Utilizing the CORBA platform in the construction of a highly immersive virtual environment

This article presents the implementation of a distributed system of virtual reality, through the integration of services offered by the CORBA platform (Common Object Request Broker Architecture) and by the environment of development of 3D graphic applications in real time, the WorldToolkit, of Sense8. The developed application for the validation of this integration is that of a virtual city, with an emphasis on its traffic ways, vehicles (movable objects) and buildings (immovable objects). In this virtual world, several users can interact, each one controlling his/her own car. Since the modelling of the application took into consideration the criteria and principles of the Transport Engineering, the aim is to use it in the planning, project and construction of traffic ways for vehicles. The system was structured according to the approach client/server utilizing multicast communication among the participating nodes. The chosen implementation for the CORBA was the Iona's ORBIX software. The performance results obtained are presented and discussed in the end.

Virtual simulator for mobile robots navigation systems

This paper presents the virtual environment implementation for project simulation and conception of supervision and control systems for mobile robots, that are capable to operate and adapting in different environments and conditions. This virtual system has as purpose to facilitate the development of embedded architecture systems, emphasizing the implementation of tools that allow the simulation of the kinematic conditions, dynamic and control, with real time monitoring of all important system points. For this, an open control architecture is proposal, integrating the two main techniques of robotic control implementation in the hardware level: systems microprocessors and reconfigurable hardware devices. The implemented simulator system is composed of a trajectory generating module, a kinematic and dynamic simulator module and of a analysis module of results and errors. All the kinematic and dynamic results shown during the simulation can be evaluated and visualized in graphs and tables formats, in the results analysis module, allowing an improvement in the system, minimizing the errors with the necessary adjustments optimization. For controller implementation in the embedded system, it uses the rapid prototyping, that is the technology that allows, in set with the virtual simulation environment, the development of a controller project for mobile robots. The validation and tests had been accomplish with nonholonomics mobile robots models with diferencial transmission. © 2008 IEEE.

Laboratório remoto de qualidade da energia elétrica em ambiente virtual

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Mediação do processo ensino-aprendizagem com o jogo de empresas mercado virtual: uma pesquisa de opinião

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Planejamento de um ambiente virtual de aprendizagem baseado em interfaces dinâmicas e uma aplicação ao estudo de potência elétrica

Pós-graduação em Engenharia Elétrica - FEIS

Ensino de gestão da capacidade e da empresa com o apoio do jogo Mercado Virtual no curso de Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia Industrial e Gestão da UMINHO/Azurém e no Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia de Produção da FEB/Bauru/UNESP

O jogo de empresas Mercado Virtual foi desenvolvido para mediar o processo ensino-aprendizagem na área de tomada decisão e gestão de empresas e tem um banco de dados que armazena as decisões dos alunos. Os dados nele armazenados foram analisados em relação ao balanceamento de capacidade, objetivo de lucro e uso de recursos financeiros da empresa e foram encontradas incoerências entre os conteúdos pertinentes ao modelo e as decisões dos alunos. Elas foram classificadas como lacunas de aprendizado. Com o objetivo de analisar se as mesmas se repetem entre alunos do Programa de Mestrado Engenharia de Produção da UNESP de Bauru e Mestrado Integrado em Engenharia Industrial e Gestão da Uminho de Guimarães, Portugal, foram realizados dois experimentos, um em cada grupo. Para realizá-los utilizou-se o jogo Mercado Virtual e uma planilha de dimensionamento da empresa nos dois locais. A Sala de Estudos, os indicadores e o questionário de pesquisa da opinião foram utilizados somente em Portugal. Os resultados mostraram que o jogo é capaz de evidenciar as diferenças de domínio de conteúdo nos dois grupos e, também, que estas diferenças estão associadas aos projetos dos cursos. Sendo uma pesquisa exploratória, os experimentos foram realizados considerando-se somente os controles do jogo. Por isso, propõe-se a realização de pesquisas adicionais combinando controle sobre algumas das variáveis relacionadas do uso do jogo e atuação sobre aprendizagem dos alunos na forma de entrevistas e pesquisas não estruturadas. Conforme previsto, a pesquisa mostrou que os jogos podem ser utilizados com objetivos de aprendizagem mais amplos, considerando-se a avaliação indireta e cruzada sobre as decisões tomadas pelos alunos, como é o caso dos indicadores. Outra contribuição importante da pesquisa refere-se ao uso de jogos de empresas sob condições pouco controladas, ou seja, não houve...

Desenvolvimento e aplicação da instrumentação virtual na unidade móvel de ensaios na barra de tração - UMEB

Pós-graduação em Agronomia (Energia na Agricultura) - FCA

Expert system to detect incipient fauts in rotating machines using fuzzy logic and virtual instrumentation

This paper refers to the design of an expert system that captures a waveform through the use of an accelerometer, processes the signal and converts it to the frequency domain using a Fast Fourier Transformer to then, using artificial intelligence techniques, specifically Fuzzy Reasoning, it determines if there is any failure present in the underlying mode of the equipment, such as imbalance, misalignment or bearing defects.

SimSight: A Virtual Machine Based Dynamic Call Graph Generator

One problem with using component-based software development approach is that once software modules are reused over generations of products, they form legacy structures that can be challenging to understand, making validating these systems difficult. Therefore, tools and methodologies that enable engineers to see interactions of these software modules will enhance their ability to make these software systems more dependable. To address this need, we propose SimSight, a framework to capture dynamic call graphs in Simics, a widely adopted commercial full-system simulator. Simics is a software system that simulates complete computer systems. Thus, it performs nearly identical tasks to a real system but at a much lower speed while providing greater execution observability. We have implemented SimSight to generate dynamic call graphs of statically and dynamically linked functions in x86/Linux environment. A case study illustrates how we can use SimSight to identify sources of software errors. We then evaluate its performance using 12 integer programs from SPEC CPU2006 benchmark suite.

A robotic system to train activities of daily living in a virtual environment

In the past decade, several arm rehabilitation robots have been developed to assist neurological patients during therapy. Early devices were limited in their number of degrees of freedom and range of motion, whereas newer robots such as the ARMin robot can support the entire arm. Often, these devices are combined with virtual environments to integrate motivating game-like scenarios. Several studies have shown a positive effect of game-playing on therapy outcome by increasing motivation. In addition, we assume that practicing highly functional movements can further enhance therapy outcome by facilitating the transfer of motor abilities acquired in therapy to daily life. Therefore, we present a rehabilitation system that enables the training of activities of daily living (ADL) with the support of an assistive robot. Important ADL tasks have been identified and implemented in a virtual environment. A patient-cooperative control strategy with adaptable freedom in timing and space was developed to assist the patient during the task. The technical feasibility and usability of the system was evaluated with seven healthy subjects and three chronic stroke patients.

Virtual Reality as a Support Tool for Ergonomic-Style Convergence

The competitive industrial context compels companies to speed-up every new product design. In order to keep designing products that meet the needs of the end user, a human centered concurrent product design methodology has been proposed. Its setting up is complicated by the difficulties of collaboration between experts involved inthe design process. In order to ease this collaboration, we propose the use of virtual reality as an intermediate design representation in the form of light and specialized immersive convergence support applications. In this paper, we present the As Soon As Possible (ASAP) methodology making possible the development of these tools while ensuring their usefulness and usability. The relevance oft his approach is validated by an industrial use case through the design of an ergonomic-style convergence support tool.

IN-VIVO CT DOSIMETRY DURING VIRTUAL COLONOSCOPY

Virtual colonoscopy (VC) is a minimally invasive means for identifying colorectal polyps and colorectal lesions by insufflating a patient’s bowel, applying contrast agent via rectal catheter, and performing multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT) scans. The technique is recommended for colonic health screening by the American Cancer Society but not funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) partially because of potential risks from radiation exposure. To date, no in‐vivo organ dose measurements have been performed for MDCT scans; thus, the accuracy of any current dose estimates is currently unknown. In this study, two TLDs were affixed to the inner lumen of standard rectal catheters used in VC, and in-vivo rectal dose measurements were obtained within 6 VC patients. In order to calculate rectal dose, TLD-100 powder response was characterized at diagnostic doses such that appropriate correction factors could be determined for VC. A third-order polynomial regression with a goodness of fit factor of R2=0.992 was constructed from this data. Rectal dose measurements were acquired with TLDs during simulated VC within a modified anthropomorphic phantom configured to represent three sizes of patients undergoing VC. The measured rectal doses decreased in an exponential manner with increasing phantom effective diameter, with R2=0.993 for the exponential regression model and a maximum percent coefficient of variation (%CoV) of 4.33%. In-vivo measurements yielded rectal doses ranged from that decreased exponentially with increasing patient effective diameter, in a manner that was also favorably predicted by the size specific dose estimate (SSDE) model for all VC patients that were of similar age, body composition, and TLD placement. The measured rectal dose within a younger patient was favorably predicted by the anthropomorphic phantom dose regression model due to similarities in the percentages of highly attenuating material at the respective measurement locations and in the placement of the TLDs. The in-vivo TLD response did not increase in %CoV with decreasing dose, and the largest %CoV was 10.0%.