del refugio.