Autonomous indoor wayfinding for individuals with cognitive impairments

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A challenge to individuals with cognitive impairments in wayfinding is how to remain oriented, recall routines, and travel in unfamiliar areas in a way relying on limited cognitive capacity. While people without disabilities often use maps or written directions as navigation tools or for remaining oriented, this cognitively-impaired population is very sensitive to issues of abstraction (e.g. icons on maps or signage) and presents the designer with a challenge to tailor navigation information specific to each user and context.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This paper describes an approach to providing distributed cognition support of travel guidance for persons with cognitive disabilities. A solution is proposed based on passive near-field RFID tags and scanning PDAs. A prototype is built and tested in field experiments with real subjects. The unique strength of the system is the ability to provide unique-to-the-user prompts that are triggered by context. The key to the approach is to spread the context awareness across the system, with the context being flagged by the RFID tags and the appropriate response being evoked by displaying the appropriate path guidance images indexed by the intersection of specific end-user and context ID embedded in RFID tags.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that passive RFIDs generally served as good context for triggering navigation prompts, although individual differences in effectiveness varied. The results of controlled experiments provided more evidence with regard to applicabilities of the proposed autonomous indoor wayfinding method.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Our findings suggest that the ability to adapt indoor wayfinding devices for appropriate timing of directions and standing orientation will be particularly important.</p

Prediction and estimation model of energy demand of the AMR with cobot for the designed path in automated logistics systems

Abstract The ecosystem of the Industry 4.0 involves many new technologies, such as autonomous mobile robots (AMR) and cobots (collaborative robots), these are characterized with higher flexibility and cost effectiveness which makes them more suitable for automated internal logistics systems. The evaluation of energy consumption of AMRs for a designed path in a real case scenario using analytical tools are challenging. This paper proposes a method of evaluation of the sustainability of new technologies of Industry 4.0 in internal logistics. The proposed framework demonstrates data management technique of the industrial robots. Since, the AMR with manipulator perform different tasks as a single system in logistics there is big demand to develop model of cyber physical system. During task execution measured robots' physical parameters used as input data to perform analytics. Moreover, acquired data from different condition use cases have been used to monitor the battery behaviour of the AMR and preliminary results of the linear regression model is presented

Hybrid Satellite-Terrestrial Communication Networks for the Maritime Internet of Things: Key Technologies, Opportunities, and Challenges

With the rapid development of marine activities, there has been an increasing number of maritime mobile terminals, as well as a growing demand for high-speed and ultra-reliable maritime communications to keep them connected. Traditionally, the maritime Internet of Things (IoT) is enabled by maritime satellites. However, satellites are seriously restricted by their high latency and relatively low data rate. As an alternative, shore & island-based base stations (BSs) can be built to extend the coverage of terrestrial networks using fourth-generation (4G), fifth-generation (5G), and beyond 5G services. Unmanned aerial vehicles can also be exploited to serve as aerial maritime BSs. Despite of all these approaches, there are still open issues for an efficient maritime communication network (MCN). For example, due to the complicated electromagnetic propagation environment, the limited geometrically available BS sites, and rigorous service demands from mission-critical applications, conventional communication and networking theories and methods should be tailored for maritime scenarios. Towards this end, we provide a survey on the demand for maritime communications, the state-of-the-art MCNs, and key technologies for enhancing transmission efficiency, extending network coverage, and provisioning maritime-specific services. Future challenges in developing an environment-aware, service-driven, and integrated satellite-air-ground MCN to be smart enough to utilize external auxiliary information, e.g., sea state and atmosphere conditions, are also discussed

Intralogistics fleet management system for highly secure areas

With the end of traditional centralized applications for production control, a new industrial era (industry 4.0) introduces computational concepts and a vision of cyberphysical ecosystems associated with intelligent factories. Using automation technologies adopts the combination of the physical and the cyber world’s, to make the technologies involved more complex and precise [48].With the search for better resource use, time, cost, and quality has been introducing by the industry, new technological challenges as work agents, instead of the traditional man labor. Which has been replaced by autonomous robotic mechanisms. Many entities choose autonomous mobile units to fulfill the dispatching tasks and the supply of material to workstations. Thus, it is necessary to have a system capable of managing all activities and behaviors adjacent to these autonomous mobile robots. The objective of this dissertation is the implementation of a management system for a fleet of mobile robots that perform logistics processes in a secure environment. The robots will move between the production and expedition areas and autonomously carry out the loading and unloading of goods between workstations. Sharing spaces and resources among themselves and with factory operators, such as stations, corridors, security doors, and elevators. The proposed model explores the scheduling of tasks to robots as their monitoring and security in all processes, from autonomous navigation to area’s transition of areas by the present security devices. The presence of several sets of sensors and devices in these units is essential to provide sensorial information about the manufacturing environment and at the same time assisting in the execution of the tasks, such as navigation, transport, loading. To extract all the functionalities, this system will also be integrated with the management and security systems of the factory, to create an overview of the current state of the shop-floor and to plan accordingly. They are integrated to provide secure communication, based on reliable protocols that ensure the veracity and communication of the entities.Com o fim das tradicionais aplicações centralizadas para controle de produção a chegada de uma nova era industrial (indústria 4.0), introduz conceitos computacionais e uma visão de ecossistemas de ciber-fisicos associados a fábricas inteligentes. Utilizando tecnologias de automação, adota a combinação do mundo físico e do mundo cibernético, para tornar as tecnologias envolvidas mais complexas e precisas [48]. Com a procura de um melhor aproveitamento de recursos, de tempo, custo e qualidade por parte da indústria, esta tem vindo a introduzir novos desafios tecnológicos como ferramentas de trabalho, ao invés da tradicional mão de obra realizada pelo homem. Que tem vindo a ser substituída por mecanismos autônomos robotizados. Muitas entidades optam por unidades autônomas móveis para o cumprimento das tarefas de despacho e de fornecimento de material às estações de trabalho. Desta forma é necessário um sistema capaz de gerir todas as atividades e comportamentos adjacentes a estes robôs moveis autônomos. O objetivo desta dissertação é a implementação de um sistema de gestão para uma frota de robots movéis que realizam processos de logística em fábricas de segurança. Os robots transitarão entre as áreas de produção e áreas de expedição para realizar autonomamente processos de carga e descarga de mercadorias nas estações de trabalho. Compartilhando entre si e com os operadores da fábrica espaços e recursos, como estações, corredores, portas de segurança e elevadores. O modelo proposto explora o agendamento de tarefas aos robots como respetiva monitorização e segurança, em todos os processos desde navegação autónoma até á transição de espaços usando as estruturas de segurança presentes. Para que exista uma comunicação entre um sistema de gestão da frota e as unidades móveis é essencial a presença de vários conjuntos de sensores e dispositivos nestas unidades, para que estes estejam aptas a fornecer informação sensorial sobre ambiente fabril e ao mesmo tempo no auxiliar na execução de tarefas, como navegação, transporte etc. A fim de extrair todas as funcionalidades este sistema será também integrado com os sistemas de gestão e de segurança da fábrica, de forma a criar uma visão geral do estado atual da fábrica e planejar adequadamente. São integrados conjuntamente para fornecer uma comunicação segura, com base em protocolos entre as entidades

An Algorithmic Evaluation of Information Search in a Mobile Agent-Based Demand-Oriented Information Service System

The rapid advance in information and communication technology (ICT) has given new impetus to shift the information services paradigm from platform centric to network centric computing. Commercial activity is blooming on the internet. The user or customer has become dynamic and has changing tastes and pattern in the demand of service, and desires the service at any time or place. The service provider therefore has to tailor the service provision format to suit the dynamic nature of users of information services. A business cannot afford to ignore the rapid and evolving nature of its customers. However, the current state of the wide area network services is finding it difficult to respond to constantly changing and heterogeneous demands of modern business, being centralized in nature, with the service provided through a single URL. It is imperative to update the pattern of information service provision and utilization. Faded information field architecture (FIF), reported recently, holds the potential to address these issues, being a demand-oriented architecture. Although research into various aspects of FIF has been reported, we suggest algorithms to characterize the behavior of mobile agents to seek the required information at a given node in the FIF architecture. Simulations were carried out to show the effect of various parameters on the performance of the FIF system

A Generic Multi-Layer Architecture Based on ROS-JADE Integration for Autonomous Transport Vehicles

The design and operation of manufacturing systems is evolving to adapt to different challenges. One of the most important is the reconfiguration of the manufacturing process in response to context changes (e.g., faulty equipment or urgent orders, among others). In this sense, the Autonomous Transport Vehicle (ATV) plays a key role in building more flexible and decentralized manufacturing systems. Nowadays, robotic frameworks (RFs) are used for developing robotic systems such as ATVs, but they focus on the control of the robotic system itself. However, social abilities are required for performing intelligent interaction (peer-to-peer negotiation and decision-making) among the different and heterogeneous Cyber Physical Production Systems (such as machines, transport systems and other equipment present in the factory) to achieve manufacturing reconfiguration. This work contributes a generic multi-layer architecture that integrates a RF with a Multi-Agent System (MAS) to provide social abilities to ATVs. This architecture has been implemented on ROS and JADE, the most widespread RF and MAS framework, respectively. We believe this to be the first work that addresses the intelligent interaction of transportation systems for flexible manufacturing environments in a holistic form.This work was financed by MINECO/FEDER, UE (grant number DPI2015-68602-R) and by UPV/EHU (grant number PPG17/56)

Advanced manned space flight simulation and training: An investigation of simulation host computer system concepts

The findings of a preliminary investigation by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in simulation host computer concepts is presented. It is designed to aid NASA in evaluating simulation technologies for use in spaceflight training. The focus of the investigation is on the next generation of space simulation systems that will be utilized in training personnel for Space Station Freedom operations. SwRI concludes that NASA should pursue a distributed simulation host computer system architecture for the Space Station Training Facility (SSTF) rather than a centralized mainframe based arrangement. A distributed system offers many advantages and is seen by SwRI as the only architecture that will allow NASA to achieve established functional goals and operational objectives over the life of the Space Station Freedom program. Several distributed, parallel computing systems are available today that offer real-time capabilities for time critical, man-in-the-loop simulation. These systems are flexible in terms of connectivity and configurability, and are easily scaled to meet increasing demands for more computing power