Implementation of explosion safety regulations in design of a mobile robot for coal mines

The article focuses on specific challenges of the design of a reconnaissance mobile robotic system aimed for inspection in underground coal mine areas after a catastrophic event. Systems that are designated for these conditions must meet specific standards and regulations. In this paper is discussed primarily the main conception of meeting explosion safety regulations of European Union 2014/34/EU (also called ATEX-from French "Appareils destines a etre utilises en ATmospheres Explosives") for Group I (equipment intended for use in underground mines) and Category M1 (equipment designed for operation in the presence of an explosive atmosphere). An example of a practical solution is described on main subsystems of the mobile robot TeleRescuera teleoperated robot with autonomy functions, a sensory subsystem with multiple cameras, three-dimensional (3D) mapping and sensors for measurement of gas concentration, airflow, relative humidity, and temperatures. Explosion safety is ensured according to the Technical Report CLC/TR 60079-33 "s" by two main independent protections-mechanical protection (flameproof enclosure) and electrical protection (automatic methane detector that disconnects power when methane breaches the enclosure and gets inside the robot body).Web of Science811art. no. 230

The NASA SBIR product catalog

The purpose of this catalog is to assist small business firms in making the community aware of products emerging from their efforts in the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program. It contains descriptions of some products that have advanced into Phase 3 and others that are identified as prospective products. Both lists of products in this catalog are based on information supplied by NASA SBIR contractors in responding to an invitation to be represented in this document. Generally, all products suggested by the small firms were included in order to meet the goals of information exchange for SBIR results. Of the 444 SBIR contractors NASA queried, 137 provided information on 219 products. The catalog presents the product information in the technology areas listed in the table of contents. Within each area, the products are listed in alphabetical order by product name and are given identifying numbers. Also included is an alphabetical listing of the companies that have products described. This listing cross-references the product list and provides information on the business activity of each firm. In addition, there are three indexes: one a list of firms by states, one that lists the products according to NASA Centers that managed the SBIR projects, and one that lists the products by the relevant Technical Topics utilized in NASA's annual program solicitation under which each SBIR project was selected

Summary report for a hydrogen sensor workshop: Hydrogen safety sensors and their use in applications with hydrogen as an alternative fuel

On May 10, 2017, a Hydrogen Sensor Workshop was held in Brussels, Belgium. The workshop was jointly organised by the sensor test laboratories at the Joint Research Centre (Petten, Netherlands) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Golden, Colorado, United States), with assistance from the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking. The purpose of the workshop was to bring together stakeholders in the hydrogen community with an interest in hydrogen sensors, with a special focus on the ability of existing hydrogen sensor technology to meet end-user needs in applications for hydrogen as an alternative fuel. Participants included sensor manufacturers, end-users, and experts from sensor test laboratories. The main performance gaps hindering the deployment of hydrogen sensors were discussed. From the end-user perspective, numerous gaps were identified in which existing sensor performance capability does not fully meet their needs. For most safety applications, the metrological performance of current hydrogen sensors is adequate, but improvements are still needed. The most critical metrological gap remains sensor lifetime, which includes both the functionality (i.e., does the sensor work) of the sensor and long-term signal stability (i.e., does the sensor need to be recalibrated). Also, for many applications, such as process control and critical safety scenarios, faster response times and improved sensor accuracy are necessary. Maintenance and calibration requirements were identified as a key issue. Certification requirements of hydrogen safety sensors were also identified as a critical barrier. Sensor manufacturers noted that the cumbersome certification requirements can significantly impact sensor cost, especially for a limited market. The complex certification requirements also impacted end-users who often found that sensors with required listings are not available. Simplifying and harmonizing certification requirements were identified as a critical topic requiring further attention and support. In terms of standardisation, the performance requirements for sensors for automotive applications were also mentioned as a critical gap,JRC.C.1-Energy Storag

Structural health monitoring of offshore wind turbines: A review through the Statistical Pattern Recognition Paradigm

Offshore Wind has become the most profitable renewable energy source due to the remarkable development it has experienced in Europe over the last decade. In this paper, a review of Structural Health Monitoring Systems (SHMS) for offshore wind turbines (OWT) has been carried out considering the topic as a Statistical Pattern Recognition problem. Therefore, each one of the stages of this paradigm has been reviewed focusing on OWT application. These stages are: Operational Evaluation; Data Acquisition, Normalization and Cleansing; Feature Extraction and Information Condensation; and Statistical Model Development. It is expected that optimizing each stage, SHMS can contribute to the development of efficient Condition-Based Maintenance Strategies. Optimizing this strategy will help reduce labor costs of OWTs׳ inspection, avoid unnecessary maintenance, identify design weaknesses before failure, improve the availability of power production while preventing wind turbines׳ overloading, therefore, maximizing the investments׳ return. In the forthcoming years, a growing interest in SHM technologies for OWT is expected, enhancing the potential of offshore wind farm deployments further offshore. Increasing efficiency in operational management will contribute towards achieving UK׳s 2020 and 2050 targets, through ultimately reducing the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE)

Applications of wireless sensor technologies in construction

The construction industry is characterised by a number of problems in crucial fields such as health, safety and logistics. Since these problems affect the progress of construction projects, the construction industry has attempted to introduce the use of innovative information and communication technologies on the construction site. Specific technologies which find applicability on the construction site are wireless sensors, and especially radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology. RFID tagging is a technology capable of tracking items. The technology has been applied on the construction site for various applications, such as asset tracking. There are many problems related to health, safety and logistics on the construction site which could be resolved using RFID technology. In the health and safety field, the problems which exist are the monitoring of dangerous areas on the construction site, such as large excavation areas, the collisions between workers and vehicles, between vehicles and equipment and between vehicles, the detection of hazardous substances on the construction site when the construction work has been completed and the collection of hazard notifications from specific areas of the construction site as feedback for the prevention of future accidents. In the logistics field, the tracking of a material during its delivery on the construction site, its transportation to specific subcontractors and its future utilisation as well as the monitoring of the rate of use of materials on the construction site, the checking of the sequence of steel members and the monitoring of the temperature of porous materials are issues which can be realised using RFID technology. In order to facilitate the use of RFID technology for the specific health, safety and logistics problems, a system has been developed. The operation of this system is based on the combined use of hardware and software elements. The hardware elements of the developed system are a wireless local area network, RFID readers and tags. Its software elements are a software development kit based on which, a number of graphical user interfaces have been created for the interaction of the users with the REID tags, and Notepad files which store data collected from REID tags through the graphical user interfaces. Each of the graphical user interfaces is designed in such a way so that it corresponds to the requirements of the health, safety or logistics situation in which it is used. The proposed system has been tested on a simulated construction site by a group of experts and a number of findings have been produced. Specifically, the testing of the proposed system showed that RFID technology can connect the different stages which characterise the construction supply chain. In addition, it showed the capability of the technology to be integrated with construction processes. The testing of the system also revealed the barriers and the enablers to the use of RFID technology in the construction industry. An example of such a barrier is the unwillingness of the people of the construction industry to quit traditional techniques in favour of a new technology. Enablers which enhance the use of RFID technology in the construction industry are the lack of complexity which characterises the operation of RFID tagging and the relatively low cost of RFID tags. In general, RFID technology is an innovative sensor technology which can help the construction industry through its asset tracking ability. However, further research should be done on the improvement of RFID technology on specific characteristics, such as its inability to provide location coordinates and the resilience of the electromagnetic signal emitted by the RFID reader when there are metallic objects around the reader

NASA technology applications team: Applications of aerospace technology

This report covers the activities of the Research Triangle Institute (RTI) Technology Applications Team for the period 1 October 1992 through 30 September 1993. The work reported herein was supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Contract No. NASW-4367. Highlights of the RTI Applications Team activities over the past year are presented in Section 1.0. The Team's progress in fulfilling the requirements of the contract is summarized in Section 2.0. In addition to our market-driven approach to applications project development, RTI has placed increased effort on activities to commercialize technologies developed at NASA Centers. These Technology Commercialization efforts are summarized in Section 3.0. New problem statements prepared by the Team in the reporting period are presented in Section 4.0. The Team's transfer activities for ongoing projects with the NASA Centers are presented in Section 5.0. Section 6.0 summarizes the status of four add-on tasks. Travel for the reporting period is described in Section 7.0. The RTI Team staff and consultants and their project responsibilities are listed in Appendix A. Appendix B includes Technology Opportunity Announcements and Spinoff! Sheets prepared by the Team while Appendix C contains a series of technology transfer articles prepared by the Team

REU Site: Sensor Science and Engineering

This REU award for a Site on Sensors Science and Engineering supports 9 engineering and science students each year for three years in a 10-week summer research experience at the University of Maine. Students conduct research advancing their knowledge of engineering, chemistry, physics, and/or biology. The participants work with eleven UMaine researchers and benefit from access to specialized sensor science and engineering research facilities such as the Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology and National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis. The students are treated as junior colleagues and by the end of the summer function at least at the level of typical first-year graduate students. REU participants interact with faculty research mentors, graduate students, post-docs, technicians, visiting scientists, and middle- and high-school teachers. Such interactions help the students develop strong communication skills and the ability to work across disciplines as required in a growing number of professional environments. REU participants complete formal courses, INT 398, Undergraduate Research Participation, and ECE 465, Introduction to Sensors, make a presentation within a context similar to a national or international conference, and share results from their research experience at a middle or high school. Intellectual merit: The focus on sensor science and engineering research and interdisciplinary problem-solving is novel and contributes to the program\u27s intellectual merit. This focus builds on substantial research strengths at UMaine that have led to NSF-funded GK-12 (Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education) and RET (Research Experiences for Teachers) programs in sensor science and engineering. This program capitalizes upon past success with undergraduate training activities and efficiency in student recruitment and selection, assignment to faculty mentors, research supervision, and follow-up. Broader Impacts: Undergraduates utilize new knowledge to solve real-life research problems that impact society. This REU site specifically recruits women and minorities and provides research experiences for students from non-PhD-granting institutions. Three of the 11 senior research personnel are women who are especially well qualified to mentor female students. The site enhances the Nation\u27s infrastructure for research and education by bringing together faculty and students from diverse disciplines under the intellectual umbrella of sensor science and engineering. The program activities also ensure that multi-user facilities are sites of research and mentoring for significant numbers of science and engineering students. Specific research results are disseminated through campus presentations and more broadly through professional journals and symposia, enhancing scientific and technological understanding. Based on their interaction with RET participants and GK-12 fellows during their on-campus research assignments, REU participants share their research experiences with middle and high school students and teachers. Society will benefit as these undergraduates, as a result of their research experiences, choose to continue in graduate school or to excel in technologically and scientifically challenging careers that advance such areas as homeland security, food safety, transportation, communications, and medicine. This site is supported by the Department of Defense in partnership with the NSF REU program

Standardization Roadmap for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Version 2.0

This Standardization Roadmap for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Version 2.0 (“roadmap”) is an update to version 1.0 of this document published in December 2018. It identifies existing standards and standards in development, assesses gaps, and makes recommendations for priority areas where there is a perceived need for additional standardization and/or pre-standardization R&D. The roadmap has examined 78 issue areas, identified a total of 71 open gaps and corresponding recommendations across the topical areas of airworthiness; flight operations (both general concerns and application-specific ones including critical infrastructure inspections, commercial services, and public safety operations); and personnel training, qualifications, and certification. Of that total, 47 gaps/recommendations have been identified as high priority, 21 as medium priority, and 3 as low priority. A “gap” means no published standard or specification exists that covers the particular issue in question. In 53 cases, additional R&D is needed. As with the earlier version of this document, the hope is that the roadmap will be broadly adopted by the standards community and that it will facilitate a more coherent and coordinated approach to the future development of standards for UAS. To that end, it is envisioned that the roadmap will continue to be promoted in the coming year. It is also envisioned that a mechanism may be established to assess progress on its implementation

Fieldbus: Developing a Laboratory Prototype for Leaning Purposes

Trabalho apresentado no International Conference on Electronic Measurement and Instruments (ICEMI'2015), Julho 2015, Qingdao, ChinaThis paper presents a distributed control and measurement system based on the Foundation Field Bus protocol. A system’s prototype is described together with some implementation details and experimental results. The system also includes interfaces for conventional measurement and control devices that are connected through 4-20 mA current loops. The proposed prototype seems to be a very suitable solution for teaching purposes since it is an open solution that can be used to integrate devices from different manufacturers, as long as the prototype is provided with the appropriate interface.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio