Advanced training systems

Training is a major endeavor in all modern societies. Common training methods include training manuals, formal classes, procedural computer programs, simulations, and on-the-job training. NASA's training approach has focussed primarily on on-the-job training in a simulation environment for both crew and ground based personnel. NASA must explore new approaches to training for the 1990's and beyond. Specific autonomous training systems are described which are based on artificial intelligence technology for use by NASA astronauts, flight controllers, and ground based support personnel that show an alternative to current training systems. In addition to these specific systems, the evolution of a general architecture for autonomous intelligent training systems that integrates many of the features of traditional training programs with artificial intelligence techniques is presented. These Intelligent Computer Aided Training (ICAT) systems would provide much of the same experience that could be gained from the best on-the-job training

HBST: A Hamming Distance embedding Binary Search Tree for Visual Place Recognition

Reliable and efficient Visual Place Recognition is a major building block of modern SLAM systems. Leveraging on our prior work, in this paper we present a Hamming Distance embedding Binary Search Tree (HBST) approach for binary Descriptor Matching and Image Retrieval. HBST allows for descriptor Search and Insertion in logarithmic time by exploiting particular properties of binary Feature descriptors. We support the idea behind our search structure with a thorough analysis on the exploited descriptor properties and their effects on completeness and complexity of search and insertion. To validate our claims we conducted comparative experiments for HBST and several state-of-the-art methods on a broad range of publicly available datasets. HBST is available as a compact open-source C++ header-only library.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) 2018 with International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) 2018 option, 8 pages, 10 figure

Tele-autonomous systems: New methods for projecting and coordinating intelligent action at a distance

There is a growing need for humans to perform complex remote operations and to extend the intelligence and experience of experts to distant applications. It is asserted that a blending of human intelligence, modern information technology, remote control, and intelligent autonomous systems is required, and have coined the term tele-autonomous technology, or tele-automation, for methods producing intelligent action at a distance. Tele-automation goes beyond autonomous control by blending in human intelligence. It goes beyond tele-operation by incorporating as much autonomy as possible and/or reasonable. A new approach is discussed for solving one of the fundamental problems facing tele-autonomous systems: The need to overcome time delays due to telemetry and signal propagation. New concepts are introduced called time and position clutches, that allow the time and position frames between the local user control and the remote device being controlled, to be desynchronized respectively. The design and implementation of these mechanisms are described in detail. It is demonstrated that these mechanisms lead to substantial telemanipulation performance improvements, including the result of improvements even in the absence of time delays. The new controls also yield a simple protocol for control handoffs of manipulation tasks between local operators and remote systems

Evolution of maintenance strategies in oil and gas industries: the present achievements and future trends

Engineering Systems maintenance and reliability challenges have drawn serious attention of researchers and industrialists all over the world due to continuous evolution, innovation and complexity of modern technologies deployed in manufacturing and production systems. These systems need very high reliability and availability due to business, mission and safety critical nature of their operations. This paper reviews evolution of systems or equipment maintenance strategies practiced over the years in complex industrial and manufacturing systems such as oil and gas production systems, satellite communication system, spacecraft navigational system, nuclear power plants, etc. The paper also examines the current maintenance and reliability philosophies, their limitations and highlights major breakthroughs and achievements with regards to complex engineering systems maintenance. Intelligent maintenance, a novel approach to complex engineering systems maintenance and reliability sustainment is proposed. The proposed approach reintegrates operation and maintenance phase into system development life cycle, adopts advanced engineering tools and methodology in developing condition-based predictive maintenance, an intelligent maintenance system with resilient, autonomous and adaptive capabilities. Application of Neural network approach to multisensor data fusion for condition-based predictive maintenance system is briefly presented

Mandatory Enforcement of Privacy Policies using Trusted Computing Principles

Modern communication systems and information technology create significant new threats to information privacy. In this paper, we discuss the need for proper privacy protection in cooperative intelligent transportation systems (cITS), one instance of such systems. We outline general principles for data protection and their legal basis and argue why pure legal protection is insufficient. Strong privacy-enhancing technologies need to be deployed in cITS to protect user data while it is generated and processed. As data minimization cannot always prevent the need for disclosing relevant personal information, we introduce the new concept of mandatory enforcement of privacy policies. This concept empowers users and data subjects to tightly couple their data with privacy policies and rely on the system to impose such policies onto any data processors. We also describe the PRECIOSA Privacy-enforcing Runtime Architecture that exemplifies our approach. Moreover, we show how an application can utilize this architecture by applying it to a pay as you drive (PAYD) car insurance scenario

Monitoring Computer Systems: An Intelligent Approach

Monitoring modern computer systems is increasingly difficult due to their peculiar characteristics. To cope with this situation, the dissertation develops an approach to intelligent monitoring. The resulting model consists of three major designs: representing targets, controlling data collection, and autonomously refining monitoring performance. The model explores a more declarative object-oriented model by introducing virtual objects to dynamically compose abstract representations, while it treats conventional hard-wired hierarchies and predefined object classes as primitive structures. Taking the representational framework as a reasoning bed, the design for controlling mechanisms adopts default reasoning backed up with ordered constraints, so that the amount of data collected, levels of details, semantics, and resolution of observation can be appropriately controlled. The refining mechanisms classify invoked knowledge and update the classified knowledge in terms of the feedback from monitoring. The approach is designed first and then formally specified. Applications of the resulting model are examined and an operational prototype is implemented. Thus the dissertation establishes a basis for an approach to intelligent monitoring, one which would be equipped to deal effectively with the difficulties that arise in monitoring modern computer systems

Modeling the Permeable Power of the Road on a Semaforized Crossing Using Petri Nets

With the growth in demand and the development of traffic over the last fifty years, the need for the introduction of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) is growing every day. With a modern approach they solve complex traffic problems. One modern approach is modeling the dynamics of Petri Nets. The Petri Nets is a powerful graphical and mathematical model for working with discrete systems. This paper describes how using a Petri Net can manage signaled intersections, assist in choosing the best alternative route, or manage an intersection at which an incident occurred. The research was carried out in a real traffic environment, at the intersection of Zagrebačka Road and Bistrička Road in the center of the city Sesvete, by modeling with coloured timed Petri Nets

Major Features, Benefits, and Prerequisites for Intelligent Enterprise Managing System

The modern conditions of high-tech and highly competitive markets require the evolution of the enterprise automation systems. Such new, the post-ERP systems should meet the conditions for the provision of customer self-service and other counterparts, the dramatic decrease of the manual labour through automation, robotic application, integration with other systems and external contracting systems, multi-channel marketing and distribution, reduction of supply chains and other current trends. These systems should be built on the new IEM Automation Paradigm (Intelligent Enterprise Managing) and therefore belong to the IEM system class. As stated in the IEM paradigm article, a modern approach to solving the task of automation is based on the application of "best" solutions for each separate entity or business unit. In practice, however, this approach has resulted in a series of significant problems. The scale of the problems is increasing with the growth in transactional load, competitive pressures on the market, requirements for accelerate optimization, and business processes changes

Model-based design of coordinated traffic controllers

Modern transportation systems optimize traffic flows in road networks by allowing intersection-level traffic controllers to communicate and synchronize. Typically they are distributed systems, with multiple nodes (intersections) communicating with each other in real time. This paper proposes a design process for traffic coordination systems using model driven engineering (MDE), a paradigm used to design complex embedded systems in automotive and aerospace. The approach combines a conventional micro-simulator (AIMSUN) with a state of the art control modelling tool (Simulink) following a model-view-controller approach. The MDE approach allows for both micro-simulation (on a PC) and emulation (using embedded controllers). Once the model is validated, automatic code generation can be used to generate the implementation of the system on embedded devices. As a case study, the authors designed a SCATS-inspired coordinated intersection control system. To the authors' knowledge, the proposed approach is the first, fully automated approach for the design of complex intelligent transportation systems (ITS)