A programmable 10 Gigabit injector for the LHCb DAQ and its upgrade

The LHCb High Level Trigger and Data Acquisition system selects about 2 kHz of events out of the 1 MHz of events, which have been selected previously by the first-level hardware trigger. The selected events are consolidated into files and then sent to permanent storage for subsequent analysis on the Grid. The goal of the upgrade of the LHCb readout is to lift the limitation to 1 MHz. This means speeding up the DAQ to 40 MHz. Such a DAQ system will certainly employ 10 Gigabit or technologies and might also need new networking protocols: a customized TCP or proprietary solutions. A test module is being presented, which integrates in the existing LHCb infrastructure. It is a 10-Gigabit traffic generator, flexible enough to generate LHCb’s raw data packets using dummy data or simulated data. These data are seen as real data coming from sub-detectors by the DAQ. The implementation is based on an FPGA using 10 Gigabit Ethernet interface. This module is integrated in the experiment control system. The architecture, implementation, and performance results of the solution will be presented

Framework for controlling automation devices based on gestures

Nowadays people's routine is becoming more and more fulfilled, when we are at home or in the office we have constant activities, appointments, and meetings. With the growth of technology, there are several ways it can help and even replace people in certain tasks. Nevertheless, many mundane tasks are not yet possible to be done only by a computer or a robot, and machines and people must work together to achieve the objective. Specifically, devices such as sensors or actuators have become very common in our daily life and they are a great help to have a more comfortable environment in our homes or our work, once they allow us to control the lighting, air conditioning, or multimedia, etc. With this in mind, it is important to develop adaptive interfaces that can instantly adjust to the needs and conditions of each user, making people’s activities more efficient. This dissertation presents a framework that performs the integration of human actions, being gestures and/or poses to activate and control devices that have the standard KNX protocol. A pose detection algorithm is used to detect different gestures/poses, where each gesture or group of gestures integrated with KNX allows easy and universal communication with various types of existing automation devices. The algorithm has standard gestures/poses which are obtained by making comparisons between the coordinates (key points) obtained by the pose estimation, comparing the key points, for example, of the wrist and shoulder for detection of a gesture where the user raises the arm vertically. In addition to standard gestures/poses, it is possible to carry out training so that the algorithm can learn new gestures and, in this way, being adaptive for each type of user. This way, with the detection of the user's gesture/pose, an interaction is then made with the home automation different types of equipment by KNX protocol, each user's gesture performs an interaction on the equipment, such as activating, deactivating, changing its intensity or its mode of operation. The results show that the framework is capable of effortlessly controlling different devices with different functionalities.Atualmente a rotina das pessoas está cada vez mais preenchida, quando estamos em casa ou no escritório cumprindo atividades, compromissos e reuniões constantemente. Com o crescimento da tecnologia, existem várias maneiras de auxiliar e até mesmo substituir as pessoas em certas tarefas. No entanto, muitas tarefas mundanas ainda não são possíveis de serem realizadas apenas por um computador ou um robô, e é necessário que a máquina e a pessoa trabalhem juntas para atingir o objetivo. Especificamente, dispositivos como sensores ou atuadores tornaram-se muito comuns no nosso dia a dia e são de grande ajuda para termos um ambiente mais confortável nas nossas casas ou no nosso trabalho, uma vez que nos permitem controlar diferentes sistemas e equipamentos como a iluminação, ar condicionado ou multimídia, etc. Com isso em mente, é importante desenvolver interfaces adaptativas que possam se ajustar instantaneamente às necessidades e condições de cada utilizador, tornando as atividades das pessoas mais simples e eficientes. Esta dissertação apresenta um framework que utiliza a integração de ações humanas, gestos e/ou poses para ativar e controlar dispositivos de automação que possuam o protocolo padrão KNX. O algortimo possui gestos/poses standard onde são obtidos realizando comparações entre as coordenadas (pontos chave - keypoints) obtidas pela pose estimation, comparando os keypoints, por exemplo, do pulso e do ombro para uma deteção de um gesto onde o utilizador levanta o braço verticalmente. Além de gestos/poses standard é possivel realizar o treinamento para que o algortimo aprenda novos gestos e, desta forma, sendo adaptativo para cada tipo de utilizador. Deste modo, com a detecção de gesto/pose do utilizador é então feita uma interação com os equipamentos de domotica por protocolo KNX, cada gesto do utilizador realiza uma interação nos equipamentos, como ativar, desativar, alterar sua intensidade ou seu modo de funcionamento. Os resultados mostram que o framework é capaz de controlar facilmente diferentes dispositivos com diferentes funcionalidades

Cyber vulnerabilities in the aviation ecosystem: reducing the attack surface through an international aviation trust framework

Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, the aviation system is well developed, however, the community is at similar juncture as the beginning of the 2oth century, only this time the civil aviation system itself is being rapidly transformed by a wave of digital technologies that hold great promise but could also expose the aviation system to new threats. Certain aspects of the digital transformation of the aviation system, based on network connectivity, must be guided to ensure that it generates ever higher-levels of global interoperability and safety. To address this challenge, it is necessary to go back to fundamental principles. It is necessary to establish a system of identity and trust that integrates the wisdom of the Chicago Convention into the digital world that is already overtaking the aviation industry. Service providers, aircraft manufactures, and avionic producers, are all putting in place their own systems of identity and trust as a matter of necessity. That means, in the near future, an aircraft may need different digital certificates to connect with its satellite communications service provider, retrieve data from the airline operations centre, update its avionics software, download engines monitoring data and other functions. The potential number of proprietary secure links is nearly endless. This patchwork of disparate efforts to reduce the attack surface to air and ground operations will add complexity to the system that will be costly to maintain and will offer a myriad of gaps for adversaries to exploit. In the absence of global direction, different manufactures and different States will take different approaches. However, if a globally acceptable system for identity and trust that can be used by manned and unmanned aircraft indistinctively as well as by different service providers and users is available it would likely be embraced by many or all. As such, based on the new vulnerabilities brought by the evolution of the air navigation system through the intense use of digital and connected technologies, the object of this research relates to the vulnerabilities of the aviation system to a cyber-attack and the objective of this thesis is to propose a concept of operations that allows the implementation of a framework able to provide positive digital identification of all members of the aviation community through specific processes and procedures and a virtual network able to preserve the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the data and information being exchanged at the same time it increases the resilience of operations.Atualmente, no início do século vinte e um, a aviação está em uma situação similar ao início do século vinte, entretanto, desta vez, o sistema de aviação civil está bem consolidado, mas se transformando rapidamente motivado por uma onda de novas tecnologias que apresentam grandes promessas, mas que ao mesmo tempo podem expor a aviação a novas ameaças. Certos aspectos da transformação digital do sistema de aviação civil, baseado em redes que permitem ampla conectividade, devem ser corretamente orientados para garantir níveis globais de segurança e interoperabilidade ainda mais elevados. Para enfrentar esse desafio, necessário se faz o estabelecimento de um sistema de identidades digitais e confiança que integre a sabedoria da Convenção de Chicago ao mundo digital que está invadindo a indústria da aviação. Provedores de serviços, fabricantes de aeronaves e aviônicos estão todos colocando em prática seus próprios sistemas de identificação e confiança por necessidade. Isso significa que em um futuro próximo, uma aeronave poderá precisar de diferentes certificados para conectar-se com seus provedores de comunicações por satélite, receber dados de um centro de coordenação de uma compania aérea, atualizar programas em seus aviônicos, baixar dados para monitoramento do funcionamento de seus motores e outras funções. Esse conjunto de iniciativas isoladas para se reduzir a superfície de ataque cibernético para operações no solo e no ar adicionam complexidade ao sistema considerando que essas iniciativas isoladas tornam o sistema como um todo custoso para se manter e também oferecem uma série de vulnerabilidades a serem exploradas por atores mal intencionados. Na ausência de uma direção global, diferentes fabricantes, provedores de serviços e Estados tomarão direções distintas. Entretanto, se um sistema global de identificação digital e confiança que possa ser usado indistintamente pela aviação tripulada e não tripulada, por provedores de serviços, fabricantes e usuários for posto em prática, é muito provável que o mesmo seja adotado por todos dentro do sistema de aviação civil. Portanto, baseado nas novas vulnerabilidades que a evolução dos sistemas de navegação aérea estão trazendo com o uso intenso de tecnologias digitais e conectadas, o objeto desta tese está relacionado às vulnerabilidades do sistema de aviação civil a um ataque cibernético e o objetivo foi o de propor um conceito operacional que permitisse a implementação de uma estrutura capaz de identificar todos os atores da comunidade de aviação civil através de procedimentos e processos específicos e uma rede virtual para preservar a confidencialidade, a integridade e a disponibilidade das informações e dados sendo intercambiados ao mesmo tempo em que a resiliência do sistema é melhorada através de uma arquitetura específica

Multi-bot Easy Control Hierarchy

The goal of our project is to create a software architecture that makes it possible to easily control a multi-robot system, as well as seamlessly change control modes during operation. The different control schemes first include the ability to implement on-board and off-board controllers. Second, the commands can specify either actuator level, vehicle level, or fleet level behavior. Finally, motion can be specified by giving a waypoint and time constraint, a velocity and heading, or a throttle and angle. Our code is abstracted so that any type of robot - ranging from ones that use a differential drive set up, to three-wheeled holonomic platforms, to quadcopters - can be added to the system by simply writing drivers that interface with the hardware used and by implementing math packages that do the required calculations. Our team has successfully demonstrated piloting a single robots while switching between waypoint navigation and a joystick controller. In addition, we have demonstrated the synchronized control of two robots using joystick control. Future work includes implementing a more robust cluster control, including off-board functionality, and incorporating our architecture into different types of robots

On topological cyclic homology

Topological cyclic homology is a refinement of Connes--Tsygan's cyclic homology which was introduced by B\"okstedt--Hsiang--Madsen in 1993 as an approximation to algebraic $K$-theory. There is a trace map from algebraic $K$-theory to topological cyclic homology, and a theorem of Dundas--Goodwillie--McCarthy asserts that this induces an equivalence of relative theories for nilpotent immersions, which gives a way for computing $K$-theory in various situations. The construction of topological cyclic homology is based on genuine equivariant homotopy theory, the use of explicit point-set models, and the elaborate notion of a cyclotomic spectrum. The goal of this paper is to revisit this theory using only homotopy-invariant notions. In particular, we give a new construction of topological cyclic homology. This is based on a new definition of the $\infty$-category of cyclotomic spectra: We define a cyclotomic spectrum to be a spectrum $X$ with $S^1$-action (in the most naive sense) together with $S^1$-equivariant maps $\varphi_p: X\to X^{tC_p}$ for all primes $p$. Here $X^{tC_p}=\mathrm{cofib}(\mathrm{Nm}: X_{hC_p}\to X^{hC_p})$ is the Tate construction. On bounded below spectra, we prove that this agrees with previous definitions. As a consequence, we obtain a new and simple formula for topological cyclic homology. In order to construct the maps $\varphi_p: X\to X^{tC_p}$ in the example of topological Hochschild homology we introduce and study Tate diagonals for spectra and Frobenius homomorphisms of commutative ring spectra. In particular we prove a version of the Segal conjecture for the Tate diagonals and relate these Frobenius homomorphisms to power operations

Motion coordination of a dual-arm mobile manipulator

The objective of the thesis is to create and implement a generic and modular layer, which encapsulates and coordinates the entire movement of the individual robots that the Mobile Anthropomorphic Dual-Arm Robot (MADAR) platform is made of, to used it in a task and motion planning research framework. As each device has different characteristics and functionalities, is it really important to take them into consideration when a coordinated and synchronized motion planning is wanted. This report tackles two main problems, first, the development of the necessary software for managing the hardware, and second, the synchronization and the control of the set of Real Time (RT) systems. The project uses Robot Operating Systems (ROS), which is a robotic software framework, in a clear and transparent way as a tool to develop the solution for the real hardware motion and communication problems. The framework created enables the user to interact easily with the available functionalities and services that expose the platform. To conclude, using the advantages that the presented solution offers, the project is able to complete a motion planning where the user can have a clear idea of the internal behavior of the involved systems and keep it under controlObjectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::9 - Indústria, Innovació i Infraestructur

Disseny i construcció d'una sonda atmosfèrica

The project consists of the construction of a functional meteorological probe, controlled by an Arduino microcontroller. This probe was design to measure pressure and temperature as functions of the altitude. This device is the first of its kind built at the EETAC, thus a considerable effort of requirement definition has been done. In the present report we describe how all the probesystems were designed, and all the necessary components as well as the reason why they were chosen are described. The resulting design is modular in order to facilitate future improvements/expansions.The steps necessary for the assembly of all the components in a common structure are detailed, as well as the choice of tools and materials. All the systems developed were tested simulating conditions similar to those expected in the real mission.Finally, after the construction and validation processes, all the materials and the tasks needed to launch the probe up to at an altitude of 35 km are detailed.The present report is intended to serve as a guide for futuresimilar projects in EETAC. The resulting device from this work is named FourCast after our surnames

Forces on bodies in an oscillatory flow

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