Analysis and design of a capsule landing system and surface vehicle control system for Mars exploration

Problems related to an unmanned exploration of the planet Mars by means of an autonomous roving planetary vehicle are investigated. These problems include: design, construction and evaluation of the vehicle itself and its control and operating systems. More specifically, vehicle configuration, dynamics, control, propulsion, hazard detection systems, terrain sensing and modelling, obstacle detection concepts, path selection, decision-making systems, and chemical analyses of samples are studied. Emphasis is placed on development of a vehicle capable of gathering specimens and data for an Augmented Viking Mission or to provide the basis for a Sample Return Mission

NASA Automated Rendezvous and Capture Review. Executive summary

In support of the Cargo Transfer Vehicle (CTV) Definition Studies in FY-92, the Advanced Program Development division of the Office of Space Flight at NASA Headquarters conducted an evaluation and review of the United States capabilities and state-of-the-art in Automated Rendezvous and Capture (AR&C). This review was held in Williamsburg, Virginia on 19-21 Nov. 1991 and included over 120 attendees from U.S. government organizations, industries, and universities. One hundred abstracts were submitted to the organizing committee for consideration. Forty-two were selected for presentation. The review was structured to include five technical sessions. Forty-two papers addressed topics in the five categories below: (1) hardware systems and components; (2) software systems; (3) integrated systems; (4) operations; and (5) supporting infrastructure

Impact of Embedded Carbon Fiber Heating Panel on the Structural/Mechanical Performance of Roadway Pavement

INE/AUTC 12.3

Low cost multimedia sensor networks for obtaining lighting maps

In many applications, video streams, images, audio streams and scalar data are commonly used. In these fields, one of the most important magnitudes to be collected and controlled is the light intensity in different spots. So, it is extremely important to be able to deploy a network of light sensors which are usually integrated in a more general Wireless Multimedia Sensor Network (WMSN). Light control systems have increasing applications in many places like streets, roads, buildings, theaters, etc. In these situations having a dense grid of sensing spots significantly enhances measuring precision and control performance. When a great number of measuring spots are required, the cost of the sensor becomes a very important concern. In this paper the use of very low cost light sensors is proposed and it is shown how to overcome its limited performance by directionally correcting its results. A correction factor is derived for several lighting conditions. The proposed method is firstly applied to measure light in a single spot. Additionally a prototype of a sensor network is employed to draw the lighting map of a surface. Finally the sensor grid is employed to estimate the position and power of a set of light sources in a certain region of interest (street, building,…). These three applications have shown that using low cost sensors instead of luxmeters is a feasible approach to estimate illuminance levels in a room and to derive light sources maps. The obtained error measuring spots illuminance or estimating lamp emittances are quite acceptable in many practical applications.Telefonica Chair "Intelligence in Networks" of the University of Seville (Spain

Analysis and design of a capsule landing system and surface vehicle control system for Mars exploration

Problems related to the design and control of an autonomous rover for the purpose of unmanned exploration of the planets were considered. Building on the basis of prior studies, a four wheeled rover of unusual mobility and maneuverability was further refined and tested under both laboratory and field conditions. A second major effort was made to develop autonomous guidance. Path selection systems capable of dealing with relatively formidable hazard and terrains involving various short range (1.0-3.0 meters), hazard detection systems using a triangulation detection concept were simulated and evaluated. The mechanical/electronic systems required to implement such a scheme were constructed and tested. These systems include: laser transmitter, photodetectors, the necessary data handling/controlling systems and a scanning mast. In addition, a telemetry system to interface the vehicle, the off-board computer and a remote control module for operator intervention were developed. Software for the autonomous control concept was written. All of the systems required for complete autonomous control were shown to be satisfactory except for that portion of the software relating to the handling of interrupt commands

Face recognition in the wild.

Research in face recognition deals with problems related to Age, Pose, Illumination and Expression (A-PIE), and seeks approaches that are invariant to these factors. Video images add a temporal aspect to the image acquisition process. Another degree of complexity, above and beyond A-PIE recognition, occurs when multiple pieces of information are known about people, which may be distorted, partially occluded, or disguised, and when the imaging conditions are totally unorthodox! A-PIE recognition in these circumstances becomes really “wild” and therefore, Face Recognition in the Wild has emerged as a field of research in the past few years. Its main purpose is to challenge constrained approaches of automatic face recognition, emulating some of the virtues of the Human Visual System (HVS) which is very tolerant to age, occlusion and distortions in the imaging process. HVS also integrates information about individuals and adds contexts together to recognize people within an activity or behavior. Machine vision has a very long road to emulate HVS, but face recognition in the wild, using the computer, is a road to perform face recognition in that path. In this thesis, Face Recognition in the Wild is defined as unconstrained face recognition under A-PIE+; the (+) connotes any alterations to the design scenario of the face recognition system. This thesis evaluates the Biometric Optical Surveillance System (BOSS) developed at the CVIP Lab, using low resolution imaging sensors. Specifically, the thesis tests the BOSS using cell phone cameras, and examines the potential of facial biometrics on smart portable devices like iPhone, iPads, and Tablets. For quantitative evaluation, the thesis focused on a specific testing scenario of BOSS software using iPhone 4 cell phones and a laptop. Testing was carried out indoor, at the CVIP Lab, using 21 subjects at distances of 5, 10 and 15 feet, with three poses, two expressions and two illumination levels. The three steps (detection, representation and matching) of the BOSS system were tested in this imaging scenario. False positives in facial detection increased with distances and with pose angles above ± 15°. The overall identification rate (face detection at confidence levels above 80%) also degraded with distances, pose, and expressions. The indoor lighting added challenges also, by inducing shadows which affected the image quality and the overall performance of the system. While this limited number of subjects and somewhat constrained imaging environment does not fully support a “wild” imaging scenario, it did provide a deep insight on the issues with automatic face recognition. The recognition rate curves demonstrate the limits of low-resolution cameras for face recognition at a distance (FRAD), yet it also provides a plausible defense for possible A-PIE face recognition on portable devices

Future strategic plan analysis for integrating distributed renewable generation to smart grid through wireless sensor network: Malaysia prospect

AbstractIntegration of Distributed Renewable Generation (DRG) to the future Smart Grid (SG) is one of the important considerations that is highly prioritized in the SG development roadmap by most of the countries including Malaysia. The plausible way of this integration is the enhancement of information and bidirectional communication infrastructure for energy monitoring and controlling facilities. However, urgency of data delivery through maintaining critical time condition is not crucial in these facilities. In this paper, we have surveyed state-of-the-art protocols for different Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) with the aim of realizing communication infrastructure for DRG in Malaysia. Based on the analytical results from surveys, data communication for DRG should be efficient, flexible, reliable, cost effective, and secured. To meet this achievement, IEEE802.15.4 supported ZigBee PRO protocol together with sensors and embedded system is shown as Wireless Sensor (WS) for DRG bidirectional network with prospect of attaining data monitoring facilities. The prospect towards utilizing ZigBee PRO protocol can be a cost effective option for full integration of intelligent DRG and small scale Building-Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV)/Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) under SG roadmap (Phase4: 2016–2017) conducted by Malaysia national utility company, Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB). Moreover, we have provided a direction to utilize the effectiveness of ZigBee-WS network with the existing optical communication backbone for data importing from the end DRG site to the TNB control center. A comparative study is carried out among developing countries on recent trends of SG progress which reveals that some common projects like smart metering and DRG integration are on priority

An investigation of potential applications of OP-SAPS: Operational Sampled Analog Processors

The application of OP-SAP's (operational sampled analog processors) in pattern recognition system is summarized. Areas investigated include: (1) human face recognition; (2) a high-speed programmable transversal filter system; (3) discrete word (speech) recognition; and (4) a resolution enhancement system

Measurements, Models, Systems and Design

531 s.