Recent Advances in Multi Robot Systems

To design a team of robots which is able to perform given tasks is a great concern of many members of robotics community. There are many problems left to be solved in order to have the fully functional robot team. Robotics community is trying hard to solve such problems (navigation, task allocation, communication, adaptation, control, ...). This book represents the contributions of the top researchers in this field and will serve as a valuable tool for professionals in this interdisciplinary field. It is focused on the challenging issues of team architectures, vehicle learning and adaptation, heterogeneous group control and cooperation, task selection, dynamic autonomy, mixed initiative, and human and robot team interaction. The book consists of 16 chapters introducing both basic research and advanced developments. Topics covered include kinematics, dynamic analysis, accuracy, optimization design, modelling, simulation and control of multi robot systems

Analysis, evaluation and improvement of RT-WMP for real-time and QoS wireless communication: Applications in confined environments

En los ultimos años, la innovación tecnológica, la característica de flexibilidad y el rápido despligue de las redes inalámbricas, han favorecido la difusión de la redes móviles ad-hoc (MANETs), capaces de ofrecer servicios para tareas específicas entre nodos móviles. Los aspectos relacionados al dinamismo de la topología móvil y el acceso a un medio compartido por naturaleza hacen que sea preciso enfrentarse a clases de problemas distintos de los relacionados con la redes cableadas, atrayendo de este modo el interés de la comunidad científica. Las redes ad-hoc suelen soportar tráfico con garantía de servicio mínimo y la mayor parte de las propuestas presentes en literatura tratan de dar garantías de ancho de banda o minimizar el retardo de los mensajes. Sin embargo hay situaciones en las que estas garantías no son suficientes. Este es el caso de los sistemas que requieren garantías mas fuertes en la entrega de los mensajes, como es el caso de los sistemas de tiempo real donde la pérdida o el retraso de un sólo mensaje puede provocar problemas graves. Otras aplicaciones como la videoconferencia, cada vez más extendidas, implican un tráfico de datos con requisitos diferentes, como la calidad de servicio (QoS). Los requisitos de tiempo real y de QoS añaden nuevos retos al ya exigente servicio de comunicación inalámbrica entre estaciones móviles de una MANET. Además, hay aplicaciones en las que hay que tener en cuenta algo más que el simple encaminamiento de los mensajes. Este es el caso de aplicaciones en entornos subterráneos, donde el conocimiento de la evolución de propagación de la señal entre los diferentes nodos puede ser útil para mejorar la calidad de servicio y mantener la conectividad en cada momento. A pesar de ésto, dentro del amplio abanicos de propuestas presente en la literatura, existen un conjunto de limitaciones que van de el mero uso de protocolos simulados a propuestas que no tienen en cuenta entornos no convencionales o que resultan aisladas desde el punto de vista de la integración en sistemas complejos. En esta tesis doctoral, se propone un estudio completo sobre un plataforma inalámbrica de tiempo real, utilizando el protocolo RT-WMP capaz de gestionar trafíco multimedia al mismo tiempo y adaptado al entorno de trabajo. Se propone una extensión para el soporte a los datos con calidad de servicio sin limitar las caractaristícas temporales del protocolo básico. Y con el fin de tener en cuenta el efecto de la propagación de la señal, se caracteriza el entorno por medio de un conjunto de restricciones de conectividad. La solución ha sido desarrollada y su validez ha sido demostrada extensamente en aplicaciones reales en entornos subterráneos, en redes malladas y aplicaciones robóticas

Disruptive Technologies with Applications in Airline & Marine and Defense Industries

Disruptive Technologies With Applications in Airline, Marine, Defense Industries is our fifth textbook in a series covering the world of Unmanned Vehicle Systems Applications & Operations On Air, Sea, and Land. The authors have expanded their purview beyond UAS / CUAS / UUV systems that we have written extensively about in our previous four textbooks. Our new title shows our concern for the emergence of Disruptive Technologies and how they apply to the Airline, Marine and Defense industries. Emerging technologies are technologies whose development, practical applications, or both are still largely unrealized, such that they are figuratively emerging into prominence from a background of nonexistence or obscurity. A Disruptive technology is one that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry or a ground-breaking product that creates a completely new industry.That is what our book is about. The authors think we have found technology trends that will replace the status quo or disrupt the conventional technology paradigms.The authors have collaborated to write some explosive chapters in Book 5:Advances in Automation & Human Machine Interface; Social Media as a Battleground in Information Warfare (IW); Robust cyber-security alterative / replacement for the popular Blockchain Algorithm and a clean solution for Ransomware; Advanced sensor technologies that are used by UUVs for munitions characterization, assessment, and classification and counter hostile use of UUVs against U.S. capital assets in the South China Seas. Challenged the status quo and debunked the climate change fraud with verifiable facts; Explodes our minds with nightmare technologies that if they come to fruition may do more harm than good; Propulsion and Fuels: Disruptive Technologies for Submersible Craft Including UUVs; Challenge the ammunition industry by grassroots use of recycled metals; Changing landscape of UAS regulations and drone privacy; and finally, Detailing Bioterrorism Risks, Biodefense, Biological Threat Agents, and the need for advanced sensors to detect these attacks.https://newprairiepress.org/ebooks/1038/thumbnail.jp

A Robot-Sensor Network Security Architecture for Monitoring Applications

This paper presents SNSR (Sensor Network Security using Robots), a novel, open, and flexible architecture that improves security in static sensor networks by benefiting from robot-sensor network cooperation. In SNSR, the robot performs sensor node authentication and radio-based localization (enabling centralized topology computation and route establishment) and directly interacts with nodes to send them configurations or receive status and anomaly reports without intermediaries. SNSR operation is divided into stages set in a feedback iterative structure, which enables repeating the execution of stages to adapt to changes, respond to attacks, or detect and correct errors. By exploiting the robot capabilities, SNSR provides high security levels and adaptability without requiring complex mechanisms. This paper presents SNSR, analyzes its security against common attacks, and experimentally validates its performance

Design of an UAV swarm

This master thesis tries to give an overview on the general aspects involved in the design of an UAV swarm. UAV swarms are continuoulsy gaining popularity amongst researchers and UAV manufacturers, since they allow greater success rates in task accomplishing with reduced times. Appart from this, multiple UAVs cooperating between them opens a new field of missions that can only be carried in this way. All the topics explained within this master thesis will explain all the agents involved in the design of an UAV swarm, from the communication protocols between them, navigation and trajectory analysis and task allocation

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation

Cognitive Hyperconnected Digital Transformation provides an overview of the current Internet of Things (IoT) landscape, ranging from research, innovation and development priorities to enabling technologies in a global context. It is intended as a standalone book in a series that covers the Internet of Things activities of the IERC-Internet of Things European Research Cluster, including both research and technological innovation, validation and deployment. The book builds on the ideas put forward by the European Research Cluster, the IoT European Platform Initiative (IoT-EPI) and the IoT European Large-Scale Pilots Programme, presenting global views and state-of-the-art results regarding the challenges facing IoT research, innovation, development and deployment in the next years. Hyperconnected environments integrating industrial/business/consumer IoT technologies and applications require new IoT open systems architectures integrated with network architecture (a knowledge-centric network for IoT), IoT system design and open, horizontal and interoperable platforms managing things that are digital, automated and connected and that function in real-time with remote access and control based on Internet-enabled tools. The IoT is bridging the physical world with the virtual world by combining augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) to support the physical-digital integrations in the Internet of mobile things based on sensors/actuators, communication, analytics technologies, cyber-physical systems, software, cognitive systems and IoT platforms with multiple functionalities. These IoT systems have the potential to understand, learn, predict, adapt and operate autonomously. They can change future behaviour, while the combination of extensive parallel processing power, advanced algorithms and data sets feed the cognitive algorithms that allow the IoT systems to develop new services and propose new solutions. IoT technologies are moving into the industrial space and enhancing traditional industrial platforms with solutions that break free of device-, operating system- and protocol-dependency. Secure edge computing solutions replace local networks, web services replace software, and devices with networked programmable logic controllers (NPLCs) based on Internet protocols replace devices that use proprietary protocols. Information captured by edge devices on the factory floor is secure and accessible from any location in real time, opening the communication gateway both vertically (connecting machines across the factory and enabling the instant availability of data to stakeholders within operational silos) and horizontally (with one framework for the entire supply chain, across departments, business units, global factory locations and other markets). End-to-end security and privacy solutions in IoT space require agile, context-aware and scalable components with mechanisms that are both fluid and adaptive. The convergence of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) makes security and privacy by default a new important element where security is addressed at the architecture level, across applications and domains, using multi-layered distributed security measures. Blockchain is transforming industry operating models by adding trust to untrusted environments, providing distributed security mechanisms and transparent access to the information in the chain. Digital technology platforms are evolving, with IoT platforms integrating complex information systems, customer experience, analytics and intelligence to enable new capabilities and business models for digital business

Next-Generation Public Safety Systems Based on Autonomous Vehicles and Opportunistic Communications

An emergency scenario is characterized by the unpredictability of the environment conditions and by the scarcity of the available communication infrastructures. After a natural or human disaster, the main public and private infrastructures are partially damaged or totally destroyed. These infrastructures include roads, bridges, water supplies, electrical grids, telecommunications and so on. In these conditions, the first rescue operations executed by the public safety organizations can be very difficult, due to the unpredictability of the disaster area environment and the lack in the communications systems. The aim of this work is to introduce next-generation public safety systems where the main focus is the use of unmanned vehicles that are able to exploit the self-organizing characteristics of such autonomous systems. With the proposed public safety systems, a team of autonomous vehicles will be able to overcome the hazardous environments of a post disaster scenario by introducing a temporary dynamic network infrastructure which enables the first responders to cooperate and to communicate with the victims involved. Furthermore, given the pervasive penetration of smart end-user devices, the emergence of spontaneous networks could constitute promising solutions to implement emergency communication systems. With these systems the survivors will be able to self-organize in a communication network that allows them to send alerts and information messages towards the rescue teams, even in absence of communication infrastructures