Application of Fractional Calculus in Mechatronics

Fractional Calculus (FC) goes back to the beginning of the theory of differential calculus. Nevertheless, the application of FC just emerged in the last two decades. In the field of dynamical systems theory some work has been carried out but the proposed models and algorithms are still in a preliminary stage of establishment. Having these ideas in mind, the paper discusses a FC perspective in the study of the dynamics and control of mechanical systems.

Dynamical Analysis of Non-Repetitive Trajectories in Robotic Manipulation

A new method for the study and optimization of manu«ipulator trajectories is developed. The novel feature resides on the modeling formulation. Standard system desciptions are based on a set of differential equations which, in general, require laborious computations and may be difficult to analyze. Moreover, the derived algorithms are suited to "deterministic" tasks, such as those appearing in a repetitivework, and are not well adapted to a "random" operation that occurs in intelligent systems interacting with a non-structured and changing environment. These facts motivate the development of alternative models based on distinct concepts. The proposed embedding of statistics and Fourier trasnform gives a new perspective towards the calculation and optimization of the robot trajectories in manipulating tasks.

Towards a Mobile Three-dimensional Modelling System for Underground Structures

Robotica 2012: 12th International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems and Competitions April 11, 2012, Guimarães, Portugal

Combining sparse and dense methods in 6D Visual Odometry

13th International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems (Robotica), 2013, Lisboa

Multi-robot cooperative stereo for outdoor scenarios

13th International Conference on Autonomous Robot Systems (Robotica), 2013

Relatório de Estágio: Análise da eficiência do Sistema de controlo de tráfego da cidade do Porto

No âmbito da unidade curricular Dissertação/Estágio/Projeto, foi desenvolvido, durante um estágio na Câmara Municipal do Porto, o estudo da eficiência do sistema inteligente de controlo de tráfego implementado na cidade. Este sistema é designado como Sistema Inteligente de Gestão Autónoma - SIGA e tem como base de funcionamento o software de gestão de tráfego GERTRUDE da empresa GERTRUDE SAEM. O sistema de controlo de tráfego encontra-se repartido em 10 zonas interligadas, focadas essencialmente no centro da cidade do Porto. O estudo foi aplicado apenas a uma parte da zona da Constituição, nomeadamente a rua da Constituição, desde a Praça Marquês até à rua Antero de Quental. A eficiência mediu-se pela comparação de duas situações, a circulação e comportamento das correntes de tráfego com o sistema em funcionamento normal e com o sistema desativado. Por sua vez, o indicador utilizado que permitiu avaliar o sistema, foi o nível de serviço obtido pelo atraso médio por veículo em cada ramo de cada interseção. Para determinação do atraso, foram testados diferentes métodos, para se tentar perceber qual aquele que melhor se adequava à situação e que exigia menor número de recursos humanos. À frente serão exaradas algumas conclusões acerca da metodologia de cada um deles e condicionantes que levaram à não utilização de todos os métodos. Depois de aplicadas as metodologias que permitiram determinar o nível de serviço em cada grupo semafórico das diferentes interseções, percebeu-se que existe uma grande diferença na circulação entre as duas situações, sendo que a mais-valia que este sistema apresenta é a coordenação das diferentes interseções que se encontram abrangidas pelas 10 zonas pertencentes ao SIGA.

Desenvolvimento de um Protótipo de Dispensador Automático de Medicamentos

O número de pessoas com idade superior a 65 anos aumentou consideravelmente nos últimos 40 anos. Este incremento de longevidade tem levado ao aparecimento de varias patologias relacionadas com a idade e ao aumento da prevalência das patologias cronicas. Uma grande maioria desta população e poli-medicada e assim sendo a gestão de medicamentos e uma área que pode proporcionar grandes benefícios aos idosos. A grande quantidade de medicamentos assim como as diferentes dosagens e os diferentes horários de toma fazem com que os idosos se confundam no cumprimento do esquema terapêutico aconselhado pelo medico, nomeadamente devido ao declínio cognitivo a que estão sujeitos devido ao envelhecimento humano. Torna-se, portanto, fundamental o desenvolvimento de sistemas inteligentes que auxiliem os idosos na gestão da sua medicação. A presente dissertação de mestrado foi materializada num dispositivo, designado ElderlySafety, que visa responder aos problemas da poli-medicação, através de uma solução tecnológica que incorpora as vertentes de controlo e comunicação. O objectivo do ElderlySafety e relembrar, de forma automática, o idoso da toma atempada dos seus medicamentos e consiste num prototipo de um dispositivo com varias compartições para organização dos vários medicamentos. Este aparelho apresenta 24 compartimentos, um deles referente a uma posição estática, considerada a posição `home' e os restantes dizem respeito a 23 tomas de medicação durante uma semana. Os compartimentos em questão devem ser preenchidos com a devida medicação, pelo cuidador do idoso, no inicio de cada semana. O aparelho esta conectado via Bluetooth a uma aplicação denominada ElderlySafety Online que permite monitorizar todo o sistema. E aqui que e feito o registo, com data, hora e nome do medicamento, de toda a medicação prescrita ao paciente. Também e possível a verificação de possíveis interações medicamentosas, bem como o acesso a informações acerca do que fazer em caso de esquecimento de uma ou mais tomas. Aquando a chegada da data e hora da toma de cada medicação, o aparelho desenvolvido emite um lembrete ao idoso e esse lembrete e feito através de um alerta luminoso. Se o sistema ElderlySafety verificar que o idoso se esquece da toma dos medicamentos tem a capacidade de interagir via e-mail com o cuidador, que poder a ser um familiar próximo, alertando-o para o esquecimento da toma de medicação do paciente a seu cuidado. Os testes de validação realizados ao ElderlySafety revelaram que o prototipo se mostra funcional e apto para integrar um ambiente de vida assistido de qualquer idoso.

Training control centers' operators in incident diagnosis and power restoration using intelligent tutoring systems

The activity of Control Center operators is important to guarantee the effective performance of Power Systems. Operators’ actions are crucial to deal with incidents, especially severe faults like blackouts. In this paper, we present an Intelligent Tutoring approach for training Portuguese Control Center operators in tasks like incident analysis and diagnosis, and service restoration of Power Systems. Intelligent Tutoring System (ITS) approach is used in the training of the operators, having into account context awareness and the unobtrusive integration in the working environment. Several Artificial Intelligence techniques were criteriously used and combined together to obtain an effective Intelligent Tutoring environment, namely Multiagent Systems, Neural Networks, Constraint-based Modeling, Intelligent Planning, Knowledge Representation, Expert Systems, User Modeling, and Intelligent User Interfaces.

Cyber-ambient intelligent training of operators in power systems control centres

Cyber-Physical Systems and Ambient Intelligence are two of the most important and emerging paradigms of our days. The introduction of renewable sources gave origin to a completely different dimension of the distribution generation problem. On the other hand, Electricity Markets introduced a different dimension in the complexity, the economic dimension. Our goal is to study how to proceed with the Intelligent Training of Operators in Power Systems Control Centres, considering the new reality of Renewable Sources, Distributed Generation, and Electricity Markets, under the emerging paradigms of Cyber-Physical Systems and Ambient Intelligence. We propose Intelligent Tutoring Systems as the approach to deal with the intelligent training of operators in these new circumstances.

Energy resources management for more sustainable distribution systems: an intelligent approach

Energy Resources Management can play a very relevant role in future power systems in SmartGrid context, with high penetration of distributed generation and storage systems. This paper deals with the importance of resources management in incident situation. The system to consider a high penetration of distributed generation, demand response, storage units and network reconfiguration. A case study evidences the advantages of using a flexible SCADA to control the energy resources in incident situation.

Introduction to the special issue on real world applications of intelligent tutoring systems

The idea behind creating this special issue on real world applications of intelligent tutoring systems was to bring together in a single publication some of the most important examples of success in the use of ITS technology. This will serve as a reference to all researchers working in the area. It will also be an important resource for the industry, showing the maturity of ITS technology and creating an atmosphere for funding new ITS projects. Simultaneously, it will be valuable to academic groups, motivating students for new ideas of ITS and promoting new academic research work in the area.

Master's in autonomous systems: an overview of the robotics curriculum and outcomes at ISEP, Portugal

Robotics research in Portugal is increasing every year, but few students embrace it as one of their first choices for study. Until recently, job offers for engineers were plentiful, and those looking for a degree in science and technology would avoid areas considered to be demanding, like robotics. At the undergraduate level, robotics programs are still competing for a place in the classical engineering graduate curricula. Innovative and dynamic Master’s programs may offer the solution to this gap. The Master’s degree in autonomous systems at the Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP), Porto, Portugal, was designed to provide a solid training in robotics and has been showing interesting results, mainly due to differences in course structure and the context in which students are welcomed to study and work

Towards Active Course Marks for Autonomous Sailing Competitions

This paper describes the environmental monitoring / regatta beacon buoy under development at the Laboratory of Autonomous Systems (LSA) of the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. On the one hand, environmentalmonitoring of open water bodies in real or deferred time is essential to assess and make sensible decisions and, on the other hand, the broadcast in real time of position, water and wind related parameters allows autonomous boats to optimise their regatta performance. This proposal, rather than restraining the boats autonomy, fosters the development of intelligent behaviour by allowing the boats to focus on regatta strategy and tactics. The Nautical and Telemetric Application (NAUTA) buoy is a dual mode reconfigurable system that includes communications, control, data logging, sensing, storage and power subsystems. In environmental monitoring mode, the buoy gathers and stores data from several underwater and above water sensors and, in regatta mode, the buoy becomes an active course mark for the autonomous sailing boats in the vicinity. During a race, the buoy broadcasts its position, together with the wind and the water current local conditions, allowing autonomous boats to navigate towards and round the mark successfully. This project started with the specification of the requirements of the dual mode operation, followed by the design and building of the buoy structure. The research is currently focussed on the development of the modular, reconfigurable, open source-based control system. The NAUTA buoy is innovative, extensible and optimises the on board platform resources.

An Intelligent Distributed System for Environmental Management

Environmental management is a complex task. The amount and heterogeneity of the data needed for an environmental decision making tool is overwhelming without adequate database systems and innovative methodologies. As far as data management, data interaction and data processing is concerned we here propose the use of a Geographical Information System (GIS) whilst for the decision making we suggest a Multi-Agent System (MAS) architecture. With the adoption of a GIS we hope to provide a complementary coexistence between heterogeneous data sets, a correct data structure, a good storage capacity and a friendly user’s interface. By choosing a distributed architecture such as a Multi-Agent System, where each agent is a semi-autonomous Expert System with the necessary skills to cooperate with the others in order to solve a given task, we hope to ensure a dynamic problem decomposition and to achieve a better performance compared with standard monolithical architectures. Finally, and in view of the partial, imprecise, and ever changing character of information available for decision making, Belief Revision capabilities are added to the system. Our aim is to present and discuss an intelligent environmental management system capable of suggesting the more appropriate land-use actions based on the existing spatial and non-spatial constraints.

A Real Time Vision System for Autonomous Systems: Characterization during a Middle Size Match

in RoboCup 2007: Robot Soccer World Cup XI