HIFiRE re-entry observation using an image-based visual servoing system

This paper presents an image based visual servoing system that is intended to be used for tracking and obtaining scientific observations of the HIFiRE vehicles. The primary aim of this tracking platform is to acquire and track the thermal signature emitted from the surface of the vehicle during the re-entry phase of the mission using an infra-red camera. The implemented visual servoing scheme uses a classical image based approach to identify and track the target using visual kinematic control. The paper utilizes simulation and experimental results to show the tracking performance of the system using visual feedback. Discussions on current implementation and control techniques to further improve the performance of the system are also explored.

Depth of focus and visual acuity with primary and secondary spherical aberration

It is known that the depth of focus (DOF) of the human eye can be affected by the higher order aberrations. We estimated the optimal combinations of primary and secondary Zernike spherical aberration to expand the DOF and evaluated their efficiency in real eyes using an adaptive optics system. The ratio between increased DOF and loss of visual acuity was used as the performance indicator. The results indicate that primary or secondary spherical aberration alone shows similar effectiveness in extending the DOF. However, combinations of primary and secondary spherical aberration with different signs provide better efficiency for expanding the DOF. This finding suggests that the optimal combinations of primary and secondary spherical aberration may be useful in the design of optical presbyopic corrections. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The bondage of an imposed visual discourse : understanding the built environment's influence on the 'oldest-old' aged care residents' sense of peace

This study investigates the influence of the built environment upon residents' sense of familiarity, concept of self and thus, their facilitation of place through the theory of "The Bondage of Imposed Visual Discourse". Simone de Beauvoir's theory "The Bondage of Feminine Elegance" provides the conceptual understanding of the visual discourse between the physicality of clothing and the wearer's personal identity. This fashion theory is transposed to explore the influence of the built environment's physicality upon aged care residents' personal identity. This paper presents findings from a study of professionals' opinions in reference to the built environment of permanent residential aged care for the 'oldest-old' of Australia. The researcher conducted qualitative interviews with four participants: an architect, occupational therapist, nursing home facility manager and an aged care lobbyist in the South-East Queensland. This study is structured towards proposing "place-focused" qualitative design principles to encourage residents' sense of place through the built environment. These proposed principles are addressed with reference to existing Standards and Principles outlined by the Australian Government.

Design and development of automatic visual inspection system for PCB manufacturing

Inspection of solder joints has been a critical process in the electronic manufacturing industry to reduce manufacturing cost, improve yield, and ensure product quality and reliability. This paper proposes two inspection modules for an automatic solder joint classification system. The “front-end” inspection system includes illumination normalisation, localisation and segmentation. The “back-end” inspection involves the classification of solder joints using the Log Gabor filter and classifier fusion. Five different levels of solder quality with respect to the amount of solder paste have been defined. The Log Gabor filter has been demonstrated to achieve high recognition rates and is resistant to misalignment. This proposed system does not need any special illumination system, and the images are acquired by an ordinary digital camera. This system could contribute to the development of automated non-contact, non-destructive and low cost solder joint quality inspection systems.

Start playing with your food : fun food experiences with mobile social media

Healthy and sustainable food is gaining more attention from consumers, industry, and researchers. Yet many approaches to date are limited to information dissemination, advertisement or education. We have embarked on a three year collaborative research project (2011 – 2013) to explore urban food practices – eating, cooking, growing food – to support the well-being of people and the environment. Our overall goal is to employ a user-centred interaction design research approach to inform the development of entertaining, real-time, mobile and networked applications, engaging playful feedback to build motivation. Our aspiration for this study is to deliver usable and useful mobile and situated interaction prototypes that employ individual and group strategies to foster food cultures that provide new pathways to produce, share and enjoy food that is green, healthy, and fun.

Risk of falls, injurious falls, and other injuries resulting from visual impairment among older adults with age-related macular degeneration

Purpose: Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible visual impairment among older adults. This study explored the relationship between AMD, falls risk and other injuries and identified visual risk factors for these adverse events. Methods: Participants included 76 community-dwelling individuals with a range of severity of AMD (mean age, 77.0±6.9 years). Baseline assessment included binocular visual acuity, contrast sensitivity and merged visual fields. Participants completed monthly falls and injury diaries for one year following the baseline assessment. Results: Overall, 74% of participants reported having either a fall, injurious fall or other injury. Fifty-four percent of participants reported a fall and 30% reported more than one fall; of the 102 falls reported, 63% resulted in an injury. Most occurred outdoors (52%), between late morning and late afternoon (61%) and when navigating on level ground (62%). The most common non-fall injuries were lacerations (36%) and collisions with an object (35%). Reduced contrast sensitivity and visual acuity were associated with increased fall rate, after controlling for age, gender, cognitive function, cataract severity and self-reported physical function. Reduced contrast sensitivity was the only significant predictor of falls and other injuries. Conclusion: Among older adults with AMD, increased visual impairment was significantly associated with an increased incidence of falls and other injuries. Reduced contrast sensitivity was significantly associated with increased rates of falls, injurious falls and injuries, while reduced visual acuity was only associated with increased falls risk. These findings have important implications for the assessment of visually impaired older adults.

Improving visual noise insensitivity in small vocabulary audio visual speech recognition applications

Visual noise insensitivity is important to audio visual speech recognition (AVSR). Visual noise can take on a number of forms such as varying frame rate, occlusion, lighting or speaker variabilities. The use of a high dimensional secondary classifier on the word likelihood scores from both the audio and video modalities is investigated for the purposes of adaptive fusion. Preliminary results are presented demonstrating performance above the catastrophic fusion boundary for our confidence measure irrespective of the type of visual noise presented to it. Our experiments were restricted to small vocabulary applications.