A sensor data fusion-based locating method for large-scale metrology

The measurement of geometric and dimensional variations in the context of large-sized products is a complex operation. One of the most efficient ways to identify deviations is by comparing the nominal object with a digitalisation of the real object through a reverse engineering process. The accurate digitalisation of large geometric models usually requires multiple acquisitions from different acquiring locations; the acquired point clouds must then be correctly aligned in the 3D digital environment. The identification of the exact scanning location is crucial to correctly realign point clouds and generate an accurate 3D CAD model. To achieve this, an acquisition method based on the use of a handling device is proposed that enhances reverse engineering scanning systems and is able to self-locate. The present paper tackles the device’s locating problem by using sensor data fusion based on a Kalman filter. The method was firstsimulated in a MatLAB environment; a prototype was then designed and developed using low-cost hardware. Tests on the sensor data fusion have shown a locating accuracy better than that of each individual sensor. Despite the low-cost hardware, the results are encouraging and open to future improvements

Sensory and control system for smart fan

A smart fan is a development of an ordinary fan that consists of several features to help more comfortable and easier life. Ordinary stand fan is operated manually which people has to determine the speed of the fan and the oscillation of the fan is fix at a certain degrees. The smart fan is developed to have a speed regarding to the environment temperature and it will only operate as there is presence of human. Furthermore the fan is designed to oscillate with respect to the human location. To this extend, researches on the temperature controller and human location detection have been done and the system design explained in this report. The working principle of smart fan is interrelated between electromechanical, electronics and control system. The LM35 is used to determine the environment temperature meanwhile the passive infrared is used to determine the presence of human and ultrasonic sensors are used to detect the human location. The system is controlled by microcontroller which making the typical stand fan to be smarter

Evaluating the reading performance of semi-passive RFID tags to enhance locating of warehouse resources: An experiment design

Copyright @ 2011 8th European, Mediterranean and Middle Eastern Conference on Information Systems (EMCIS 2011)In the supply chain, a warehouse is a crucial component for linking all chain parties. It is necessary to track the real time resource location and status to support warehouse operations effectively. Therefore, RFID technology has been adopted to facilitate the collection and sharing of data in a warehouse environment. However, an essential decision should be made on the type of RFID tags the warehouse managers should adopt, because it is very important to implement RFID tags that work in warehouse environment. As a result, the warehouse resources will be easily tracked and accurately located which will improve the visibility of warehouse operations, enhance the productivity and reduce the operation costs of the warehouse. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate the reading performance of all types of RFID tags in a warehouse environment in order to choose the most appropriate RFID tags which will enhance the operational efficiency of a warehouse. Reading performance of active and passive RFID tags have been evaluated before while, semi-passive RFID tag, which is battery-assisted with greater sensitivity than passive tags and cheaper than active tags, has not been examined yet in a warehouse environment. This research is in- progress research and it is aiming to perform tests for evaluating the reading performance of semi-passive RFID apparatus to provide an extensive RFID performance comparison for formulating an efficient RFID solution in warehousing environment

UNDERWATER OBJECT DETECTION BASED ON DISTANCE MEASUREMENT USING ULTRASONIC

Detecting the underwater object with Sound Navigation and Ranging (SONAR) in various fields such as fisheries, maritime, oil and gas industry, and autonomous underwater vehicles. SONAR is needed for detecting the underwater object for a larger area by determining object characteristics (e.g. The object sizes and the object types). This thesis also uses a 1-Dimensional technique to identify the underwater object visual information such as the shape of the object. SONAR is a technique for detecting objects that are buried under the water surface by using the sound signal that is reflected on the object to locating the object and knowing the shape of the object. This thesis is to observe a SONAR system on detecting the underwater object by obtaining information on the object distance and the object dimension to the data processor. The object detection experiments with different distances are conducted on water medium at Situ-Techno and swimming pool of Telkom University. The objects are alumunium and ceramics. The working frequency of the AJ-SR04M module with a fish finder transducer sensor is 40 KHz with a minimum detection distance of 20 cm and a maximum distance of 800 cm. To use the sensor, we must program the sensor on the microcontroller. By the performance of underwater object detection at finding the information of the object position distance and the object dimension. The first experiment will show the sensor accuracy value on detecting the object by comparing the actual distance with the reference distance to the object is capable to detecting the object position distance with accuracy level for alumunium position distance is around 92.85% to 98.73% and for ceramics is around 84.61% to 88.71%. The second ex- periment will show the dimension of the object we should determine the horizontal plane and the vertical plane to know the shape of the object and the inclination angle between the first sensor and the second sensor on alumunium is around 21.30? and for ceramics is around 22.60?. Keywords: Underwater Object Detection, SONAR, Arduino Mega 2560, AJ- SR04M Waterproof Ultrasonic Module

Non Destructive Testing and Evaluation

Nondestructive testing (NDT), also called nondestructive evaluation (NDE) and nondestructive inspection (NDI), is testing that does not destroy the test object. The activ-ity primarily involves looking at (or through) or meas-uring something about an object to determine some property of the object or to determine whether the object contains irregularities, discontinuities, or flaws. The terms irregularity, discontinuity, and flaw can be used inter-changeably to mean something that is questionable in the part or assembly, but specification, codes, and local usage can result in different definitions for these terms. As all these terms describe what is being sought through testing, inspection, or examination, the term NDE (non-destructive evaluation) has come to include all NDE used to find, locate, and sizing flaws and allow the investi-gator to decide whether or not the object or flaws are acceptable.A flaw that has been evaluated as rejectable is usually termed a defect

Infrared Thermography for Weld Inspection: Feasibility and Application

Traditional ultrasonic testing (UT) techniques have been widely used to detect surface and sub-surface defects of welds. UT inspection is a contact method which burdens the manufacturer by storing hot specimens for inspection when the material is cool. Additionally, UT is only valid for 5 mm specimens or thicker and requires a highly skilled operator to perform the inspections and interpret the signals. Infrared thermography (IRT) has the potential to be implemented for weld inspections due to its non-contact nature. In this study, the feasibility of using IRT to overcome the limitations of UT inspection is investigated to detect inclusion, porosity, cracking, and lack of fusion in 38 weld specimens with thicknesses of 3, 8 and 13 mm. UT inspection was also performed to locate regions containing defects in the 8 mm and 13 mm specimens. Results showed that regions diagnosed with defects by the UT inspection lost heat faster than the sound weld. The IRT method was applied to six 3 mm specimens to detect their defects and successfully detected lack of fusion in one of them. All specimens were cut at the locations indicated by UT and IRT methods which proved the presence of a defect in 86% of the specimens. Despite the agreement with the UT inspection, the proposed IRT method had limited success in locating the defects in the 8 mm specimens. To fully implement in-line IRT-based weld inspections more investigations are required

Acoustical Ranging Techniques in Embedded Wireless Sensor Networked Devices

Location sensing provides endless opportunities for a wide range of applications in GPS-obstructed environments; where, typically, there is a need for higher degree of accuracy. In this article, we focus on robust range estimation, an important prerequisite for fine-grained localization. Motivated by the promise of acoustic in delivering high ranging accuracy, we present the design, implementation and evaluation of acoustic (both ultrasound and audible) ranging systems.We distill the limitations of acoustic ranging; and present efficient signal designs and detection algorithms to overcome the challenges of coverage, range, accuracy/resolution, tolerance to Doppler’s effect, and audible intensity. We evaluate our proposed techniques experimentally on TWEET, a low-power platform purpose-built for acoustic ranging applications. Our experiments demonstrate an operational range of 20 m (outdoor) and an average accuracy 2 cm in the ultrasound domain. Finally, we present the design of an audible-range acoustic tracking service that encompasses the benefits of a near-inaudible acoustic broadband chirp and approximately two times increase in Doppler tolerance to achieve better performance