A Low-Cost Luxometer Benchmark for Solar Illuminance Measurement System Based on the Internet of Things

Natural illumination has an important place in home automation applications. Among other advantages, it contributes to better visual health, energy savings, and lower CO2 emissions. Therefore, it is important to measure illuminance in the most accurate and cost-effective way. This work compares several low-cost commercial sensors (VEML 7700, TSL2591, and OPT3001) with a professional one (ML-020S-O), all of them installed outdoors. In addition, a platform based on the Internet of Things technology was designed and deployed as a centralized point of data collection and processing. Summer months have been chosen for the comparison. This is the most adverse situation for low-cost sensors since they are designed for indoor use, and their operating range is lower than the maximum reached by sunlight. The solar illuminance was recorded every minute. As expected, the obtained bias depends on the solar height. This can reach 60% in the worst circumstances, although most of the time, its value stays below 40%. The positive side lies in the good precision of the recordings. This systematic deviation makes it susceptible to mathematical correction. Therefore, the incorporation of more sensors and data that can help the global improvement of the precision and accuracy of this low-cost system is left as a future line of improvement.The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the Spanish Ministry of Science & Innovation under the I+D+i state program “Challenges Research Projects” (RTI2018-098900-B-I00) and the Regional Government of Castilla y León (IN-VESTUN/19/BU/004 and INVESTUN/22/BU/0001). Diego Granados López also thankfully acknowledges the financial support from the Junta de Castilla-León (ORDEN EDU/556/2019)

Space station Simulation Computer System (SCS) study for NASA/MSFC. Volume 3: Refined conceptual design report

The results of the refined conceptual design phase (task 5) of the Simulation Computer System (SCS) study are reported. The SCS is the computational portion of the Payload Training Complex (PTC) providing simulation based training on payload operations of the Space Station Freedom (SSF). In task 4 of the SCS study, the range of architectures suitable for the SCS was explored. Identified system architectures, along with their relative advantages and disadvantages for SCS, were presented in the Conceptual Design Report. Six integrated designs-combining the most promising features from the architectural formulations-were additionally identified in the report. The six integrated designs were evaluated further to distinguish the more viable designs to be refined as conceptual designs. The three designs that were selected represent distinct approaches to achieving a capable and cost effective SCS configuration for the PTC. Here, the results of task 4 (input to this task) are briefly reviewed. Then, prior to describing individual conceptual designs, the PTC facility configuration and the SSF systems architecture that must be supported by the SCS are reviewed. Next, basic features of SCS implementation that have been incorporated into all selected SCS designs are considered. The details of the individual SCS designs are then presented before making a final comparison of the three designs

Development of an Exteroceptive Sensor Suite on Unmanned Surface Vessels for Real-Time Classification of Navigational Markers

This thesis presents the development of an exteroceptive sensor suite for real-time detection and classification of navigational markers on Unmanned Surface Vessels. Three sensors were used to complete this task: a 3D LIDAR and two visible light cameras. First, all LIDAR points were transformed from the sensor’s reference frame to the local frame using a Kalman filter to estimate instantaneous vehicle pose. Next, objects were chosen from the LIDAR data to be classified using either Multivariate Gaussian or Parzen Window Classifiers. Both produce 96% accuracy or better, however, multivariate Gaussian ran considerably faster than the Parzen and was simpler to implement and was therefore chosen as the final classifier. Additionally, regions of interest images based on the Multivariate Gaussian classification were extracted from the full camera images to improve marker knowledge. This sensor suite and set of algorithms underwent extensive testing on Embry-Riddle’s Maritime RobotX and RoboBoat platforms and greatly improves the ability to quickly and accurately identify multiple navigational markers, which is paramount to the success of any Unmanned Surfaces Vessel

Advanced flight deck/crew station simulator functional requirements

This report documents a study of flight deck/crew system research facility requirements for investigating issues involved with developing systems, and procedures for interfacing transport aircraft with air traffic control systems planned for 1985 to 2000. Crew system needs of NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and industry were investigated and reported. A matrix of these is included, as are recommended functional requirements and design criteria for simulation facilities in which to conduct this research. Methods of exploiting the commonality and similarity in facilities are identified, and plans for exploiting this in order to reduce implementation costs and allow efficient transfer of experiments from one facility to another are presented

Expansion microscopy of C. elegans.

Funder: John DoerrFunder: The Open Philanthropy ProjectFunder: Lisa YangWe recently developed expansion microscopy (ExM), which achieves nanoscale-precise imaging of specimens at ~70 nm resolution (with ~4.5x linear expansion) by isotropic swelling of chemically processed, hydrogel-embedded tissue. ExM of C. elegans is challenged by its cuticle, which is stiff and impermeable to antibodies. Here we present a strategy, expansion of C. elegans (ExCel), to expand fixed, intact C. elegans. ExCel enables simultaneous readout of fluorescent proteins, RNA, DNA location, and anatomical structures at resolutions of ~65-75 nm (3.3-3.8x linear expansion). We also developed epitope-preserving ExCel, which enables imaging of endogenous proteins stained by antibodies, and iterative ExCel, which enables imaging of fluorescent proteins after 20x linear expansion. We demonstrate the utility of the ExCel toolbox for mapping synaptic proteins, for identifying previously unreported proteins at cell junctions, and for gene expression analysis in multiple individual neurons of the same animal

On the performance of ACO-based methods in p2p resource discovery

Over the recent years peer-to-peer (p2p) systems have become increasingly popular. As of today most ofthe internet IP traffic is already transmitted in this format and still it is said to double in volume till 2014.Most p2p systems, however, are not pure serverless solutions, nor is the searching in those networkshighly efficient, usually achieved by simple flooding. In order to confront with the growing traffic wemust consider more elaborate search mechanisms and far less centralized environments. An effectiveproposal to this problem is to solve it in the domain of ant colony optimization metaheuristics. In thispaper we present an overview of ACO algorithms that offer the best potential in this field, under the strictrequirements and limitations of a pure p2p network. We design several experiments to serve as an evalu-ation platform for the mentioned algorithms to conclude the features of a high quality approach. Finally,we consider two hybrid extensions to the classical algorithms, in order to examine their contribution tothe overall quality robustness.© 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science and Innovation under the National Strategic Program of Scientific Research, Development and Technological Innovation (I+D+i) project TIN2010-20488. Kamil Krynicki is supported by a FPI fellowship from Universidad Politecnica de Valencia.Krynicki, KK.; Jaén Martínez, FJ.; Mocholí Agües, JA. (2013). On the performance of ACO-based methods in p2p resource discovery. Applied Soft Computing. 13(12):4813-4831. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2013.07.022S48134831131

Model-based training of manual procedures in automated production systems

Maintenance engineers deal with increasingly complex automated production systems (aPSs). Such systems are characterized by an increasing computerization or the addition of robots that collaborate with human workers. The effects of changing or replacing components of such systems are difficult to assess since there are complex interdependencies between process parameters and the state of the components. This paper proposes a model-based training system that visualizes these interdependencies using domain-independent SysML models. The training system consists of a virtual training system for initial training and an online support system for assistance during maintenance or changeover procedures. Both systems use structural SysML models to visualize the state of the machine at a certain step of a procedure. An evaluation of the system in a changeover procedure against a paper-based manual showed promising results regarding effectiveness, usability and attractiveness.Comment: 25 pages, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095741581830080

Robustness and performance tradeoffs in control design for flexible structures

The design of control laws for the Caltech flexible structure experiment using a nominal design model with varying levels of uncertainty is considered. A brief overview of the structured singular value (µ) H∞ control design, and µ-synthesis design techniques is presented. Tradeoffs associated with uncertainty modeling of flexible structures are discussed. A series of controllers are synthesized based on different uncertainty descriptions. It is shown that an improper selection of nominal and uncertainty models may lead to unstable or poor-performing controllers on the actual system. In contrast, if descriptions of uncertainty are overly conservative, performance of the closed-loop system may be severely limited. Experimental results on control laws synthesized for different uncertainty levels on the Caltech structure are presented