326 research outputs found
Genetic programming for adaptive digital signal processing
Abstract available: p. i-ii
NASA Space Engineering Research Center Symposium on VLSI Design
The NASA Space Engineering Research Center (SERC) is proud to offer, at its second symposium on VLSI design, presentations by an outstanding set of individuals from national laboratories and the electronics industry. These featured speakers share insights into next generation advances that will serve as a basis for future VLSI design. Questions of reliability in the space environment along with new directions in CAD and design are addressed by the featured speakers
Artificial cognitive architecture with self-learning and self-optimization capabilities. Case studies in micromachining processes
Tesis doctoral inĂ©dita leĂda en la Universidad AutĂłnoma de Madrid, Escuela PolitĂ©cnica Superior, Departamento de IngenierĂa Informática. Fecha de lectura : 22-09-201
Implementation, integration, and optimization of a fuzzy foreground segmentation system
Foreground segmentation is often an important preliminary step for various video processing systems. By improving the accuracy of the foreground segmentation process, the overall performance of a video processing system has the potential for improvement. This work introduces a Fuzzy Foreground Segmentation System (FFSS) that uses Mamdani-type Fuzzy Inference Systems (FIS) to control pixel-level accumulated statistics. The error of the FFSS is quantified by comparing its output with hand-segmented ground-truth images from a set of image sequences that specifically model canonical problems of foreground segmentation. Optimization of the FFSS parameters is achieved using a Real-Coded Genetic Algorithm (RCGA). Additionally, multiple central composite designed experiments used to analyze the performance of RCGA under selected schemes and their respective parameters. The RCGA schemes and parameters are chosen as to reduce variation and execution time for a set of known multi-dimensional test functions. The selected multi-dimensional test functions represent assorted function landscapes. To demonstrate accuracy of the FFSS and implicate the importance of the foreground segmentation process, the system is applied to real-time human detection from a single-camera security system. The Human Detection System (HDS) is composed of an IP Camera networked to multiple heterogeneous computers for distributed parallel processing. The implementation of the HDS, adheres to a System of Systems (SoS) architecture which standardizes data/communication, reduces overall complexity, and maintains a high level of interoperability
Advanced Interfaces for HMI in Hand Gesture Recognition
The present thesis investigates techniques and technologies for high quality Human Machine
Interfaces (HMI) in biomedical applications. Starting from a literature review and considering
market SoA in this field, the thesis explores advanced sensor interfaces, wearable computing
and machine learning techniques for embedded resource-constrained systems. The research
starts from the design and implementation of a real-time control system for a multifinger
hand prosthesis based on pattern recognition algorithms. This system is capable to control
an artificial hand using a natural gesture interface, considering the challenges related to
the trade-off between responsiveness, accuracy and light computation. Furthermore, the
thesis addresses the challenges related to the design of a scalable and versatile system for
gesture recognition with the integration of a novel sensor interface for wearable medical and
consumer application
Mathematics and Digital Signal Processing
Modern computer technology has opened up new opportunities for the development of digital signal processing methods. The applications of digital signal processing have expanded significantly and today include audio and speech processing, sonar, radar, and other sensor array processing, spectral density estimation, statistical signal processing, digital image processing, signal processing for telecommunications, control systems, biomedical engineering, and seismology, among others. This Special Issue is aimed at wide coverage of the problems of digital signal processing, from mathematical modeling to the implementation of problem-oriented systems. The basis of digital signal processing is digital filtering. Wavelet analysis implements multiscale signal processing and is used to solve applied problems of de-noising and compression. Processing of visual information, including image and video processing and pattern recognition, is actively used in robotic systems and industrial processes control today. Improving digital signal processing circuits and developing new signal processing systems can improve the technical characteristics of many digital devices. The development of new methods of artificial intelligence, including artificial neural networks and brain-computer interfaces, opens up new prospects for the creation of smart technology. This Special Issue contains the latest technological developments in mathematics and digital signal processing. The stated results are of interest to researchers in the field of applied mathematics and developers of modern digital signal processing systems
Pattern recognition-based real-time myoelectric control for anthropomorphic robotic systems : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Mechatronics at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand
All copyrighted Figures have been removed but may be accessed via their source cited in their respective captions.Advanced human-computer interaction (HCI) or human-machine interaction (HMI) aims to help
humans interact with computers smartly. Biosignal-based technology is one of the most promising
approaches in developing intelligent HCI systems. As a means of convenient and non-invasive
biosignal-based intelligent control, myoelectric control identifies human movement intentions from
electromyogram (EMG) signals recorded on muscles to realise intelligent control of robotic systems.
Although the history of myoelectric control research has been more than half a century, commercial
myoelectric-controlled devices are still mostly based on those early threshold-based methods. The
emerging pattern recognition-based myoelectric control has remained an active research topic in
laboratories because of insufficient reliability and robustness. This research focuses on pattern
recognition-based myoelectric control. Up to now, most of effort in pattern recognition-based
myoelectric control research has been invested in improving EMG pattern classification accuracy.
However, high classification accuracy cannot directly lead to high controllability and usability for
EMG-driven systems. This suggests that a complete system that is composed of relevant modules,
including EMG acquisition, pattern recognition-based gesture discrimination, output equipment and its
controller, is desirable and helpful as a developing and validating platform that is able to closely emulate
real-world situations to promote research in myoelectric control.
This research aims at investigating feasible and effective EMG signal processing and pattern
recognition methods to extract useful information contained in EMG signals to establish an intelligent,
compact and economical biosignal-based robotic control system. The research work includes in-depth
study on existing pattern recognition-based methodologies, investigation on effective EMG signal
capturing and data processing, EMG-based control system development, and anthropomorphic robotic
hand design. The contributions of this research are mainly in following three aspects:
Developed precision electronic surface EMG (sEMG) acquisition methods that are able to
collect high quality sEMG signals. The first method was designed in a single-ended signalling
manner by using monolithic instrumentation amplifiers to determine and evaluate the analog
sEMG signal processing chain architecture and circuit parameters. This method was then
evolved into a fully differential analog sEMG detection and collection method that uses
common commercial electronic components to implement all analog sEMG amplification and
filtering stages in a fully differential way. The proposed fully differential sEMG detection and collection method is capable of offering a higher signal-to-noise ratio in noisy environments
than the single-ended method by making full use of inherent common-mode noise rejection
capability of balanced signalling. To the best of my knowledge, the literature study has not
found similar methods that implement the entire analog sEMG amplification and filtering chain
in a fully differential way by using common commercial electronic components.
Investigated and developed a reliable EMG pattern recognition-based real-time gesture
discrimination approach. Necessary functional modules for real-time gesture discrimination
were identified and implemented using appropriate algorithms. Special attention was paid to
the investigation and comparison of representative features and classifiers for improving
accuracy and robustness. A novel EMG feature set was proposed to improve the performance
of EMG pattern recognition.
Designed an anthropomorphic robotic hand construction methodology for myoelectric control
validation on a physical platform similar to in real-world situations. The natural anatomical
structure of the human hand was imitated to kinematically model the robotic hand. The
proposed robotic hand is a highly underactuated mechanism, featuring 14 degrees of freedom
and three degrees of actuation.
This research carried out an in-depth investigation into EMG data acquisition and EMG signal pattern
recognition. A series of experiments were conducted in EMG signal processing and system
development. The final myoelectric-controlled robotic hand system and the system testing confirmed
the effectiveness of the proposed methods for surface EMG acquisition and human hand gesture
discrimination. To verify and demonstrate the proposed myoelectric control system, real-time tests were
conducted onto the anthropomorphic prototype robotic hand. Currently, the system is able to identify
five patterns in real time, including hand open, hand close, wrist flexion, wrist extension and the rest
state. With more motion patterns added in, this system has the potential to identify more hand
movements. The research has generated a few journal and international conference publications
Design Techniques for Energy-Quality Scalable Digital Systems
Energy efficiency is one of the key design goals in modern computing. Increasingly complex tasks are being executed in mobile devices and Internet of Things end-nodes, which are expected to operate for long time intervals, in the orders of months or years, with the limited energy budgets provided by small form-factor batteries. Fortunately, many of such tasks are error resilient, meaning that they can toler- ate some relaxation in the accuracy, precision or reliability of internal operations, without a significant impact on the overall output quality. The error resilience of an application may derive from a number of factors. The processing of analog sensor inputs measuring quantities from the physical world may not always require maximum precision, as the amount of information that can be extracted is limited by the presence of external noise. Outputs destined for human consumption may also contain small or occasional errors, thanks to the limited capabilities of our vision and hearing systems. Finally, some computational patterns commonly found in domains such as statistics, machine learning and operational research, naturally tend to reduce or eliminate errors. Energy-Quality (EQ) scalable digital systems systematically trade off the quality of computations with energy efficiency, by relaxing the precision, the accuracy, or the reliability of internal software and hardware components in exchange for energy reductions. This design paradigm is believed to offer one of the most promising solutions to the impelling need for low-energy computing. Despite these high expectations, the current state-of-the-art in EQ scalable design suffers from important shortcomings. First, the great majority of techniques proposed in literature focus only on processing hardware and software components. Nonetheless, for many real devices, processing contributes only to a small portion of the total energy consumption, which is dominated by other components (e.g. I/O, memory or data transfers). Second, in order to fulfill its promises and become diffused in commercial devices, EQ scalable design needs to achieve industrial level maturity. This involves moving from purely academic research based on high-level models and theoretical assumptions to engineered flows compatible with existing industry standards. Third, the time-varying nature of error tolerance, both among different applications and within a single task, should become more central in the proposed design methods. This involves designing “dynamic” systems in which the precision or reliability of operations (and consequently their energy consumption) can be dynamically tuned at runtime, rather than “static” solutions, in which the output quality is fixed at design-time. This thesis introduces several new EQ scalable design techniques for digital systems that take the previous observations into account. Besides processing, the proposed methods apply the principles of EQ scalable design also to interconnects and peripherals, which are often relevant contributors to the total energy in sensor nodes and mobile systems respectively. Regardless of the target component, the presented techniques pay special attention to the accurate evaluation of benefits and overheads deriving from EQ scalability, using industrial-level models, and on the integration with existing standard tools and protocols. Moreover, all the works presented in this thesis allow the dynamic reconfiguration of output quality and energy consumption. More specifically, the contribution of this thesis is divided in three parts. In a first body of work, the design of EQ scalable modules for processing hardware data paths is considered. Three design flows are presented, targeting different technologies and exploiting different ways to achieve EQ scalability, i.e. timing-induced errors and precision reduction. These works are inspired by previous approaches from the literature, namely Reduced-Precision Redundancy and Dynamic Accuracy Scaling, which are re-thought to make them compatible with standard Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools and flows, providing solutions to overcome their main limitations. The second part of the thesis investigates the application of EQ scalable design to serial interconnects, which are the de facto standard for data exchanges between processing hardware and sensors. In this context, two novel bus encodings are proposed, called Approximate Differential Encoding and Serial-T0, that exploit the statistical characteristics of data produced by sensors to reduce the energy consumption on the bus at the cost of controlled data approximations. The two techniques achieve different results for data of different origins, but share the common features of allowing runtime reconfiguration of the allowed error and being compatible with standard serial bus protocols. Finally, the last part of the manuscript is devoted to the application of EQ scalable design principles to displays, which are often among the most energy- hungry components in mobile systems. The two proposals in this context leverage the emissive nature of Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) displays to save energy by altering the displayed image, thus inducing an output quality reduction that depends on the amount of such alteration. The first technique implements an image-adaptive form of brightness scaling, whose outputs are optimized in terms of balance between power consumption and similarity with the input. The second approach achieves concurrent power reduction and image enhancement, by means of an adaptive polynomial transformation. Both solutions focus on minimizing the overheads associated with a real-time implementation of the transformations in software or hardware, so that these do not offset the savings in the display. For each of these three topics, results show that the aforementioned goal of building EQ scalable systems compatible with existing best practices and mature for being integrated in commercial devices can be effectively achieved. Moreover, they also show that very simple and similar principles can be applied to design EQ scalable versions of different system components (processing, peripherals and I/O), and to equip these components with knobs for the runtime reconfiguration of the energy versus quality tradeoff
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