Interactive Robot for Playing Russian Checkers

Human\u2013robot interaction in board games is a rapidly developing field of robotics. This paper presents a robot capable of playing Russian checkers designed for entertaining, training, and research purposes. Its control program is based on a novel unsupervised self-learning algorithm inspired by AlphaZero and represents the first successful attempt of using this approach in the checkers game. The main engineering challenge in mechanics is to develop a board state acquisition system non-sensitive to lighting conditions, which is achieved by rejecting computer vision and utilizing magnetic sensors instead. An original robot face is designed to endow the robot an ability to express its attributed emotional state. Testing the robot at open-air multiday exhibitions shows the robustness of the design to difficult exploitation conditions and the high interest of visitors to the robot

Data Science and Ebola

Data Science---Today, everybody and everything produces data. People produce large amounts of data in social networks and in commercial transactions. Medical, corporate, and government databases continue to grow. Sensors continue to get cheaper and are increasingly connected, creating an Internet of Things, and generating even more data. In every discipline, large, diverse, and rich data sets are emerging, from astrophysics, to the life sciences, to the behavioral sciences, to finance and commerce, to the humanities and to the arts. In every discipline people want to organize, analyze, optimize and understand their data to answer questions and to deepen insights. The science that is transforming this ocean of data into a sea of knowledge is called data science. This lecture will discuss how data science has changed the way in which one of the most visible challenges to public health is handled, the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.Comment: Inaugural lecture Leiden Universit

Improvement of AOCS for nanosatellite based on Helmholtz coils software design using a GUI and the implementation of a new system for measure angular velocities

This work contains the analysis and improvements regarding attitude nanosatellite testing procedures. An utterly new system for measuring angular velocities has been designed from scratch in order to be applied to Cubesat testing campaigns. This system will help to track the rotations of the nanosatellite in the different tests. Knowing the angular velocity of the nanosatellite while performing the tests is so important. It allows to calibrate the gyroscopes as well as set a perfect and knows conditions to the satellite. Also, the measurements can be compared with the gyroscope angular velocityes obtained in order to recalibrate the system if necesary. Furthermore, a new design for Helmholtz coils software has been proposed using a user Interface in C++. This new software allows the user to initialize the coils with the desired magnetic fields required for testing. Two main operating ways has been considered: Static and Dynamic orbit magnetic field generation. Both systems can work altogether in order to check the attitude determination and control of the nanosatellite during testing campaigns. Nanosatellite needs to perform testing before its launch. Thus, the whole project avoids expensive risks which could doom the mission. The results obtained in this work show that the angular tracking works as desired for the testing purposes and the Helmholtz coils GUI simplifies a lot the testing process from the user point of view.Aquest treball conté l’anàlisi i les millores pel que fa als procediments de prova de nano satèl·lits d’actitud. Un sistema completament nou per mesurar velocitats angulars ha sigut dissenyat des de zero per aplicar-lo a les campanyes de proves de Cubesat. Aquest sis- tema ajudarà a seguir les rotacions del nano satel·lit en les diferents proves. Con `eixer la velocitat angular del nano satel·lit mentre es realitzen les proves és molt important, ja que permet calibrar els giroscopis així com establir unes condicions perfectes i conegudes al satèl·lit