Sphericall: A Human/Artificial Intelligence interaction experience

Multi-agent systems are now wide spread in scientific works and in industrial applications. Few applications deal with the Human/Multi-agent system interaction. Multi-agent systems are characterized by individual entities, called agents, in interaction with each other and with their environment. Multi-agent systems are generally classified into complex systems categories since the global emerging phenomenon cannot be predicted even if every component is well known. The systems developed in this paper are named reactive because they behave using simple interaction models. In the reactive approach, the issue of Human/system interaction is hard to cope with and is scarcely exposed in literature. This paper presents Sphericall, an application aimed at studying Human/Complex System interactions and based on two physics inspired multi-agent systems interacting together. The Sphericall device is composed of a tactile screen and a spherical world where agents evolve. This paper presents both the technical background of Sphericall project and a feedback taken from the demonstration performed during OFFF Festival in La Villette (Paris)

A concept of water usage efficiency to support water reduction in manufacturing industry

Increasing pressures on freshwater supplies, continuity of supply uncertainties, and costs linked to legislative compliance, such as for wastewater treatment, are driving water use reduction up the agenda of manufacturing businesses. A survey is presented of current analysis methods and tools generally available to industry to analyze environmental impact of, and to manage, water use. These include life cycle analysis, water footprinting, strategic planning, water auditing, and process integration. It is identified that the methods surveyed do not provide insight into the operational requirements from individual process steps for water, instead taking such requirements as a given. We argue that such understanding is required for a proactive approach to long-term water usage reduction, in which sustainability is taken into account at the design stage for both process and product. As a first step to achieving this, we propose a concept of water usage efficiency which can be used to evaluate current and proposed processes and products. Three measures of efficiency are defined, supported by a framework of a detailed categorization and representation of water flows within a production system. The calculation of the efficiency measures is illustrated using the example of a tomato sauce production line. Finally, the elements required to create a useable tool based on the efficiency measures are discussed

Perception and intelligent localization for autonomous driving

Mestrado em Engenharia de Computadores e TelemáticaVisão por computador e fusão sensorial são temas relativamente recentes, no entanto largamente adoptados no desenvolvimento de robôs autónomos que exigem adaptabilidade ao seu ambiente envolvente. Esta dissertação foca-se numa abordagem a estes dois temas para alcançar percepção no contexto de condução autónoma. O uso de câmaras para atingir este fim é um processo bastante complexo. Ao contrário dos meios sensoriais clássicos que fornecem sempre o mesmo tipo de informação precisa e atingida de forma determinística, as sucessivas imagens adquiridas por uma câmara estão repletas da mais variada informação e toda esta ambígua e extremamente difícil de extrair. A utilização de câmaras como meio sensorial em robótica é o mais próximo que chegamos na semelhança com aquele que é o de maior importância no processo de percepção humana, o sistema de visão. Visão por computador é uma disciplina científica que engloba àreas como: processamento de sinal, inteligência artificial, matemática, teoria de controlo, neurobiologia e física. A plataforma de suporte ao estudo desenvolvido no âmbito desta dissertação é o ROTA (RObô Triciclo Autónomo) e todos os elementos que consistem o seu ambiente. No contexto deste, são descritas abordagens que foram introduzidas com fim de desenvolver soluções para todos os desafios que o robô enfrenta no seu ambiente: detecção de linhas de estrada e consequente percepção desta, detecção de obstáculos, semáforos, zona da passadeira e zona de obras. É também descrito um sistema de calibração e aplicação da remoção da perspectiva da imagem, desenvolvido de modo a mapear os elementos percepcionados em distâncias reais. Em consequência do sistema de percepção, é ainda abordado o desenvolvimento de auto-localização integrado numa arquitectura distribuída incluindo navegação com planeamento inteligente. Todo o trabalho desenvolvido no decurso da dissertação é essencialmente centrado no desenvolvimento de percepção robótica no contexto de condução autónoma.Computer vision and sensor fusion are subjects that are quite recent, however widely adopted in the development of autonomous robots that require adaptability to their surrounding environment. This thesis gives an approach on both in order to achieve perception in the scope of autonomous driving. The use of cameras to achieve this goal is a rather complex subject. Unlike the classic sensorial devices that provide the same type of information with precision and achieve this in a deterministic way, the successive images acquired by a camera are replete with the most varied information, that this ambiguous and extremely dificult to extract. The use of cameras for robotic sensing is the closest we got within the similarities with what is of most importance in the process of human perception, the vision system. Computer vision is a scientific discipline that encompasses areas such as signal processing, artificial intelligence, mathematics, control theory, neurobiology and physics. The support platform in which the study within this thesis was developed, includes ROTA (RObô Triciclo Autónomo) and all elements comprising its environment. In its context, are described approaches that introduced in the platform in order to develop solutions for all the challenges facing the robot in its environment: detection of lane markings and its consequent perception, obstacle detection, trafic lights, crosswalk and road maintenance area. It is also described a calibration system and implementation for the removal of the image perspective, developed in order to map the elements perceived in actual real world distances. As a result of the perception system development, it is also addressed self-localization integrated in a distributed architecture that allows navigation with long term planning. All the work developed in the course of this work is essentially focused on robotic perception in the context of autonomous driving

Cyber-Physical Embedded Systems with Transient Supervisory Command and Control: A Framework for Validating Safety Response in Automated Collision Avoidance Systems

The ability to design and engineer complex and dynamical Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) requires a systematic view that requires a definition of level of automation intent for the system. Since CPS covers a diverse range of systemized implementations of smart and intelligent technologies networked within a system of systems (SoS), the terms “smart” and “intelligent” is frequently used in describing systems that perform complex operations with a reduced need of a human-agent. The difference between this research and most papers in publication on CPS is that most other research focuses on the performance of the CPS rather than on the correctness of its design. However, by using both human and machine agency at different levels of automation, or autonomy, the levels of automation have profound implications and affects to the reliability and safety of the CPS. The human-agent and the machine-agent are in a tidal lock of decision-making using both feedforward and feedback information flows in similar processes, where a transient shift within the level of automation when the CPS is operating can have undesired consequences. As CPS systems become more common, and higher levels of autonomy are embedded within them, the relationship between human-agent and machine-agent also becomes more complex, and the testing methodologies for verification and validation of performance and correctness also become more complex and less clear. A framework then is developed to help the practitioner to understand the difficulties and pitfalls of CPS designs and provides guidance to test engineering design of soft computational systems using combinations of modeling, simulation, and prototyping

Challenges for adaptation in agent societies

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/[insert DOIAdaptation in multiagent systems societies provides a paradigm for allowing these societies to change dynamically in order to satisfy the current requirements of the system. This support is especially required for the next generation of systems that focus on open, dynamic, and adaptive applications. In this paper, we analyze the current state of the art regarding approaches that tackle the adaptation issue in these agent societies. We survey the most relevant works up to now in order to highlight the most remarkable features according to what they support and how this support is provided. In order to compare these approaches, we also identify different characteristics of the adaptation process that are grouped in different phases. 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