Critical factors for success in university-industry research projects

This study provides insight into the reality of university-industry technology transfer through the assessment of some of the most influential factors for success or failure in research contracts. This widespread mechanism of technology transfer is examined in the light of exhaustive information and experience gathered from 30 interviews with qualified university researchers. The interviewees, who have been directly involved in collaborative projects with industry partners, have deeply described both sound and unsatisfactory cooperation cases, in order to explore which relevant circumstances have led to success or failure. The analysis drives to conclude that there are some features (beyond technological ones) related to the corporate partner's strategic and functional characteristics, which come to be decisive for success. For example, company's real interest and involvement during the technology transfer process, its capacity to assimilate new knowledge and a confident attitude towards the university research group are identified to be key elements for attaining an effective technology transfer. In this contribution, the importance of these aspects is contextualised and summarised in a model for successful technology transfer

CASanDRA: A framework to provide Context Acquisition Services ANd Reasoning Algorithms for Ambient Intelligence Applications

The development of ambient intelligence (AmI) applications usually implies dealing with complex sensor access and context reasoning tasks, which may significantly slow down the application development cycle when vertically assumed. To face this issue, we present CASanDRA, a middleware which provides easily consumable context information about a given user and his environment, retrieving and fusing data from personal mobile devices and external sensors. The framework is built following a layered service oriented approach. The output data from every CASanDRA's layer are fully accessible through semantic interfaces; this allows AmI applications to retrieve raw context features, aggregated context data and complex `images of context', depending on their information needs. Moreover, different query modes -subscription, event-based, continuous and on-demand- are available. The current `mobile-assisted' version of CASanDRA is composed by a CASanDRA Server, developed on an applications container and hosting the system intelligence, and CASanDRA Lite, a mobile client bundling a set of sensor level acquisition services. How an AmI application may be effortlessly built on CASanDRA is described in the paper through the design of an `Ambient Home Care Monitor'

Mobile Indoor Augmented Reality. Exploring applications in hospitality environments.

Augmented reality (AR) is been increasingly used in mobile devices. Most of the available applications are set to work outdoors, mainly due to the availability of a reliable positioning system. Nevertheless, indoor (smart) spaces offer a lot of opportunities of creating new service concepts. In particular, in this paper we explore the applicability of mobile AR to hospitality environments (hotels and similar establishments). From the state-of-the-art of technologies and applications, a portfolio of services has been identified and a prototype using off-the-shelf technologies has been designed. Our objective is to identify the next technological challenges to overcome in order to have suitable underlying infrastructures and innovative services which enhance the traveller?s experience

Real time calibration for RSS indoor positioning systems

Due to the random characteristics of the indoor propagation channel, received signal strength-based localization systems usually need to be manually calibrated once and again to guarantee their best performance. Calibration processes are costly in terms of time and resources, so they should be eliminated or reduced to a minimum. In this direction, this paper presents an optimization algorithm to automatically calibrate a propagation channel model by using a Least Mean Squares technique: RSS samples gathered in a number of reference points (with known positions) are used by a LMS algorithm to calculate those values for the channel model's constants that minimize the error computed by a hyperbolic triangulation positioning algorithm. Preliminary results on simulated and real data show that the localization error in distance is effectively reduced after a number of training samples. The LMS algorithm's simplicity and its low computational and memory costs make it adequate to be used in real systems

Comparison of Localization Methods Using Calibrated and Simulated Fingerprints for Indoor Systems Based on Bluetooth and WLAN Technologies

This paper compares two different localization algorithms to face the problem of indoor positioning using Bluetooth and WLAN technologies, which we have called: the fusion algorithm and the combination algorithm. The first algorithm is based on the construction of a fusion map using WiFi and Bluetooth power values. Considering the three lowest values of a defined distance, we compute the coordinates of the target point that we want to localize. In the second algorithm, the location determination is carried out independently with every single technology; then, results are combined to obtain a final estimated position. The performance of these methods has been tested experimentally using a simulated map and a real calibrated one. Using a real calibrated map, the localization errors obtained with the fusion algorithm are smaller than with the combination one, while when using a simulated map there is almost no difference between both algorithms. The results of the experiments made with the real calibrated map are a little better than using the simulated map, but the improvement obtained using the real map is not enough to confirm that using this one is worth, because of the effort necessary to build it

Dynamic chanel model LMS updating for RSS-based localization

Received signal strength-based localization systems usually rely on a calibration process that aims at characterizing the propagation channel. However, due to the changing environmental dynamics, the behavior of the channel may change after some time, thus, recalibration processes are necessary to maintain the positioning accuracy. This paper proposes a dynamic calibration method to initially calibrate and subsequently update the parameters of the propagation channel model using a Least Mean Squares approach. The method assumes that each anchor node in the localization infrastructure is characterized by its own propagation channel model. In practice, a set of sniffers is used to collect RSS samples, which will be used to automatically calibrate each channel model by iteratively minimizing the positioning error. The proposed method is validated through numerical simulation, showing that the positioning error of the mobile nodes is effectively reduced. Furthermore, the method has a very low computational cost; therefore it can be used in real-time operation for wireless resource-constrained nodes

Enhancing Interaction With Smart Objects Throught Mobile Devices

Interaction with smart objects can be accomplished with different technologies, such as tangible interfaces or touch computing, among others. Some of them require the object to be especially designed to be 'smart', and some other are limited in the variety and complexity of the possible actions. This paper describes a user-smart object interaction model and prototype based on the well known event-condition-action (ECA) reasoning, which can work, to a degree, independently of the intelligence embedded into the smart object. It has been designed for mobile devices to act as mediators between users and smart objects and provides an intuitive means for personalization of object's behavior. When the user is close to an object, this one publishes its 'event & action' capabilities to the user's device. The user may accept the object's module offering, which will enable him to configure and control that object, but also its actions with respect to other elements of the environment or the virtual world. The modular ECA interaction model facilitates the integration of different types of objects in a smart space, giving the user full control of their capabilities and facilitating creative mash-uping to build customized functionalities that combine physical and virtual action

An Agent Oriented Analysis and Modeling of Airborne Capabilities for Trajectory Based Operations

Current and future air traffic is requiring new procedures and systems to achieve a greater automation of air-traffic operations. Particular difficulty presents the automation of arrival air-traffic operations in terminal areas due to aircraft speeds and environment variability into a delimited airspace where multiple aircraft converge. Several projects have proposed guidelines to implement new operational concepts as well as airborne and ground systems to carry out corresponding procedures. Developing procedures and systems are closely related. Therefore, usually it requires to analyze and to design them in a combined manner. In this paper we present an agent-oriented analysis and modeling of airborne systems capabilities to perform automated arrival and approach procedures based on user preference trajectories. A detailed architecture model of airborne capabilities is achieved through a methodological analysis of an arrival traffic scenario within the trajectory based operations paradigm

Designing a Cockpit Functionalities Architecture for Trajectory Based Operations

Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) will require new procedures and systems to achieve a suitable automation of air traffic operations. Procedures and systems for automated operations are closely related and therefore frequently they need to be modeled in a combined way. Our group is currently employing recent agent-oriented methodological approaches to obtain conceptual models about TBO scenarios. Conceptual models define roles of air traffic entities as well as their interactions together with a detailed description of the entities’ architecture and dynamic behaviour. In this paper we present a cockpit functionality architecture built upon a methodological analysis and design of a TBO scenario as a multi-agent system. The proposed design has the advantage of mapping to an executable model for analytical simulation of TBO concepts and its modular architecture allows for a progressive integration of additional underlying models with specific functionalities

Designing a Framework to Handle Context Information

In the recent years, a number of context-aware frameworks have been proposed to facilitate the development of context-aware applications. From the experience gained, in this paper we explore the design principles that contextaware platforms should conform to, the functionalities they have to provide and the technologies and tools that can be used for their implementation. Subsequently, we propose a context-aware framework and describe the architecture it adopts, making our own technological selection from the options previously identified