Neptune: a hil simulator for multiple UUVs

This paper overviews the field of graphical simulators used for AUV development, presents the taxonomy of these applications and proposes a classification. It also presents Neptune, a multivehicle, real-time, graphical simulator based on OpenGL that allows hardware in the loop simulations

Graphical simulators for AUV development

A long development time is needed from the design to the implementation of an AUV. During the first steps, simulation plays an important role, since it allows for the development of preliminary versions of the control system to be integrated. Once the robot is ready, the control systems are implemented, tuned and tested. The use of a real-time simulator can help closing the gap between off-line simulation and real testing using the already implemented robot. When properly interfaced with the robot hardware, a real-time graphical simulation with a "hardware in the loop" configuration, can allow for the testing of the implemented control system running in the actual robot hardware. Hence, the development time is drastically reduced. These paper overviews the field of graphical simulators used for AUV development proposing a classification. It also presents NEPTUNE, a multi-vehicle, real-time, graphical simulator based on OpenGL that allows hardware in the loop simulations

Abstracting qualitative information for process supervision

Supervisory systems evolution makes the obtaining of significant information from processes more important in the way that the supervision systems' particular tasks are simplified. So, having signal treatment tools capable of obtaining elaborate information from the process data is important. In this paper, a tool that obtains qualitative data about the trends and oscillation of signals is presented. An application of this tool is presented as well. In this case, the tool, implemented in a computer-aided control systems design (CACSD) environment, is used in order to give to an expert system for fault detection in a laboratory plant

Programació del robot e-puck amb Microsoft Robotics Studio

Microsoft Robotics Studio (MRS) és un entorn per a crear aplicacions per a robots utilitzant una gran varietat de plataformes hardware. Conté un entorn de simulació en el que es pot modelar i simular el moviment del robot. Permet també programar el robot, i executar-lo en l’entorn simulat o bé en el real. MRS resol la comunicació entre elsdiferents processos asíncrons que solen estar presents en el software de control d’unrobot: processos per atendre sensors, actuadors, sistemes de control, comunicacions amb l’exterior,... MRS es pot utilitzar per modelar nous robots utilitzant components que ja estiguin disponibles en les seves llibreries, o també permet crear component nous. Per tal de conèixer en detall aquesta eina, seria interessant utilitzar-la per programa els robots e-pucks, uns robots mòbils autònoms de petites dimensions que disposen de dos motors i un complet conjunt de sensors. El que es vol és simular-los, realitzar un programa de control, realitzar la interfície amb el robot i comprovar el funcionament amb el robot real

Disseny d’un comportament en ROS per a mantenir la posició d’un vehicle autònom submarí a partir de referències visuals

En el Centre d'Investigació en Robòtica Submarina (CIRS) de la Universitat de Gironaes disposa de diferents robots submarins els quals utilitzen una arquitectura software anomenada Component Oriented Layered-based Architecture for Autonomy ( COLA2 ), la qual ha estat desenvolupada per estudiants i professors del mateix centre. Per tal de fer aquesta arquitectura més accessible per a professors i estudiant d’altres centres la COLA2 s’està adaptant al Robot Operative System (ROS) que és un framework genèricper al desenvolupament d’aplicacions amb robots. Aquest projecte pretén dissenyar un comportament per al robot Girona500 que estigui desenvolupat dins la versió ROS de l’arquitectura COLA2. El comportament haurà de fer mantenir una determinada posició al robot amb informació visual de la càmera del robot i amb dades de navegació. La tasca de mantenir la posició es de vital importància per a poder realitzar intervencions submarines que requereixen de precisió i, precisament, el medi on es treballa no ajuda

Sistema de manteniment de l'equilibri per a un robot bípede

Dins el departament d’Electrònica, Informàtica i Automàtica de la Universitat de Girona s’handissenyat i construït dues plataformes bípedes per a l’ús docent. La mésevolucionada d’elles, finalitzada l’any 1999, està composada per dues cames d’alumini ambtres actuadors lineals cada una, simulant la funció del turmell, del genoll i del maluc. Els objectius que es pretenen aconseguir amb aquest projecte són molt concrets i tots ellsestan destinats a millorar el funcionament del robot bípede. Aquests objectius són: (1)dissenyar dos graus de llibertat lineals en forma de pla XY per moure el pes que convinguiper assegurar l’equilibri durant el moviment de la plataforma bípede, (2) dissenyar una placaamb una FPGA que generi senyals PWM pels vuit motors disponibles, que llegeixi els dosencoders dels motors del pla XY i que es comuniqui amb un PC equipat amb una tarjad’adquisició de dades específica, (3) dissenyar una placa de potència adequada pel controldels motors, (4) finalment realitzar un programa per comprovar el correcte funcionament deles plaques, dels actuadors i dels sensors utilitzats en la plataforma bípede

New players driving inflammation in monogenic autoinflammatory diseases.

Systemic autoinflammatory diseases are caused by abnormal activation of the cells that mediate innate immunity. In the past two decades, single-gene defects in different pathways, driving clinically distinct autoinflammatory syndromes, have been identified. Studies of these aberrant pathways have substantially advanced understanding of the cellular mechanisms that contribute to mounting effective and balanced innate immune responses. For example, mutations affecting the function of cytosolic immune sensors known as inflammasomes and the IL-1 signalling pathway can trigger excessive inflammation. A surge in discovery of new genes associated with autoinflammation has pointed to other mechanisms of disease linking innate immune responses to a number of basic cellular pathways, such as maintenance of protein homeostasis (proteostasis), protein misfolding and clearance, endoplasmic reticulum stress and mitochondrial stress, metabolic stress, autophagy and abnormalities in differentiation and development of myeloid cells. Although the spectrum of autoinflammatory diseases has been steadily expanding, a substantial number of patients remain undiagnosed. Next-generation sequencing technologies will be instrumental in finding disease-causing mutations in as yet uncharacterized diseases. As more patients are reported to have clinical features of autoinflammation and immunodeficiency or autoimmunity, the complex interactions between the innate and adaptive immune systems are unveiled.

Calcium imaging of odor-evoked responses in the Drosophila antennal lobe.

The antennal lobe is the primary olfactory center in the insect brain and represents the anatomical and functional equivalent of the vertebrate olfactory bulb. Olfactory information in the external world is transmitted to the antennal lobe by olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs), which segregate to distinct regions of neuropil called glomeruli according to the specific olfactory receptor they express. Here, OSN axons synapse with both local interneurons (LNs), whose processes can innervate many different glomeruli, and projection neurons (PNs), which convey olfactory information to higher olfactory brain regions. Optical imaging of the activity of OSNs, LNs and PNs in the antennal lobe - traditionally using synthetic calcium indicators (e.g. calcium green, FURA-2) or voltage-sensitive dyes (e.g. RH414) - has long been an important technique to understand how olfactory stimuli are represented as spatial and temporal patterns of glomerular activity in many species of insects. Development of genetically-encoded neural activity reporters, such as the fluorescent calcium indicators G-CaMP and Cameleon, the bioluminescent calcium indicator GFP-aequorin, or a reporter of synaptic transmission, synapto-pHluorin has made the olfactory system of the fruitfly, Drosophila melanogaster, particularly accessible to neurophysiological imaging, complementing its comprehensively-described molecular, electrophysiological and neuroanatomical properties. These reporters can be selectively expressed via binary transcriptional control systems (e.g. GAL4/UAS, LexA/LexAop, Q system) in defined populations of neurons within the olfactory circuitry to dissect with high spatial and temporal resolution how odor-evoked neural activity is represented, modulated and transformed. Here we describe the preparation and analysis methods to measure odor-evoked responses in the Drosophila antennal lobe using G-CaMP. The animal preparation is minimally invasive and can be adapted to imaging using wide-field fluorescence, confocal and two-photon microscopes.

A review of the cross-cultural equivalence of frequently used personality inventories

Personality inventories are frequently used for career guidance. Some should theoretically depend on cultural context, while others are supposed to be universal. The cross-cultural equivalence is only partial for culture-dependent models, as the locus of control. Concerning models that are supposed to be universal like the one proposed by Cattell or the Five-Factor Model, a partial and a full structural equivalence are, respectively observed. The extent of the scalar equivalence is difficult to assess indicating that more studies should be conducted to understand how culture affects processes underlying the evaluation of personality.

SLAM using an Imaging Sonar for Partially Structured Underwater Environments

In this paper we describe a system for underwater navigation with AUVs in partially structured environments, such as dams, ports or marine platforms. An imaging sonar is used to obtain information about the location of planar structures present in such environments. This information is incorporated into a feature-based SLAM algorithm in a two step process: (I) the full 360deg sonar scan is undistorted (to compensate for vehicle motion), thresholded and segmented to determine which measurements correspond to planar environment features and which should be ignored; and (2) SLAM proceeds once the data association is obtained: both the vehicle motion and the measurements whose correct association has been previously determined are incorporated in the SLAM algorithm. This two step delayed SLAM process allows to robustly determine the feature and vehicle locations in the presence of large amounts of spurious or unrelated measurements that might correspond to boats, rocks, etc. Preliminary experiments show the viability of the proposed approach

Modelling the Human Values Scale from Consumers Transactional Data Bases

The main objective of this paper aims at developing a methodology that takes into account the human factor extracted from the data base used by the recommender systems, and which allow to resolve the specific problems of prediction and recommendation. In this work, we propose to extract the user's human values scale from the data base of the users, to improve their suitability in open environments, such as the recommender systems. For this purpose, the methodology is applied with the data of the user after interacting with the system. The methodology is exemplified with a case study

Using petri nets to specify and execute missions for autonomous underwater vehicles

This paper presents the design and implementation of a mission control system (MCS) for an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) based on Petri nets. In the proposed approach the Petri nets are used to specify as well as to execute the desired autonomous vehicle mission. The mission is easily described using an imperative programming language called mission control language (MCL) that formally describes the mission execution thread. A mission control language compiler (MCL-C) able to automatically translate the MCL into a Petri net is described and a real-time Petri net player that allows to execute the resulting Petri net onboard an AUV are also presented

Disseny i implementació d'un sistema de navegació inercial i la seva aplicació a la robòtica mòbil

La UdG desposa de diversos robots mòbils per a finalitats docents i de recerca que utilitzen sistemes de localització incremental mitjançant bàsicament encoders incrementals. Actualment, en el mercat de l’automoció s’ha desenvolupat una sèrie de dispositius electrònics tals com brúixoles electròniques, acceleròmetres, giroscòpics, etc. L’objectiu és dissenyar i construir un sistema de navegació inercial format per un acceleròmetre, un giroscòpic, una brúixola i un microcontrolador encarregat de governar les ordres. El llenguatge utilitzat serà l’assemblador, ja que es pretén una execució molt eficient de les rutines creades. Les dades obtingudes es transmetran a l’ordinador per mitjà del protocol RS-232 i un programa en C emmagatzemarà les dades en un document de text. Aquestes dades seran tractades amb l’entorn MATLAB per tal d’interpretar-les i representar-les gràficament. Per analitzar el funcionament del sistema s’utilitzarà la plataforma PRIM

Embedding objects into Matlab/Simulink for process supervision

This paper introduces how artificial intelligence technologies can be integrated into a known computer aided control system design (CACSD) framework, Matlab/Simulink, using an object oriented approach. The aim is to build a framework to aid supervisory systems analysis, design and implementation. The idea is to take advantage of an existing CACSD framework, Matlab/Simulink, so that engineers can proceed: first to design a control system, and then to design a straightforward supervisory system of the control system in the same framework. Thus, expert systems and qualitative reasoning tools are incorporated into this popular CACSD framework to develop a computer aided supervisory system design (CASSD) framework. Object-variables an introduced into Matlab/Simulink for sharing information between tools

Synthesis of Best Practice for Increasing Protection and Visibility of Highway Maintenance Vehicles, CTRE Final Report Iowa DOT Project TR-475, August 2002

The purpose of this research project is to study current practices in enhancing visibility and protection of highway maintenance vehicles involved in moving operations such as snow removal and shoulder operations, crack sealing, and pothole patching. The results will enable the maintenance staff to adequately assess the applicability and impact of each strategy to their use and budget. The report’s literature review chapter examines the use of maintenance vehicle warning lights, retroreflective tapes, shadow vehicles and truck-mounted attenuators, and advanced vehicle control systems, as well as other practices to improve visibility for both snowplow operators and vehicles. The chapter concludes that the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices does not specify what color or kind of warning lights to use. Thus, a wide variety of lights are being used on maintenance vehicles. The study of the relevant literatures also suggests that there are no clear guidelines for moving work zones at this time. Two types of surveys were conducted to determine current practices to improve visibility and safety in moving work zones across the country and in the state of Iowa. In the first survey of state departments of transportation, most indicated using amber warning lights on their maintenance vehicles. Almost all the responding states indicated using some form of reflective material on their vehicles to make them more visible. Most participating states indicated that the color of their vehicles is orange. Most states indicated using more warning lights on snow removal vehicles than their other maintenance vehicles. All responding state agencies indicated using shadow vehicles and/or truck-mounted attenuators during their moving operations. In the second survey of Iowa counties, most indicated using very similar traffic control and warning devices during their granular road maintenance and snow removal operations. Mounting warning signs and rotating or strobe lights on the rear of maintenance vehicles is common for Iowa counties. The most common warning devices used during the counties’ snow removal operations are reflective tapes, warning flags, strobe lights, and auxiliary headlamps.