Towards a lightweight adaptative multicomponential affective recognition system

As part of the Affective Computing research field, the development of automatic affective recognition systems can enhance human-computer interactions by allowing the creation of interfaces that react to the user's emotional state. To that end, this Master Thesis brings affect recognition to nowadays most used human computer interface, mobile devices, by developing a facial expression recognition system able to perform detection under the difficult conditions of viewing angle and illumination that entails the interaction with a mobile device. Moreover, this Master Thesis proposes to combine emotional features detected from expression with contextual information of the current situation, to infer a complex and extensive emotional state of the user. Thus, a cognitive computational model of emotion is defined that provides a multicomponential affective state of the user through the integration of the detected emotional features into appraisal processes. In order to account for individual differences in the emotional experience, these processes can be adapted to the culture and personality of the user.

Evaluation of Auditory Displays Supporting Aircraft Approach and Landing

Abstract: The paper describes an auditory interface using directional sound as a possible support for pilots during approach in an instrument landing scenario. Several ways of producing directional sounds are illustrated. One using speaker pairs and controlling power distribution between speakers is evaluated experimentally. Results show, that power alone is insufficient for positioning single isolated sound events, although discrimination in the horizontal plane performs better than in the vertical. Additional sound parameters to compensate for this are proposed.

An Experimental Multimedia Process Control Room

The centralised control rooms of large industrial plants have separated people from the processes they should control. Perception is restricted mainly to the visual sense. Only telephone or radio links provide narrow-band voice communication with maintenance personnel down in the plant. Multimedia equipment can perceptionally bring back the operator into the plant while bodily keeping him the comfortable and safe control room. This involves video and audio transmission from process components as well as sights and sounds artificially generated from measurements. Groupware systems support inter-action between operators, engineers, and managers in different plants. With support from the German government, the state of Hessen, and industrial companies the Laboratory for Systems Engineering and Human-Machine Systems at the University of Kassel establishes an Experimental Multimedia Process Control Room. Core of this set-up are two high-performance graphics workstations linked to one of several process or vehicle simulators. Multimedia periphery includes video and teleconferencing equipment and a vibration and sound generation system.

The DIADEM Software Development Methodology extended to Multimedia Interfaces

DIADEM, created by THOMSON-CSF, is a methodology for specifying and developing user interfaces. It improves productivity of the interface development process as well as quality of the interface. The method provides support to user interface development in three aspects. (1) DIADEM defines roles of people involved and their tasks and organises the sequence of activities. (2) It provides graphical formalisms supporting information exchange between people. (3) It offers a basic set of rules for optimum human-machine interfaces. The use of DIADEM in three areas (process control, sales support, and multimedia presentation) was observed and evaluated by our laboratory in the European project DIAMANTA (ESPRIT P20507). The method provides an open procedure that leaves room for adaptation to a specific application and environment. This paper gives an overview of DIADEM and shows how to extend formalisms for developing multimedia interfaces.

Facilitating Mechanical Design with Augmented Reality

By enhancing a real scene with computer generated objects, Augmented Reality (AR), has proven itself as a valuable Human-Computer Interface (HCI) in numerous application areas such as medical, military, entertainment and manufacturing. It enables higher performance of on-site tasks with seamless presentation of up-to-date, task-related information to the users during the operation. AR has potentials in design because the current interface provided by Computer-aided Design (CAD) packages is less intuitive and reports show that the presence of physical objects help design thinking and communication. This research explores the use of AR to improve the efficiency of a design process, specifically in mechanical design.

La rob??tica como herramienta para la educaci??n en ciencias e ingenier??a

Resumen tomado del autor

Ergonomía. Fundamentos para el desarrollo de soluciones ergonómicas

En este texto se presentan algunos conceptos y marcos teóricos útiles para el análisis del trabajo en ergonomía. El objetivo es mostrar los conceptos de base para el estudio del trabajo en la tradición de la ergonomía de la actividad, y analizar de manera general algunos de los modelos empleados para el análisis de una actividad de trabajo. Inicialmente se abordan los principios teóricos de la ergonomía y los principios que provienen de la fisiología, la biomecánica, la psicología y la sociología; también se presentan los acercamientos metodológicos empleados en esta misma perspectiva para el análisis de actividades de trabajo. Se parte del principio de que un estudio ergonómico del trabajo se puede llevar a cabo desde una doble perspectiva: la perspectiva analítica y la perspectiva comprensiva.

Uncanny Valley revisited

The 'Uncanny Valley' was conceived in 1970 by Prof Masahiro Mori and details a possible relationship between an object's appearance or motion and how people perceive the object. Initially this research was used without validation. Modern technology has enabled initial investigations, summarised here, that conclude further work is required. A good design guideline for humanoid robots is desired if humanoid robots are to assist with an increasingly elderly population, but not yet possible due to technological constraints. Prosthetics is considered a good resource as the user interaction is comparable to the anticipated level of human-robot interaction and there is a wide range of existing devices.

Sensory enhancement, a pilot perceptual study of subdermal magnetic implants

Subdermal magnetic implants originated as an art form in the world of body modification. To date an in depth scientific analysis of the benefits of this implant has yet to be established. This research explores the concept of sensory extension of the tactile sense utilising this form of implantation. This relatively simple procedure enables the tactile sense to respond to static and alternating magnetic fields. This is not to say that the underlying biology of the system has changed; i.e. the concept does not increase our tactile frequency response range or sensitivity to pressure, but now does invoke a perceptual response to a stimulus that is not innately available to humans. Within this research two social surveys have been conducted in order to ascertain one, the social acceptance of the general notion of human enhancement, and two the perceptual experiences of individuals with the magnetic implants themselves. In terms of acceptance to the notion of sensory improvement (via implantation) ~39% of the general population questioned responded positively with a further ~25% of the respondents answering with the indecisive response. Thus with careful dissemination a large proportion of individuals may adopt this technology much like this if it were to become available for consumers. Interestingly of the responses collected from the magnetic implants survey ~60% of the respondents actually underwent the implant for magnetic vision purposes. The main contribution of this research however comes from a series of psychophysical testing. In which 7 subjects with subdermal magnetic implants, were cross compared with 7 subjects that had similar magnets superficially attached to their dermis. The experimentation examined multiple psychometric thresholds of the candidates including intensity, frequency and temporal. Whilst relatively simple, the experimental setup for the perceptual experimentation conducted was novel in that custom hardware and protocols were created in order to determine the subjective thresholds of the individuals. Abstract iv The overall purpose of this research is to utilise this concept in high stress scenarios, such as driving or piloting; whereby alerts and warnings could be relayed to an operator without intruding upon their other (typically overloaded) exterior senses (i.e. the auditory and visual senses). Hence each of the thresholding experiments were designed with the intention of utilising the results in the design of signals for information transfer. The findings from the study show that the implanted group of subjects significantly outperformed the superficial group in the absolute intensity threshold experiment, i.e. the implanted group required significantly less force than the superficial group in order to perceive the stimulus. The results for the frequency difference threshold showed no significant difference in the two groups tested. Interestingly however at low frequencies, i.e. 20 and 50 Hz, the ability of the subjects tested to discriminate frequencies significantly increased with more complex waveforms i.e. square and sawtooth, when compared against the typically used sinewave. Furthermore a novel protocol for establishing the temporal gap detection threshold during a temporal numerosity study has been established in this thesis. This experiment measured the subjects’ capability to correctly determine the number of concatenated signals presented to them whilst the time between the signals, referred to as pulses, tended to zero. A significant finding was that when altering the length of, the frequency of, and the number of cycles of the pulses, the time between pulses for correct recognition altered. This finding will ultimately aid in the design of the tactile alerts for this method of information transfer. Preliminary development work for the use of this method of input to the body, in an automotive scenario, is also presented within this thesis in the form of a driving simulation. The overall goal of which is to present warning alerts to a driver, such as rear-to-end collision, or excessive speeds on roads, in order to prevent incidents and penalties from occurring. Discussion on the broader utility of this implant has been presented, reflecting on its potential use as a basis for vibrotactile, and sensory substitution, devices. This discussion furthers with postulations on its use as a human machine interface, as well as how a similar implant could be used within the ear as a hearing aid device.

Development of an active orthosis prototype for lower limbs

ARAUJO, Márcio V. ; ALSINA, Pablo J. ; MEDEIROS, Adelardo A. D. ; PEREIRA, Jonathan P.P. ; DOMINGOS, Elber C. ; ARAÚJO, Fábio M.U. ; SILVA, Jáder S. . Development of an Active Orthosis Prototype for Lower Limbs. In: INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING, 20., 2009, Gramado, RS. Proceedings… Gramado, RS: [s. n.], 2009

Desenvolvimento de Uma Órtese Ativa Para os Membros Inferiores Com Sistema Eletrônico Embarcado

This work presents the development of a prototype of an intelligent active orthosis for lower limbs whit an electronic embedded system. The proposed orthosis is an orthopedical device with the main objective of providing walking capacity to people with partial or total loss of lower limbs movements. In order to design the kinematics, dynamics and the mechanical characteristics of the prototype, the biomechanics of the human body was analized. The orthosis was projected to reproduce some of the movements of the human gait as walking in straight forward, sit down, get up, arise and go down steps. The joints of the orthosis are controlled by DC motors equipped with mechanical reductions, whose purpose is to reduce rotational speed and increase the torque, thus generating smooth movements. The electronic embedded system is composed of two motor controller boards with two channels that communicate with a embedded PC, position sensors and limit switches. The gait movements of the orthosis will be controlled by high level commands from a human-machine interface. The embedded electronic system interprets the high level commands, generates the angular references for the joints of the orthosis, controls and drives the actuators in order to execute the desired movements of the user

Desenvolvimento de um sistema computacional para monitoramento de parâmetros físicos na área de irrigação, com base na plataforma labVIEW

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Influências de famílias wavelets e suas ordens no desempenho de um localizador de faltas em linhas aéreas de transmissão de energia elétrica

Essa dissertação tem por objetivo analisar a influência de famílias wavelets e suas ordens no desempenho de um algoritmo de localização de faltas a partir das ondas viajantes de dois terminais de uma linha de transmissão aérea. Tornou-se objetivo secundário a modelagem de um sistema elétrico de potência (SEP) para obtenção de um universo de faltas que validassem o localizador. Para isso, parte de um SEP da Eletrobrás-Eletronorte em 500/230 kV foi modelado no Alternative Transient Program (ATP) utilizando-se parâmetros reais. A Transformada Wavelet, via análise multiresolução (AMR), é empregada valendo-se de sua característica de localização temporal, permitindo caracterizações precisas de instantes de transitórios eletromagnéticos ocasionados por faltas, as quais geram ondas que ao se propagarem em direção aos terminais da linha contêm os tempos de propagação destas do local do defeito a tais terminais e podem ser convenientemente extraídos por tal transformada. Pela metodologia adotada no algoritmo, a diferença entre esses tempos determina com boa exatidão o local de ocorrência da falta sobre a linha. Entretanto, um dos agentes variantes do erro nessa estimação é a escolha da Wavelet usada na AMR dos sinais, sendo, portanto, a avaliação dessa escolha sobre o erro, objetivo principal do trabalho, justificada pela ainda inexistente fundamentação científica que garanta a escolha de uma wavelet ótima a uma certa aplicação. Dentre um leque de Wavelets discretas, obtiveram-se resultados adequados para 16 delas, havendo erros máximos inferiores aos 250 metros estipulados para a precisão. Duas Wavelets, a Db15 e a Sym17, sobressaíram-se ao errarem, respectivamente, 3,5 e 1,1 vezes menos que as demais. A metodologia empregada consta da: exportação dos dados das faltas do ATP para o MATLAB®; aplicação da transformação modal de Clarke; decomposição dos modos alfa e síntese dos níveis 1 de detalhes via AMR; cálculo de suas máximas magnitudes e determinação dos índices temporais; e por fim, a teoria das ondas viajantes equaciona e estima o local do defeito sobre a LT, sendo tudo isso programado no MATLAB e os erros de localização analisados estatisticamente no Microsoft Excell®. Ao final elaborou-se ainda uma GUI (Guide User Interface) para a Interface Homem-Máquina (IHM) do localizador, servindo também para análises gráficas de qualquer das contingências aplicadas ao SEP. Os resultados alcançados demonstram uma otimização de performance em razão da escolha da wavelet mais adequada ao algoritmo e norteiam para uma aplicação prática do localizador.

Realidade misturada: conceitos, ferramentas e aplicações

The Mixed Reality proposes scenes combining between virtual and real worlds offering to the user an intuitive way of interaction according to a specific application. This tutorial paper aims at presenting the fundamentals concepts of this emergent kind of human-computer interface.