Myoelectric Signal Monitoring System

The Electromyography (EMG) is an important tool for gait analyzes and disorders diagnoses. Traditional methods involve equipment that can disturb the analyses, being gradually substituted by different approaches, like wearable and wireless systems. The cable replacement for autonomous systems demands for technologies capable of meeting the power constraints. This work presents the development of an EMG and kinematic data capture wireless module, designed taking into account power consumption issues. This module captures and converts the analog myoeletric signal to digital, synchronously with the capture of kinetic information. Both data are time multiplexed and sent to a PC via Bluetooth link. The work carried out comprised the development of the hardware, the firmware and a graphical interface running in an external PC. The hardware was developed using the PIC18F14K22, a low power family of microcontrollers. The link was established via Bluetooth, a protocol designed for low power communication. An application was also developed to recover and trace the signal to a Graphic User Interface (GUI), coordinating the message exchange with the firmware. Results were obtained which allowed validating the conceived system in static and with the subject performing short movements. Although it was not possible to perform the tests within more dynamic movements, it is shown that it is possible to capture, transmit and display the captured data as expected. Some suggestions to improve the system performance also were made.

Controlo e monitorização de um sistema de Auto-Pull

Esta dissertação descreve o estudo do controlo e da monitorização de um sistema de autopull, bem como o estudo da implementação de um destes sistemasnuma área de negócio. Inicialmente, de modo a percecionar as melhores opções a tomar para a realização deste projeto foram estudadas duas redes de comunicação locais, redes Ethernet e redes CAN, tendo-se optado pelas redes Ethernet, sendo as razões que determinaram esta escolha explanadas no desenvolvimento do relatório. Após ter sido selecionada a rede que foi utilizada, foram estudados os requisitos do sistema e procuradas no mercado soluções que os satisfaçam. Para a comunicação em tempo real foram utilizadas Web Sockets e para a utilização destas,foi necessário um servidor de Web Sockets, tendo a escolha recaídosobre onodejs. Posteriormente, foi elaborada uma interface gráfica que permitiu a criação de um sistema inteligente que auxilia os clientes do espaço a efetuarem pedidos bem como a chamarem os funcionários, não necessitando de passar os longos tempos de espera que normalmenteestão associados a estes espaços. Posto isto, foi realizado um website que deverá apresentar o espaço, os próximos eventos a realizar e outras informações importantes. Este sistema torna-se uma mais-valia para a divulgação da tecnologia implementada e para a divulgação dos espaços que eventualmente venham a adotar um sistema análogo. De seguida foi efetuado um plano de negócios, simulando um espaço físico que eventualmente implementasse esta tecnologia. Para tal, foi estudada a envolvente externa e interna em que este negócio estaria inserido, as políticas de marketing que deveriam ser seguidas e ainda um plano financeiro que descrevesse o investimento, as vendas esperadas e todos os restantes componentes económicos do projeto. Por último foram tecidas as principais conclusões inerentes ao projeto desenvolvido e analisadas as possibilidades de melhorias futuras.

gvSIG An Open Source GIS solution for the Android Platform

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies

UJI's Smart Campus: Place Finder App

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial Technologies.

A SDK improvement towards gesture support

Human-Computer Interaction have been one of the main focus of the technological community, specially the Natural User Interfaces (NUI) field of research as, since the launch of the Kinect Sensor, the goal to achieve fully natural interfaces just got a lot closer to reality. Taking advantage of this conditions the following research work proposes to compute the hand skeleton in order to recognize Sign Language Shapes. The proposed solution uses the Kinect Sensor to achieve a good segmentation and image analysis algorithms to extend the skeleton from the extraction of high-level features. In order to recognize complex hand shapes the current research work proposes the redefinition of the hand contour making it immutable to translation, rotation and scaling operations, and a set of tools to achieve a good recognition. The validation of the proposed solution extended the Kinects Software Development Kit to allow the developer to access the new set of inferred points and created a template-matching based platform that uses the contour to define the hand shape, this prototype was tested in a set of predefined conditions and showed to have a good success ration and has proven to be eligible for real-time scenarios.

Control system for actuation and sensing in digital microfluidics devices

Digital Microfluidics (DMF) is a second generation technique, derived from the conventional microfluidics that instead of using continuous liquid fluxes, it uses only individual droplets driven by external electric signals. In this thesis a new DMF control/sensing system for visualization, droplet control (movement, dispensing, merging and splitting) and real time impedance measurement have been developed. The software for the proposed system was implemented in MATLAB with a graphical user interface. An Arduino was used as control board and dedicated circuits for voltage switching and contacts were designed and implemented in printed circuit boards. A high resolution camera was integrated for visualization. In our new approach, the DMF chips are driven by a dual-tone signal where the sum of two independent ac signals (one for droplet operations and the other for impedance sensing) is applied to the electrodes, and afterwards independently evaluated by a lock-in amplifier. With this new approach we were able to choose the appropriated amplitudes and frequencies for the different proposes (actuation and sensing). The measurements made were used to evaluate the real time droplet impedance enabling the knowledge of its position and velocity. This new approach opens new possibilities for impedance sensing and feedback control in DMF devices.

m-SportGIS

Information technologies (ITs), and sports resources and services aid the potential to transform governmental organizations, and play an important role in contributing to sustainable communities development, respectively. Spatial data is a crucial source to support sports planning and management. Low-cost mobile geospatial tools bring productive and accurate data collection, and their use combining a handy and customized graphical user interface (GUI) (forms, mapping, media support) is still in an early stage. Recognizing the benefits — efficiency, effectiveness, proximity to citizens — that Mozambican Minister of Youth and Sports (MJD) can achieve with information resulted from the employment of a low-cost data collection platform, this project presents the development of a mobile mapping application (app) — m-SportGIS — under Open Source (OS) technologies and a customized evolutionary software methodology. The app development embraced the combination of mobile web technologies and Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) (e.g. Sencha Touch (ST), Apache Cordova, OpenLayers) to deploy a native-to-the-device (Android operating system) product, taking advantage of device’s capabilities (e.g. File system, Geolocation, Camera). In addition to an integrated Web Map Service (WMS), was created a local and customized Tile Map Service (TMS) to serve up cached data, regarding the IT infrastructures limitations in several Mozambican regions. m-SportGIS is currently being exploited by Mozambican Government staff to inventory all kind of sports facilities, which resulted and stored data feeds a WebGIS platform to manage Mozambican sports resources.

Projecto de criação de metodologia de análise da Usabilidade para selecção de plataforma SaaS de Gestão de Projectos online CATCH, Global Marketing

O aparecimento de soluções de software baseadas na Cloud vieram democratizar o acesso a aplicações de suporte à actividade empresarial, permitindo a micro e pequenas empresas aceder a ferramentas que outrora apenas as grandes empresas poderiam financiar, dada a introdução de novas formas de pagamento mensais com base em contratos flexíveis, acesso via internet e ausência de instalação de hardware específico ou compra de licenças por utilizador – a verdadeira utilização de software como um serviço, vulgo SaaS (Software as a Service). As aplicações de tipo SaaS aportam inúmeros benefícios para as empresas e mesmo vantagens competitivas importantes, estando disponíveis soluções em diversas áreas, nomeadamente para a Gestão de Projectos, como ferramentas de CRM (Customer Relationship Management) e CMS (Content Management System), entre outros. Assim, as empresas de Marketing e Comunicação, caso da empresa em que se centra este Projecto, têm hoje em dia acesso a um conjunto de aplicações SaaS, que pelo seu custo acessível e fácil acesso online, permitem às empresas mais pequenas serem rapidamente tão competitivas quanto as maiores, por norma com processos mais pesados e tradicionais. Adicionalmente, assistimos também ao fenómeno da consumerização das TI, em que os consumidores passam a querer ter o mesmo tipo de User Experience (UX) de que usufruem na utilização de aplicações fora do seu trabalho, aplicadas à vida empresarial. Este Projecto argumenta que a Usabilidade deve ser um dos elementos chave para a selecção correcta de uma aplicação online de Gestão de Projectos (do tipo SaaS), algo que deveria ser facilitado pela aplicação de uma metodologia de teste da Usabilidade, disponível numa plataforma online de acesso livre. A metodologia deverá ser eficaz e passível de ser utilizada por colaboradores de uma micro ou pequena empresa, apoiando o seu processo decisório de investimento, sendo eles especialistas ou não na matéria. A metodologia proposta neste projecto exploratório pressupõe uma complementaridade entre a avaliação Heurística de Usabilidade pelo método de Nielsen e o Método de Purdue - Purdue Usability Testing Questionnaire (PUTQ).

Improving quality of medical service with mobile health software

An increasing number of m-Health applications are being developed benefiting health service delivery. In this paper, a new methodology based on the principle of calm computing applied to diagnostic and therapeutic procedure reporting is proposed. A mobile application was designed for the physicians of one of the Portuguese major hospitals, which takes advantage of a multi-agent interoperability platform, the Agency for the Integration, Diffusion and Archive (AIDA). This application allows the visualization of inpatients and outpatients medical reports in a quicker and safer manner, in addition to offer a remote access to information. This project shows the advantages in the use of mobile software in a medical environment but the first step is always to build or use an interoperability platform, flexible, adaptable and pervasive. The platform offers a comprehensive set of services that restricts the development of mobile software almost exclusively to the mobile user interface design. The technology was tested and assessed in a real context by intensivists.

Reverse engineering of web applications

The MAP-i Doctoral Program of the Universities of Minho, Aveiro and Porto

Monitorização e controlo em ambientes industriais através de rede de sensores sem fios

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia de Telecomunicações e Informática

Desenvolvimento de um filtro ativo paralelo monofásico compacto e didático utilizando MOSFETs

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Eletrónica Industrial e Computadores

Gestão e instalação de redes de sensores sem fios (domótica)

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Eletrónica Industrial e Computadores

Aplicação web para configuração e acesso a câmaras ONVIF

Dissertação de mestrado integrado em Engenharia Eletrónica Industrial e Computadores

Interfície tridimensional EGP TV digital

En este proyecto se presenta una aplicación capaz de recibir la televisión digital y representar la información que contiene en un entorno de producción de gráficos tridimensionales. Esto conlleva recoger y procesar el flujo de transporte para más de un servicio, procesar las diferentes tablas de información, implementar mecanismos para representar la información audiovisual en un entorno tridimensional y construir una interfaz de usuario con los datos recogidos.