Real time implementation of embedded devices as a security system in intelligent vehicles connected via Vanets

The fast boom of  technology has made our lives easier. The number of computer based functions embedded in cars have multiplied extensively over the past two decades. These days, many embedded sensors allowing localization and verbal exchange are being advanced to enhance reliability, protection and define new exploitation modes in intelligent guided transports. An in-car embedded electronic architecture is a complex setup machine, the improvement of that particular system is related to unique manufacturers and providers. There are several factors required in an efficient and secure system along with protection features, real time monitoring, reliability, robustness, and many other integrated features[1-2]. The appearance of modern era has also expanded the use of vehicles and  its associated dangers. Dangers and the road accidents take place often which causes loss of lives and assets due to the bad emergency centres, lack of safety features and limitations within devices embedded within a vehicle.  A rpm-speed calculating device can be used in a vehicle such that risku situations while driving can be detected. A system with Ultra sonic sensor can be used as a crash detector of the automobile in the course of the event and also after a crash. With indicators from the device,  extreme coincidences also can be recognized. .As the amount of urban automobile grows automobile theft has become a shared difficulty for all citizens. As a solution an antitheft system can be implemented using PIR motion sensors where the system can be attached to the peripheral surface of the vehicle. When these sensors are interfaced with  Arduino microcontroller an efficient and reliable security system can be developed[3]

Design, Application and Evaluation of a Multi Agent System in the Logistics Domain

The increasing demand for flexibility of automated production systems also affects the automated material flow systems (aMFS) they contain and demands reconfigurable systems. However, the centralized control concept usually applied in aMFS hinders an easy adaptation, as the entire control software has to be re-tested, when manually changing sub-parts of the control. As adaption and subsequent testing are a time-consuming task, concepts for splitting the control from one centralized to multiple, decentralized control nodes are required. Therefore, this paper presents a holistic agent-based control concept for aMFS, whereby the system is divided into so-called automated material flow modules (aMFM), each being controlled by a dedicated module agent. The concept allows the reconfiguration of aMFS, consisting of heterogeneous, stationary aMFM, during runtime. Furthermore, it includes aspects such as uniform agent knowledge bases through metamodel-based development, a communication ontology considering different information types and properties, strategic route optimization in decentralized control architecture and a visualization concept to make decisions of the module agents comprehensible to operators and maintenance staff. The evaluation of the concept is performed by means of material flow simulations as well as a prototypical implementation on a lab-sized demonstrator.Comment: 13 pages, https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9042827

A realistic simulation environment as a teaching aid in educational robotics

The experimental component is an essential method in Engineering education. Sometimes the availability of laboratories and components is compromised, and the COVID-19 pandemic worsened the situation. Resorting to an accurate simulation seems to help this process by allowing students to develop the work, program, test, and validate it. Moreover, it lowers the development time and cost of the prototyping stages of a robotics project. As a multidisciplinary area, robotics requires simulation environments with essential characteristics, such as dynamics, connection to hardware (embedded systems), and other applications. Thus, this paper presents the Simulation environment of SimTwo, emphasizing previous publications with models of sensors, actuators, and simulation scenes. The simulator can be used for free, and the source code is available to the community. Proposed scenes and examples can inspire the development of other simulation scenes to be used in electrical and mechanical Engineering projects. © 2022 IEEE.The authors are grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for financial support through national funds FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) to CeDRI (UIDB/05757/2020 and UIDP/05757/2020) and SusTEC (LA/P/0007/2021). Thadeu Brito was supported by FCT PhD grant SFRH/BD/08598/2020 and Joao Braun received the ˜ support of a fellowship from ”la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434) with code LCF/BQ/DI20/11780028.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

ROZWIĄZYWANIE PROBLEMU USZKODZEŃ MARKERÓW TRASY W SYSTEMIE OPARTYM O WÓZKI SAMOJEZDNE – STUDIUM PRZYPADKU

This paper is a case study of the development of a localization and positioning subsystem of an Automated Guided Vehicle-based transportation system. The described system uses primarily RFID markers for localization. In some deployments, those markers occasionally fail, mostly due to being crushed by cargo platforms operated by a human or due to internal defects. Those failures are not common enough to warrant switching from marker-based localization to a more sophisticated technique, but they require additional effort from maintenance staff. In this case study, we present our solution to this problem – a self-tuning algorithm that is able to detect marker failures and, in most cases, keep the system operational. The paper briefly discusses business circumstances under which such a solution is reasonable and then describes in detail the entire technical process, including data acquisition, verification, algorithm development and finally, the result of deploying the system in production.Ten artykuł opisuje studium przypadku rozwoju podsystemu lokalizacji i pozycjonowania w systemie opartym na wózkach samojezdnych. Opisywany system używa markerów RFID w celu lokalizacji wózków. Markery te w niektórych wdrożeniach okazjonalnie ulegają uszkodzeniom – najczęściej mechanicznym, ze względu zgniecenia powstałe w wyniku przejechania przez platformę z ładunkiem kierowaną przez człowieka lub też wewnętrzne defekty. Uszkodzenia te występują na tyle rzadko, że nie uzasadniają zmiany sposobu lokalizacji na bardziej zaawansowany, jednakże wymagają dodatkowego wysiłku od kadry zajmującej się utrzymaniem ruchu. W tym studium przypadku opisane zostało rozwiązanie przyjęte w firmie Octant – samostrojący się algorytm wykrywający uszkodzenia markerów, w przypadku typowych uszkodzeń umożliwiający kontynuację pracy systemu. Publikacja ogólnie opisuje sytuację biznesową w której zastosowanie takiego rozwiązania jest racjonalne, a następnie opisuje szczegóły techniczne podsystemów odpowiedzialnych za ruch i pozycjonowanie pojazdu – zarówno fizycznych, jak i w zakresie oprogramowania – oraz uzasadnienia dla podjętych decyzji technicznych

Hardware-in-the-loop simulation approach for the robot at factory lite competition proposal

Mobile robotic applications are increasing in several areas not only in industries but also service robots. The Industry 4.0 promoted even more the digitalization of factories that opened space for smart-factories implementation. Robotic competitions are a key to improve research and to motivate learning. This paper addresses a new competition proposal, the Robot@Factory Lite, in the scope of the Portuguese Robotics Open. Beyond the competition, a reference robot with all its components is proposed and a simulation environment is also provided. To minimize the gap between the simulation and the real implementation, an Hardware-in-the-loop technique is proposed that allows to control the simulation with a real Arduino board. Results show the same code, and hardware, can control both simulation model and real robot.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

An Agent-Based Approach for a Smart Transport System

This paper presents a proposal for a Smart Transport System which is an application that facilitates the interconnection between people (citizens, tourists) and transport providers (Bus, metro, trains, trams), defining the services that everyone can request or offer. The system has been defined as a virtual organization where agents (representing actors of the transport system) can enter or leave into the system consuming or offering services. Due to the fact that modern urban public transport is increasingly an important service used by citizens in current cities, the proposed system will improve the use of resources while also ensuring time flexible mobility solutions for citizens

Human-robot Interaction For Multi-robot Systems

Designing an effective human-robot interaction paradigm is particularly important for complex tasks such as multi-robot manipulation that require the human and robot to work together in a tightly coupled fashion. Although increasing the number of robots can expand the area that the robots can cover within a bounded period of time, a poor human-robot interface will ultimately compromise the performance of the team of robots. However, introducing a human operator to the team of robots, does not automatically improve performance due to the difficulty of teleoperating mobile robots with manipulators. The human operator’s concentration is divided not only among multiple robots but also between controlling each robot’s base and arm. This complexity substantially increases the potential neglect time, since the operator’s inability to effectively attend to each robot during a critical phase of the task leads to a significant degradation in task performance. There are several proven paradigms for increasing the efficacy of human-robot interaction: 1) multimodal interfaces in which the user controls the robots using voice and gesture; 2) configurable interfaces which allow the user to create new commands by demonstrating them; 3) adaptive interfaces which reduce the operator’s workload as necessary through increasing robot autonomy. This dissertation presents an evaluation of the relative benefits of different types of user interfaces for multi-robot systems composed of robots with wheeled bases and three degree of freedom arms. It describes a design for constructing low-cost multi-robot manipulation systems from off the shelf parts. User expertise was measured along three axes (navigation, manipulation, and coordination), and participants who performed above threshold on two out of three dimensions on a calibration task were rated as expert. Our experiments reveal that the relative expertise of the user was the key determinant of the best performing interface paradigm for that user, indicating that good user modiii eling is essential for designing a human-robot interaction system that will be used for an extended period of time. The contributions of the dissertation include: 1) a model for detecting operator distraction from robot motion trajectories; 2) adjustable autonomy paradigms for reducing operator workload; 3) a method for creating coordinated multi-robot behaviors from demonstrations with a single robot; 4) a user modeling approach for identifying expert-novice differences from short teleoperation traces

Innovative Mobile Manipulator Solution for Modern Flexible Manufacturing Processes

There is a paradigm shift in current manufacturing needs that is causing a change from the current mass-production-based approach to a mass customization approach where production volumes are smaller and more variable. Current processes are very adapted to the previous paradigm and lack the required flexibility to adapt to the new production needs. To solve this problem, an innovative industrial mobile manipulator is presented. The robot is equipped with a variety of sensors that allow it to perceive its surroundings and perform complex tasks in dynamic environments. Following the current needs of the industry, the robot is capable of autonomous navigation, safely avoiding obstacles. It is flexible enough to be able to perform a wide variety of tasks, being the change between tasks done easily thanks to skills-based programming and the ability to change tools autonomously. In addition, its security systems allow it to share the workspace with human operators. This prototype has been developed as part of THOMAS European project, and it has been tested and demonstrated in real-world manufacturing use cases.This research was funded by the EC research project “THOMAS—Mobile dual arm robotic workers with embedded cognition for hybrid and dynamically reconfigurable manufacturing systems” (Grant Agreement: 723616) (www.thomas-project.eu/)

Mobile assistive technologies for the visually impaired

There are around 285 million visually impaired people worldwide, and around 370,000 people are registered as blind or partially sighted in the UK. Ongoing advances in information technology (IT) are increasing the scope for IT-based mobile assistive technologies to facilitate the independence, safety, and improved quality of life of the visually impaired. Research is being directed at making mobile phones and other handheld devices accessible via our haptic (touch) and audio sensory channels. We review research and innovation within the field of mobile assistive technology for the visually impaired and, in so doing, highlight the need for successful collaboration between clinical expertise, computer science, and domain users to realize fully the potential benefits of such technologies. We initially reflect on research that has been conducted to make mobile phones more accessible to people with vision loss. We then discuss innovative assistive applications designed for the visually impaired that are either delivered via mainstream devices and can be used while in motion (e.g., mobile phones) or are embedded within an environment that may be in motion (e.g., public transport) or within which the user may be in motion (e.g., smart homes)