Utilizing a 3D game engine to develop a virtual design review system

A design review process is where information is exchanged between the designers and design reviewers to resolve any potential design related issues, and to ensure that the interests and goals of the owner are met. The effective execution of design review will minimize potential errors or conflicts, reduce the time for review, shorten the project life-cycle, allow for earlier occupancy, and ultimately translate into significant total project savings to the owner. However, the current methods of design review are still heavily relying on 2D paper-based format, sequential and lack central and integrated information base for efficient exchange and flow of information. There is thus a need for the use of a new medium that allow for 3D visualization of designs, collaboration among designers and design reviewers, and early and easy access to design review information. This paper documents the innovative utilization of a 3D game engine, the Torque Game Engine as the underlying tool and enabling technology for a design review system, the Virtual Design Review System for architectural designs. Two major elements are incorporated; 1) a 3D game engine as the driving tool for the development and implementation of design review processes, and 2) a virtual environment as the medium for design review, where visualization of design and design review information is based on sound principles of GUI design. The development of the VDRS involves two major phases; firstly, the creation of the assets and the assembly of the virtual environment, and secondly, the modification of existing functions or introducing new functionality through programming of the 3D game engine in order to support design review in a virtual environment. The features that are included in the VDRS are support for database, real-time collaboration across network, viewing and navigation modes, 3D object manipulation, parametric input, GUI, and organization for 3D objects

Building a Computer-Based Expert System for Malaria Environmental Diagnosis: An Alternative Malaria Control Strategy

As a predominant environmental health problem in Africa, malaria constitutes a great threat to the existence of many communities. The harmful effects of malaria parasites to the human body cannot be underestimated. In this paper, an expert system for malaria environmental diagnosis was presented for providing decision support to malaria researchers, institutes and other healthcare practitioners in malaria endemic regions of the world. The motivation behind this work was due to the insufficient malaria control measures in existence and the need to provide novel approaches towards malaria control. A malaria expert system prototype was developed that involved a knowledge component, the application component (AC), the database system component (DC), the Graphical User Interface (GUI) component and the User component (UC). The User interface component was implemented using the Java Programming language. The application component was implemented using the Java Expert System Shell (JESS) and the Java IDE of Netbeans while the database component was implemented using SQL Server

Intelligent Vision-Driven Robot For Sample Detection And Return

This project explores various vision methodologies to locate and return a user-specified object. The project involves building an automatic robotic unit with an all-terrain chassis vehicle and integrated camera. The high level vision control system uses serial communication to direct the low level mechanical parts. The chosen approach for vision analysis is comparison of color thresholds. This solution provides generally accurate detection even in an environment which is noisy but has good color contrast

A distributed framework for the control and cooperation of heterogeneous mobile robots in smart factories.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.The present consumer market is driven by the mass customisation of products. Manufacturers are now challenged with the problem of not being able to capture market share and gain higher profits by producing large volumes of the same product to a mass market. Some businesses have implemented mass customisation manufacturing (MCM) techniques as a solution to this problem, where customised products are produced rapidly while keeping the costs at a mass production level. In addition to this, the arrival of the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) enables the possibility of establishing the decentralised intelligence of embedded devices to detect and respond to real-time variations in the MCM factory. One of the key pillars in the Industry 4.0, smart factory concept is Advanced Robotics. This includes cooperation and control within multiple heterogeneous robot networks, which increases flexibility in the smart factory and enables the ability to rapidly reconfigure systems to adapt to variations in consumer product demand. Another benefit in these systems is the reduction of production bottleneck conditions where robot services must be coordinated efficiently so that high levels of productivity are maintained. This study focuses on the research, design and development of a distributed framework that would aid researchers in implementing algorithms for controlling the task goals of heterogeneous mobile robots, to achieve robot cooperation and reduce bottlenecks in a production environment. The framework can be used as a toolkit by the end-user for developing advanced algorithms that can be simulated before being deployed in an actual system, thereby fast prototyping the system integration process. Keywords: Cooperation, heterogeneity, multiple mobile robots, Industry 4.0, smart factory, manufacturing, middleware, ROS, OPC, framework

Mobile Phone Controlling Home Appliances

Advancement in wireless technology nowadays has allowed the creation of various remote control systems, one of which is the famous Smart Home concept. This project focuses on the development of a smart home system that allows user control of electrical appliances using devices such as laptop or an Android phone via Bluetooth. The system adapts serial connection of the devices with a Bluetooth module and a PIC microcontroller attached on the main circuit board where the microcontroller will then control the home appliances via a relay circuit. The smart home system will be able to ease the effort of physically challenged individuals in controlling their home appliances such as lamps, fan, air-con and etc. Users can trigger the switches anywhere as long as the device is within the vicinity of the Bluetooth signal in the main panel. Moreover, users can also control the appliances via internet connection by sending an email to a specified address. However, this addition requires that the laptop be wirelessly connected to the main board at all times and have internet connection. Generally, the project software application together with its Graphical User Interface was developed using Microsoft© Visual Studio in VB language for the computer platform and Eclipse IDE for the Android platform. The microcontroller, PIC16F877A located on the main circuit board was programmed in C language using MPLAB IDE software and debugged together with the circuit design using Proteus 7 ISIS. The PCB was designed using Proteus 7 ARES. The final prototype of the system was built to demonstrate the proposed functionality of the syste