Using CamiTK for rapid prototyping of interactive Computer Assisted Medical Intervention applications

Computer Assisted Medical Intervention (CAMI hereafter) is a complex multi-disciplinary field. CAMI research requires the collaboration of experts in several fields as diverse as medicine, computer science, mathematics, instrumentation, signal processing, mechanics, modeling, automatics, optics, etc

Prototyping a new car semi-active suspension by variational feedback controller

New suspension systems electronically controlled are presented and mounted on board of a real car. The system consists of variable semi-active magneto-rheological dampers that are controlled through an electronic unit that is designed on the basis of a new optimal theoretical control, named VFC-Variational Feedback Controller. The system has been mounted on board of a BMW Series 1 car, and a set of experimental tests have been conducted in real driving conditions. The VFC reveals, because of its design strategy, to be able to enhance simultaneously both the comfort performance as well as the handling capability of the car. Preliminary comparisons with several industrially control methods adopted in the automotive field, among them skyhook and groundhook, show excellent results

Mobile Paving System (MPS): A New Large Scale Freeform Fabrication Method

In the last decade, significant opportunities for automation have been identified in the area of construction. Soaring labor and material costs have driven multiple research efforts in construction automation. In this paper, we present a novel means for construction automation that involves the fusion of the rapid prototyping, controls and mechatronics technologies. The resultant autonomous construction mechanism has been designed for commercial applications. Mobile Paving System (MPS) is a new freeform fabrication process which is capable of rapidly producing variable profiles such as curbs and sidewalks out of materials like cement and asphalt. Path generation and guidance of the construction operation is controlled by a mobile robot. This article presents an overview of research and development efforts that are aimed at establishing the feasibility and the potential of the process.Mechanical Engineerin

UltraSwarm: A Further Step Towards a Flock of Miniature Helicopters

We describe further progress towards the development of a MAV (micro aerial vehicle) designed as an enabling tool to investigate aerial flocking. Our research focuses on the use of low cost off the shelf vehicles and sensors to enable fast prototyping and to reduce development costs. Details on the design of the embedded electronics and the modification of the chosen toy helicopter are presented, and the technique used for state estimation is described. The fusion of inertial data through an unscented Kalman filter is used to estimate the helicopter’s state, and this forms the main input to the control system. Since no detailed dynamic model of the helicopter in use is available, a method is proposed for automated system identification, and for subsequent controller design based on artificial evolution. Preliminary results obtained with a dynamic simulator of a helicopter are reported, along with some encouraging results for tackling the problem of flocking

FLEXIBLE LOW-COST HW/SW ARCHITECTURES FOR TEST, CALIBRATION AND CONDITIONING OF MEMS SENSOR SYSTEMS

During the last years smart sensors based on Micro-Electro-Mechanical systems (MEMS) are widely spreading over various fields as automotive, biomedical, optical and consumer, and nowadays they represent the outstanding state of the art. The reasons of their diffusion is related to the capability to measure physical and chemical information using miniaturized components. The developing of this kind of architectures, due to the heterogeneities of their components, requires a very complex design flow, due to the utilization of both mechanical parts typical of the MEMS sensor and electronic components for the interfacing and the conditioning. In these kind of systems testing activities gain a considerable importance, and they concern various phases of the life-cycle of a MEMS based system. Indeed, since the design phase of the sensor, the validation of the design by the extraction of characteristic parameters is important, because they are necessary to design the sensor interface circuit. Moreover, this kind of architecture requires techniques for the calibration and the evaluation of the whole system in addition to the traditional methods for the testing of the control circuitry. The first part of this research work addresses the testing optimization by the developing of different hardware/software architecture for the different testing stages of the developing flow of a MEMS based system. A flexible and low-cost platform for the characterization and the prototyping of MEMS sensors has been developed in order to provide an environment that allows also to support the design of the sensor interface. To reduce the reengineering time requested during the verification testing a universal client-server architecture has been designed to provide a unique framework to test different kind of devices, using different development environment and programming languages. Because the use of ATE during the engineering phase of the calibration algorithm is expensive in terms of ATE’s occupation time, since it requires the interruption of the production process, a flexible and easily adaptable low-cost hardware/software architecture for the calibration and the evaluation of the performance has been developed in order to allow the developing of the calibration algorithm in a user-friendly environment that permits also to realize a small and medium volume production. The second part of the research work deals with a topic that is becoming ever more important in the field of applications for MEMS sensors, and concerns the capability to combine information extracted from different typologies of sensors (typically accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers) to obtain more complex information. In this context two different algorithm for the sensor fusion has been analyzed and developed: the first one is a fully software algorithm that has been used as a means to estimate how much the errors in MEMS sensor data affect the estimation of the parameter computed using a sensor fusion algorithm; the second one, instead, is a sensor fusion algorithm based on a simplified Kalman filter. Starting from this algorithm, a bit-true model in Mathworks Simulink(TM) has been created as a system study for the implementation of the algorithm on chip

Real-time simulator of collaborative and autonomous vehicles

Durant ces dernières décennies, l’apparition des systèmes d’aide à la conduite a essentiellement été favorisée par le développement des différentes technologies ainsi que par celui des outils mathématiques associés. Cela a profondément affecté les systèmes de transport et a donné naissance au domaine des systèmes de transport intelligents (STI). Nous assistons de nos jours au développement du marché des véhicules intelligents dotés de systèmes d’aide à la conduite et de moyens de communication inter-véhiculaire. Les véhicules et les infrastructures intelligents changeront le mode de conduite sur les routes. Ils pourront résoudre une grande partie des problèmes engendrés par le trafic routier comme les accidents, les embouteillages, la pollution, etc. Cependant, le bon fonctionnement et la fiabilité des nouvelles générations des systèmes de transport nécessitent une parfaite maitrise des différents processus de leur conception, en particulier en ce qui concerne les systèmes embarqués. Il est clair que l’identification et la correction des défauts des systèmes embarqués sont deux tâches primordiales à la fois pour la sauvegarde de la vie humaine, à la fois pour la préservation de l’intégrité des véhicules et des infrastructures urbaines. Pour ce faire, la simulation numérique en temps réel est la démarche la plus adéquate pour tester et valider les systèmes de conduite et les véhicules intelligents. Elle présente de nombreux avantages qui la rendent incontournable pour la conception des systèmes embarqués. Par conséquent, dans ce projet, nous présentons une nouvelle plateforme de simulation temps-réel des véhicules intelligents et autonomes en conduite collaborative. Le projet se base sur deux principaux composants. Le premier étant les produits d’OPAL-RT Technologies notamment le logiciel RT-LAB « en : Real Time LABoratory », l’application Orchestra et les machines de simulation dédiées à la simulation en temps réel et aux calculs parallèles, le second composant est Pro-SiVIC pour la simulation de la dynamique des véhicules, du comportement des capteurs embarqués et de l’infrastructure. Cette nouvelle plateforme (Pro-SiVIC/RT-LAB) permettra notamment de tester les systèmes embarqués (capteurs, actionneurs, algorithmes), ainsi que les moyens de communication inter-véhiculaire. Elle permettra aussi d’identifier et de corriger les problèmes et les erreurs logicielles, et enfin de valider les systèmes embarqués avant même le prototypage