Safe trajectory planning of AV

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2006.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-163).This thesis presents a novel framework for safe online trajectory planning of unmanned vehicles through partially unknown environments. The basic planning problem is formulated as a receding horizon optimization problem using mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) to incorporate kino-dynamic, obstacle avoidance and collision avoidance constraints. Agile vehicle dynamics are captured through a hybrid control architecture that combines several linear time-invariant modes with a discrete set of agile maneuvers. The latter are represented by affine transformations in the state space and can be described using a limited number of parameters. We specialize the approach to the case of a small-scale helicopter flying through an urban environment. Next, we introduce the concept of terminal feasible invariant sets in which a vehicle can remain for an indefinite period of time without colliding with obstacles or other vehicles. These sets are formulated as affine constraints on the last state of the planning horizon and as such are computed online. They guarantee feasibility of the receding horizon optimization at future time steps by providing an a priori known backup plan that is dynamically feasible and obstacle-free.(cont.) Vehicle safety is ensured by maintaining a feasible return trajectory at each receding horizon iteration. The feasibility and safety constraints are essential when the vehicle is maneuvering through environments that are only partially characterized and further explored online. Such a scenario was tested on an unmanned Boeing aircraft using scalable loiter circles as feasible invariant sets. The terminal feasible invariant set concept forms the basis for the construction of a provably safe distributed planning algorithm for multiple vehicles. Each vehicle then only computes its own trajectory while accounting for the latest plans and invariant sets of the other vehicles in its vicinity, i.e., of those whose reachable sets intersect with that of the planning vehicle. Conflicts are solved in real-time in a sequential fashion that maintains feasibility for all vehicles over all future receding horizon iterations. The algorithm is applied to the free flight paradigm in air traffic control and to a multi-helicopter relay network aimed at maintaining wireless line of sight communication in a cluttered environment.by Tom Schouwenaars.Ph.D

Generating anatomical substructures for physically-based facial animation.

Physically-based facial animation techniques are capable of producing realistic facial deformations, but have failed to find meaningful use outside the academic community because they are notoriously difficult to create, reuse, and art-direct, in comparison to other methods of facial animation. This thesis addresses these shortcomings and presents a series of methods for automatically generating a skull, the superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS – a layer of fascia investing and interlinking the mimic muscle system), and mimic muscles for any given 3D face model. This is done toward (the goal of) a production-viable framework or rig-builder for physically-based facial animation. This workflow consists of three major steps. First, a generic skull is fitted to a given head model using thin-plate splines computed from the correspondence between landmarks placed on both models. Second, the SMAS is constructed as a variational implicit or radial basis function surface in the interface between the head model and the generic skull fitted to it. Lastly, muscle fibres are generated as boundary-value straightest geodesics, connecting muscle attachment regions defined on the surface of the SMAS. Each step of this workflow is developed with speed, realism and reusability in mind

New Global Perspectives on Archaeological Prospection

This volume is a product of the 13th International Conference on Archaeological Prospection 2019, which was hosted by the Department of Environmental Science in the Faculty of Science at the Institute of Technology Sligo. The conference is held every two years under the banner of the International Society for Archaeological Prospection and this was the first time that the conference was held in Ireland. New Global Perspectives on Archaeological Prospection draws together over 90 papers addressing archaeological prospection techniques, methodologies and case studies from 33 countries across Africa, Asia, Australasia, Europe and North America, reflecting current and global trends in archaeological prospection. At this particular ICAP meeting, specific consideration was given to the development and use of archaeological prospection in Ireland, archaeological feedback for the prospector, applications of prospection technology in the urban environment and the use of legacy data. Papers include novel research areas such as magnetometry near the equator, drone-mounted radar, microgravity assessment of tombs, marine electrical resistivity tomography, convolutional neural networks, data processing, automated interpretive workflows and modelling as well as recent improvements in remote sensing, multispectral imaging and visualisation

Dexterous robotic motion planning using intelligent algorithms

The fundamental purpose of robots is to help humans in a variety of difficult tasks, enabling people to increase their capabilities of strength, energy, speed, memory, and to operate in hazardous environments and many other applications. Service robots, more precisely mobile manipulators, incorporate one or two robotic arms and a mobile base, and must accomplish complex manipulations tasks, interacting with tools or objects and navigating through cluttered environments. To this end, the motion planning problem plays a key role in the ahead calculation of robot movements to interact with its world and achieve the established goals. The objective of this work is to design various motion planning methods in order to improve the autonomy of MANFRED-2, which is a mobile robot fully developed by the Robotics Lab research group of the Systems Engineering and Automation Department of the Carlos III University of Madrid. Mobile robots need to calculate accurate paths in order to navigate and interact with objects throughout their surrounding area. In this work, we have developed motion planning algorithms for both navigation and manipulation. The presented algorithms for path planning are based on the Fast Marching Square method and include a replanner with subgoals, an anytime triangular planner, and a nonholonomic approach. The replanner with subgoals starts by generating a smooth and safe global path with the Fast Marching Square method. Then, this path is divided into multiple subpaths separated by equidistant nodes (defined by topological or metric constraints). After that, the obstacles information is progressively added and modifications are made only when the original path is unreachable. The most important advantage with respect to similar approaches is that the generated sub-paths are always efficient in terms of smoothness and safeness. Besides, the computational cost is low enough to use the algorithm in real-time. The anytime triangular planner, such as “Anytime” algorithms, quickly finds a feasible but not necessarily optimal motion plan which is incrementally improved. One important characteristic that this type of algorithms must satisfy is that the path must be generated in real-time. The planner relies on the Fast Marching Square method over a triangular mesh structure. Different variants are introduced and compared under equal circumstances that produce different paths in response time and quality, which leads us to an additional consideration. As in the field of benchmarking it is becoming increasingly difficult to compare new planners approaches because of the lack of a general benchmarking platform, improvements to existing approaches are suggested. Finally, the nonholonomic approach is presented. It is based on the Fast Marching Square method and its application to car-like robots. In order to apply the proposed method, a three dimensional configuration space of the environment is considered. The first two dimensions are given by the position of the robot, and the third one by its orientation. This means that we operate over the configuration space instead of the bi-dimensional environment map. Besides, the trajectory is computed along the configuration space taking into account the dimensions of the vehicle. In this way, it is possible to guarantee the absence of collisions. The proposed method is consistent at local and global scale because it guarantees a motion path solution, if it exists, and does not require global replanning supervision when a local trap is detected. Once a mobile robot has reached a goal location, it usually triggers the servomotors enclosed inside its robotic arm to manipulate a target. The manipulation algorithms presented in this work include the adaptation of trajectories, a planner with adaptive dimensionality, and an implementation of a dimensionality reduction approach inside a nuclear device. The adaptation of manipulation trajectories enables the robot to accomplish a task in different locations by using Evolution Strategies and forward kinematics. This approach avoids all the inconveniences that inverse kinematics imply, as well as the convergence problems in singular kinematic configurations. The planner with adaptive dimensionality reduces the complexity of high-dimensional path planning. First, a Rapidly-exploring Random Tree trajectory is generated using the full degrees of freedom of the robotic arm. Then, a geometry as a closed tube is built around the path line and the Fast Marching Square method is applied from start to goal using three dimensions inside the surface. The resulted three dimensional path is converted to full degrees of freedom with the inverse kinematics of the robot. The result is a smoother and safer path, visually more human friendly. Additionally, the search space is reduced, and therefore, also the planning time and the memory requirements. The application inside the nuclear device, similarly to the previous approach, reduces the degrees of freedom of the problem (but this time to two dimensions due to the mostly planar nature of the robot). The manipulation path is smooth and safe in an environment where safety must be the primarily objective. The motion planning algorithms have been tested in numerous experiments. The fast response of the methods allows its application in real-time tasks.El propósito fundamental de los robots es ayudar a los humanos en tareas difíciles, lo que permite a las personas incrementar sus capacidades de fuerza, energía, velocidad y memoria para trabajar en entornos peligrosos y en una inmensa variedad de aplicaciones. Los robots de servicio, puntualmente los manipuladores móviles, incorporan uno o dos brazos robóticos y una base móvil, y deben ser capaces de realizar tareas complejas de manipulación, interactuando con herramientas u objetos y navegando a través de entornos con obstáculos. Para este fin, el problema de la planificación de movimientos juega un rol clave en el cálculo anticipado de los movimientos del robot, para interactuar con su mundo y realizar las tareas establecidas. El objetivo de este trabajo es diseñar diversos métodos de planificación de movimiento con el fin de mejorar la autonomía de MANFRED-2, un robot móvil que fue desarrollado completamente en el grupo de investigación del Laboratorio de Robótica del Departamento de Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automatización de la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Los robots móviles necesitan calcular de antemano trayectorias precisas para poder navegar e interactuar con objetos en su entorno. En este trabajo, hemos desarrollado algoritmos de planificación de movimiento para navegación y manipulación robótica. Los algoritmos presentados para la planificación de trayectorias de navegación se basan en el método de Fast Marching Square (FM2) e incluyen un replanificador con sub-objetivos, un planificador triangular de tipo interrumpible (en inglés este enfoque es mejor conocido como Anytime), y un enfoque no holonómico. El replanificador con submetas comienza generando una trayectoria global de curvas suaves y segura con FM2, entonces este camino es dividido en múltiples subtrayectorias separadas por nodos equidistantes (definidos por restricciones topológicas o métricas). Después de esto, se actualiza progresivamente el entorno con obstáculos detectados por los sensores; sólo se realizan cambios cuando la trayectoria original resulta inalcanzable. La ventaja más importante con respecto a enfoques similares es que las sub-trayectorias generadas son siempre eficientes en términos de suavidad y seguridad. Además, el coste computacional es lo suficientemente bajo como para utilizar el algoritmo en tiempo real. El planificador triangular interrumpible, como algoritmo “Anytime”, encuentra rápidamente una trayectoria de navegación válida, pero no necesariamente ópti ma, a continuación, de forma incremental se va mejorando según haya tiempo hasta llegar al óptimo. La capacidad más resaltante de este tipo de algoritmos es la de generar trayectorias en tiempo real. El planificador se basa en el uso de FM2 sobre una estructura de malla triangular. Se presentan diferentes formas de construir el mallado y se comparan en igualdad de circunstancias los diferentes caminos producidos en tiempo de respuesta y calidad, lo que generó una contribución adicional. Debido a la falta de una plataforma general de evaluación robusta, en el campo de la evaluación de trayectorias es cada vez más difícil comparar nuevos planificadores, por consiguiente se sugieren mejoras a los enfoques existentes. Finalmente, se presenta el enfoque no holónomo, que se basa en FM2 y su aplicación en robots móviles con sistemas de dirección similares a la de los coches. Para aplicar el método propuesto, se considera un espacio de configuración tridimensional del entorno, donde las dos primeras dimensiones vienen dadas por la posición del robot y la tercera dimensión, por su orientación. Esto quiere decir, que operamos en el espacio de configuraciones en vez de en el mapa bidimensional del entorno. Además, la trayectoria se calcula en el espacio de configuraciones teniendo en cuenta las dimensiones del vehículo, de esta manera es posible garantizar la ausencia de colisiones. El método propuesto es consistente a nivel local y global, ya que si existe una solución se garantiza encontrarla, y no requiere de supervisión global para reiniciar una planificación cuando se detecta un bloqueo a nivel local. Una vez que el robot móvil ha alcanzado la ubicación requerida, se suelen accionar los servomotores que están dentro del brazo robótico para manipular un objeto. Los algoritmos de manipulación presentados en este trabajo incluyen la adaptación de trayectorias, un planificador con dimensionalidad adaptable, y una implementación de un método de reducción de la dimensionalidad dentro de un dispositivo nuclear. La adaptación de las trayectorias de manipulación permite al robot realizar una misma tarea con diferentes ubicaciones y orientaciones haciendo uso de una Evolution Strategy y la cinemática directa del robot, este enfoque evita todos los inconvenientes que implican utilizar la cinemática inversa, así como los problemas de convergencia en configuraciones cinemáticas singulares. El planificador con dimensionalidad adaptativa reduce la complejidad de la planificación de trayectorias de manipulación con muchas dimensiones; en primer lugar, una trayectoria RRT se genera utilizando todos los grados de libertad (DOF) del brazo robótico, a continuación, una figura geométrica en forma de tubo cerrado se construye alrededor de la línea de la trayectoria y se aplica FM2 dentro de la superficie desde el inicio hasta el objetivo utilizando tres dimensiones, la ruta 3D resultante se convierte con la cinemática inversa del robot. El resultado es un camino más suave y seguro, más amigable a la vista humana. Además, debido a que el espacio de búsqueda se reduce, también se reduce el tiempo de planificación y los requerimientos de memoria. La aplicación en el interior del dispositivo nuclear, de manera similar al enfoque anterior, reduce los DOF del problema pero esta vez a dos dimensiones aprovechando la naturaleza mayormente plana del robot utilizado. La trayectoria de manipulación es suave y segura, lo que es conveniente en un entorno donde la seguridad debe ser el objetivo principal. Los algoritmos de planificación de movimiento resultantes han sido probados en numerosos experimentos. La respuesta rápida de los métodos permite su aplicación en tiempo real.Programa Oficial de Doctorado en Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y AutomáticaPresidente: Carlos Balaguer Bernaldo de Quirós.- Secretario: Carlos Sagüés Blázquiz.- Vocal: Pedro Lim

Generating anatomical substructures for physically-based facial animation

Physically-based facial animation techniques are capable of producing realistic facial deformations, but have failed to find meaningful use outside the academic community because they are notoriously difficult to create, reuse, and art-direct, in comparison to other methods of facial animation. This thesis addresses these shortcomings and presents a series of methods for automatically generating a skull, the superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS – a layer of fascia investing and interlinking the mimic muscle system), and mimic muscles for any given 3D face model. This is done toward (the goal of) a production-viable framework or rig-builder for physically-based facial animation. This workflow consists of three major steps. First, a generic skull is fitted to a given head model using thin-plate splines computed from the correspondence between landmarks placed on both models. Second, the SMAS is constructed as a variational implicit or radial basis function surface in the interface between the head model and the generic skull fitted to it. Lastly, muscle fibres are generated as boundary-value straightest geodesics, connecting muscle attachment regions defined on the surface of the SMAS. Each step of this workflow is developed with speed, realism and reusability in mind.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Generating anatomical substructures for physically-based facial animation

Physically-based facial animation techniques are capable of producing realistic facial deformations, but have failed to find meaningful use outside the academic community because they are notoriously difficult to create, reuse, and art-direct, in comparison to other methods of facial animation. This thesis addresses these shortcomings and presents a series of methods for automatically generating a skull, the superficial musculoaponeurotic system (SMAS – a layer of fascia investing and interlinking the mimic muscle system), and mimic muscles for any given 3D face model. This is done toward (the goal of) a production-viable framework or rig-builder for physically-based facial animation. This workflow consists of three major steps. First, a generic skull is fitted to a given head model using thin-plate splines computed from the correspondence between landmarks placed on both models. Second, the SMAS is constructed as a variational implicit or radial basis function surface in the interface between the head model and the generic skull fitted to it. Lastly, muscle fibres are generated as boundary-value straightest geodesics, connecting muscle attachment regions defined on the surface of the SMAS. Each step of this workflow is developed with speed, realism and reusability in mind.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Efficient physics-based room-acoustics modeling and auralization

The goal of this research is to develop efficient algorithms for physics-based room acoustics modeling and real-time auralization. Given the room geometry and wall materials, in addition to listener and sound source positions and other properties, the auralization system aims at reproducing the sound as would be heard by the listener in a corresponding physical setup. A secondary goal is to predict the room acoustics parameters reliably. The thesis presents a new algorithm for room acoustics modeling. The acoustic radiance transfer method is an element-based algorithm which models the energy transfer in the room like the acoustic radiosity technique, but is capable of modeling arbitrary local reflections defined as bidirectional reflectance distribution functions. Implementing real-time auralization requires efficient room acoustics modeling. This thesis presents three approaches for improving the speed of the modeling process. First, the room geometry can be reduced. For this purpose an algorithm, based on volumetric decomposition and reconstructions of the surface, is described. The algorithm is capable of simplifying the topology of the model and it is shown that the acoustical properties of the room are sufficiently well preserved with even 80 % reduction rates in typical room models. Second, some of the data required for room acoustics modeling can be precomputed. It is shown that in the beam tracing algorithm a visibility structure called "beam tree" can be precomputed efficiently, allowing even moving sound sources in simple cases. In the acoustic radiance transfer method, effects of the room geometry can be precomputed. Third, the run-time computation can be optimized. The thesis describes two optimization techniques for the beam tracing algorithm which are shown to speed up the process by two orders of magnitude. On the other hand, performing the precomputation for the acoustic radiance transfer method in the frequency domain allows a very efficient implementation of the final phase of the modeling on the graphics processing unit. An interactive auralization system, based on this technique is presented

Path planning and map monitoring for self-driving vehicles based on HD maps

Este trabajo ha sido realizado dentro del contexto del proyecto Techs4AgeCar en el grupo de investigación Robesafe, cuyo objetivo es el desarrollo de un vehículo de conducción autónoma. Forma parte de dos líneas distintas del proyecto, la de mapeado y la de planificación, ya que ambas están directamente relacionadas. Se ha desarrollado un planificador de rutas global basado en mapas de alta defición (HD Maps) offline previamente generados. Por otro lado, también se ha cubierto toda la parte de generación de mapas que posteriormente son utilizados por el planificador. Además, se ha desarrollado un módulo capaz de aprovechar la información proporcionado por el mapa, de forma que se monitorizan los elementos relevantes y cercanos al coche que afectan a la ruta, como son carriles, intersecciones y elementos regulatoriosThis work has been done within the context of the Techs4AgeCar project in the Robesafe research group, whose project focuses on the development of an autonomous driving vehicle. This work is part of two different layers of the project, mapping and planning layers, since both are directly related. A global route planner has been developed based on previously generated offline HD Maps. Therefore, the entire part of generating maps that are later used by the planner has also been covered. In addition, a module capable of taking advantage of the information provided by the map has been developed, so that the relevant elements close to the vehicle that affect the route such as lanes, intersections and regulatory elements are monitored.Máster Universitario en Ingeniería Industrial (M 141

A Pipeline of 3D Scene Reconstruction from Point Clouds

3D technologies are becoming increasingly popular as their applications in industrial, consumer, entertainment, healthcare, education, and governmental increase in number. According to market predictions, the total 3D modeling and mapping market is expected to grow from $1.1 billion in 2013 to$7.7 billion by 2018. Thus, 3D modeling techniques for different data sources are urgently needed. This thesis addresses techniques for automated point cloud classification and the reconstruction of 3D scenes (including terrain models, 3D buildings and 3D road networks). First, georeferenced binary image processing techniques were developed for various point cloud classifications. Second, robust methods for the pipeline from the original point cloud to 3D model construction were proposed. Third, the reconstruction for the levels of detail (LoDs) of 1-3 (CityGML website) of 3D models was demonstrated. Fourth, different data sources for 3D model reconstruction were studied. The strengths and weaknesses of using the different data sources were addressed. Mobile laser scanning (MLS), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) images, airborne laser scanning (ALS), and the Finnish National Land Survey’s open geospatial data sources e.g. a topographic database, were employed as test data. Among these data sources, MLS data from three different systems were explored, and three different densities of ALS point clouds (0.8, 8 and 50 points/m2) were studied. The results were compared with reference data such as an orthophoto with a ground sample distance of 20cm or measured reference points from existing software to evaluate their quality. The results showed that 74.6% of building roofs were reconstructed with the automated process. The resulting building models provided an average height deviation of 15 cm. A total of 6% of model points had a greater than one-pixel deviation from laser points. A total of 2.5% had a deviation of greater than two pixels. The pixel size was determined by the average distance of input laser points. The 3D roads were reconstructed with an average width deviation of 22 cm and an average height deviation of 14 cm. The results demonstrated that 93.4% of building roofs were correctly classified from sparse ALS and that 93.3% of power line points are detected from the six sets of dense ALS data located in forested areas. This study demonstrates the operability of 3D model construction for LoDs of 1-3 via the proposed methodologies and datasets. The study is beneficial to future applications, such as 3D-model-based navigation applications, the updating of 2D topographic databases into 3D maps and rapid, large-area 3D scene reconstruction. 3D-teknologiat ovat tulleet yhä suositummiksi niiden sovellusalojen lisääntyessä teollisuudessa, kuluttajatuotteissa, terveydenhuollossa, koulutuksessa ja hallinnossa. Ennusteiden mukaan 3D-mallinnus- ja -kartoitusmarkkinat kasvavat vuoden 2013 1,1 miljardista dollarista 7,7 miljardiin vuoteen 2018 mennessä. Erilaisia aineistoja käyttäviä 3D-mallinnustekniikoita tarvitaankin yhä enemmän. Tässä väitöskirjatutkimuksessa kehitettiin automaattisen pistepilviaineiston luokittelutekniikoita ja rekonstruoitiin 3D-ympäristöja (maanpintamalleja, rakennuksia ja tieverkkoja). Georeferoitujen binääristen kuvien prosessointitekniikoita kehitettiin useiden pilvipisteaineistojen luokitteluun. Työssä esitetään robusteja menetelmiä alkuperäisestä pistepilvestä 3D-malliin eri CityGML-standardin tarkkuustasoilla. Myös eri aineistolähteitä 3D-mallien rekonstruointiin tutkittiin. Eri aineistolähteiden käytön heikkoudet ja vahvuudet analysoitiin. Testiaineistona käytettiin liikkuvalla keilauksella (mobile laser scanning, MLS) ja ilmakeilauksella (airborne laser scanning, ALS) saatua laserkeilausaineistoja, miehittämättömillä lennokeilla (unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV) otettuja kuvia sekä Maanmittauslaitoksen avoimia aineistoja, kuten maastotietokantaa. Liikkuvalla laserkeilauksella kerätyn aineiston osalta tutkimuksessa käytettiin kolmella eri järjestelmällä saatua dataa, ja kolmen eri tarkkuustason (0,8, 8 ja 50 pistettä/m2) ilmalaserkeilausaineistoa. Tutkimuksessa saatuja tulosten laatua arvioitiin vertaamalla niitä referenssiaineistoon, jona käytettiin ortokuvia (GSD 20cm) ja nykyisissä ohjelmistoissa olevia mitattuja referenssipisteitä. 74,6 % rakennusten katoista saatiin rekonstruoitua automaattisella prosessilla. Rakennusmallien korkeuksien keskipoikkeama oli 15 cm. 6 %:lla mallin pisteistä oli yli yhden pikselin poikkeama laseraineiston pisteisiin verrattuna. 2,5 %:lla oli yli kahden pikselin poikkeama. Pikselikoko määriteltiin kahden laserpisteen välimatkan keskiarvona. Rekonstruoitujen teiden leveyden keskipoikkeama oli 22 cm ja korkeuden keskipoikkeama oli 14 cm. Tulokset osoittavat että 93,4 % rakennuksista saatiin luokiteltua oikein harvasta ilmalaserkeilausaineistosta ja 93,3 % sähköjohdoista saatiin havaittua kuudesta tiheästä metsäalueen ilmalaserkeilausaineistosta. Tutkimus demonstroi 3D-mallin konstruktion toimivuutta tarkkuustasoilla (LoD) 1-3 esitetyillä menetelmillä ja aineistoilla. Tulokset ovat hyödyllisiä kehitettäessä tulevaisuuden sovelluksia, kuten 3D-malleihin perustuvia navigointisovelluksia, topografisten 2D-karttojen ajantasaistamista 3D-kartoiksi, ja nopeaa suurten alueiden 3D-ympäristöjen rekonstruktiota

Responsive Architecture

This book is a collection of articles that have been published in the Special Issue “Responsive Architecture” of the MDPI journal Buildings. The eleven articles within cover various areas of sensitive architecture, including the design of packaging structures reacting to supporting components; structural efficiency of bent columns in indigenous houses; roof forms responsive to buildings depending on their resiliently transformed steel shell parts; creative design of building free shapes covered with transformed shells; artistic structural concepts of the architect and civil engineer; digitally designed airport terminal using wind analysis; rationalized shaping of sensitive curvilinear steel construction; interactive stories of responsive architecture; transformed shell roof constructions as the main determinant in the creative shaping of buildings without shapes that are sensitive to man-made and natural environments; thermally sensitive performances of a special shielding envelope on balconies; quantification of generality and adaptability of building layout using the SAGA method; and influence of initial conditions on the simulation of the transient temperature field inside a wall