Intelligent trajectory planner and generalised proportional integral control for two carts equipped with a red-green-blue depth sensor on a circular rail

This paper introduces an intelligent trajectory generator and a generalised proportional integral (GPI) control law for the movement of two carts on a circular motorised rail. The objective is to continuously monitor a person performing physical rehabilitation exercises and moving freely inside the circle. Each cart is equipped with an red-green-blue depth (RGB-D) device so that the patient is monitored from two points of view. One RGB-D device is dedicated to track the body part being exercised, while the other focuses on the person’s face to detect his/her emotional state. The proposed feedback control scheme is based on an exact feed-forward action combined with a velocity vector structural estimation using a model-based integral state reconstructor. Furthermore, the proposed intelligent trajectory generator comprises the references required to move the carts based on the instantaneous position of the patient and the current position of both carts. It also establishes the role (master or slave) of each cart, the direction that each cart must follow, and it generates smooth trajectories that avoid collisions between the carts. Moreover, the paper introduces a description of the displacements of both carts and the positioning of the tilt and pan angles of each RGB-D sensor so as to track the patient’s face and the body from the best viewpoints. The performance of the intelligent trajectory generation and the control of the two carts were analysed with numerical simulations. A comparison was made between the developed GPI control and a standard proportional integral derivative (PID) control. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the trajectory planner, and demonstrate that the GPI control has a better dynamic response than the PID control as well as a better performance in terms of the integral squared tracking error, the integral absolute tracking error, and the integral time absolute tracking error.This work was partially supported by Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion, Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI)/European Regional Development Fund (FEDER, UE) under PID2019-106084RB-I00 and DPI2016-80894-R grants, by CIBERSAM of the Instituto de Salud Carlos III, and by VALU3S EU project (H2020-ECSEL grant agreement no 876852)

Precision Agriculture Technology for Crop Farming

This book provides a review of precision agriculture technology development, followed by a presentation of the state-of-the-art and future requirements of precision agriculture technology. It presents different styles of precision agriculture technologies suitable for large scale mechanized farming; highly automated community-based mechanized production; and fully mechanized farming practices commonly seen in emerging economic regions. The book emphasizes the introduction of core technical features of sensing, data processing and interpretation technologies, crop modeling and production control theory, intelligent machinery and field robots for precision agriculture production

Precision Agriculture Technology for Crop Farming

This book provides a review of precision agriculture technology development, followed by a presentation of the state-of-the-art and future requirements of precision agriculture technology. It presents different styles of precision agriculture technologies suitable for large scale mechanized farming; highly automated community-based mechanized production; and fully mechanized farming practices commonly seen in emerging economic regions. The book emphasizes the introduction of core technical features of sensing, data processing and interpretation technologies, crop modeling and production control theory, intelligent machinery and field robots for precision agriculture production

Social capital in urban environments: intersection of theory, research and practice literature

This paper attempts to stretch the understanding of the relationship between social capital and attributes of the physical environment through an exploration of the intersection of social capital theory, urban design practitioner guidance and empirical research on social capital that considers the built environment as a variable. Viewing such knowledge through the lens of social capital, the links, overlaps, and extensions were extrapolated thereby attempting to operationalise the theoretical notion of social capital, within sustainability assessment

Crab and cockle shells as heterogeneous catalysts in the production of biodiesel

In the present study, the waste crab and cockle shells were utilized as source of calcium oxide to transesterify palm olein into methyl esters (biodiesel). Characterization results revealed that the main component of the shells are calcium carbonate which transformed into calcium oxide upon activated above 700 °C for 2 h. Parametric studies have been investigated and optimal conditions were found to be catalyst amount, 5 wt.% and methanol/oil mass ratio, 0.5:1. The waste catalysts perform equally well as laboratory CaO, thus creating another low-cost catalyst source for producing biodiesel. Reusability results confirmed that the prepared catalyst is able to be reemployed up to five times. Statistical analysis has been performed using a Central Composite Design to evaluate the contribution and performance of the parameters on biodiesel purity

Molecular phylogeny of horseshoe crab using mitochondrial Cox1 gene as a benchmark sequence

An effort to assess the utility of 650 bp Cytochrome C oxidase subunit I (DNA barcode) gene in delineating the members horseshoe crabs (Family: xiphosura) with closely related sister taxa was made. A total of 33 sequences were extracted from National Center for Biotechnological Information (NCBI) which include horseshoe crabs, beetles, common crabs and scorpion sequences. Constructed phylogram showed beetles are closely related with horseshoe crabs than common crabs. Scorpion spp were distantly related to xiphosurans. Phylogram and observed genetic distance (GD) date were also revealed that Limulus polyphemus was closely related with Tachypleus tridentatus than with T.gigas. Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda was distantly related with L.polyphemus. The observed mean Genetic Distance (GD) value was higher in 3rd codon position in all the selected group of organisms. Among the horseshoe crabs high GC content was observed in L.polyphemus (38.32%) and lowest was observed in T.tridentatus (32.35%). We conclude that COI sequencing (barcoding) could be used in identifying and delineating evolutionary relatedness with closely related specie