751 research outputs found
Wind Speed and Direction Detection by Means of Solid-state Anemometers Embedded on Small Quadcopters
This work describes the application of a compact, MEMS-based, 2D anemometer to the estimation of a quadrotor's airspeed. Correcting for the vehicle's ground speed provided by internal GPS and inertial units allows this low cost, mobile platform to provide local wind speed estimates. A series of initial, bench-top tests were performed to characterize and calibrate the sensor, which is an improved version of a recently proposed and novel device. Additional full-scale wind tunnel experiments were performed with the sensor mounted on a fixed quadrotor to test the effect of the propellers on the sensor's performance
From gridmap-file to VOMS: managing authorization in a Grid environment
Grids are potentially composed of several thousands of users from different institutions sharing their computing resources (or using resources provided by third parties). Controlling access to these resources is a difficult problem, as it depends on the policies of the organizations the users belong to and of the resource owners. Moreover, a simple authorization implementation, based on a direct user registration on the resources, is not applicable to a large scale environment. In this paper, we describe the solution to this problem developed in the framework of the European DataGrid [M. Draoli, G. Mascari, R. Piccinelli, Project Presentation, DataGrid-11-NOT-0103-_1] and DataTAG [http://www.datatag.org/] projects: the Virtual Organization Membership Service (VOMS) [R. Alfieri, et al., Managing Dynamic User Communities in a Grid of Autonomous Resources, TUBT005, in: Proceedings of the CHEP 2003, 2003]. VOMS allows a fine grained control of the use of the resources both to the users' organizations and to the resource owners
A Multimodal Sensory Apparatus for Robotic Prosthetic Feet Combining Optoelectronic Pressure Transducers and IMU
Timely and reliable identification of control phases is functional to the control of a powered robotic lower-limb prosthesis. This study presents a commercial energy-store-and-release foot prosthesis instrumented with a multimodal sensory system comprising optoelectronic pressure sensors (PS) and IMU. The performance was verified with eight healthy participants, comparing signals processed by two different algorithms, based on PS and IMU, respectively, for real-time detection of heel strike (HS) and toe-off (TO) events and an estimate of relevant biomechanical variables such as vertical ground reaction force (vGRF) and center of pressure along the sagittal axis (CoPy). The performance of both algorithms was benchmarked against a force platform and a marker-based stereophotogrammetric motion capture system. HS and TO were estimated with a time error lower than 0.100 s for both the algorithms, sufficient for the control of a lower-limb robotic prosthesis. Finally, the CoPy computed from the PS showed a Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.97 (0.02) with the same variable computed through the force platform
Managing Dynamic User Communities in a Grid of Autonomous Resources
One of the fundamental concepts in Grid computing is the creation of Virtual
Organizations (VO's): a set of resource consumers and providers that join
forces to solve a common problem. Typical examples of Virtual Organizations
include collaborations formed around the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
experiments. To date, Grid computing has been applied on a relatively small
scale, linking dozens of users to a dozen resources, and management of these
VO's was a largely manual operation. With the advance of large collaboration,
linking more than 10000 users with a 1000 sites in 150 counties, a
comprehensive, automated management system is required. It should be simple
enough not to deter users, while at the same time ensuring local site autonomy.
The VO Management Service (VOMS), developed by the EU DataGrid and DataTAG
projects[1, 2], is a secured system for managing authorization for users and
resources in virtual organizations. It extends the existing Grid Security
Infrastructure[3] architecture with embedded VO affiliation assertions that can
be independently verified by all VO members and resource providers. Within the
EU DataGrid project, Grid services for job submission, file- and database
access are being equipped with fine- grained authorization systems that take VO
membership into account. These also give resource owners the ability to ensure
site security and enforce local access policies. This paper will describe the
EU DataGrid security architecture, the VO membership service and the local site
enforcement mechanisms Local Centre Authorization Service (LCAS), Local
Credential Mapping Service(LCMAPS) and the Java Trust and Authorization
Manager.Comment: Talk from the 2003 Computing in High Energy and Nuclear Physics
(CHEP03), La Jolla, Ca, USA, March 2003, 7 pages, LaTeX, 5 eps figures. PSN
TUBT00
Assessment of intuitiveness and comfort of wearable haptic feedback strategies for assisting level and stair walking
Nowadays, lower-limb prostheses are reaching real-world usability especially on ground-level walking. However, some key tasks such as stair walking are still quite demanding. Providing haptic feedback about the foot placement on the steps might reduce the cognitive load of the task, compensating for increased dependency on vision and lessen the risk of falling. Experiments on intact subjects can be useful to define the feedback strategies prior to clinical trials, but effective methods to assess the efficacy of the strategies are few and usually rely on the emulation of the disability condition. The present study reports on the design and testing of a wearable haptic feedback system in a protocol involving intact subjects to assess candidate strategies to be adopted in clinical trials. The system integrated a sensorized insole wirelessly connected to a textile waist belt equipped with three vibrating motors. Three stimulation strategies for mapping the insole pressure data to vibrotactile feedback were implemented and compared in terms of intuitiveness and comfort perceived during level and stair walking. The strategies were ranked using a relative rating approach, which highlighted the differences between them and suggested guidelines for their improvement. The feedback evaluation procedure proposed could facilitate the selection and improvement of haptic feedback strategies prior to clinical testing
LARES/WEBER-SAT and the equivalence principle
It has often been claimed that the proposed Earth artificial satellite
LARES/WEBER-SAT-whose primary goal is, in fact, the measurement of the general
relativistic Lense-Thirring effect at a some percent level-would allow to
greatly improve, among (many) other things, the present-day (10^-13) level of
accuracy in testing the equivalence principle as well. Recent claims point
towards even two orders of magnitude better, i.e. 10^-15. In this note we show
that such a goal is, in fact, unattainable by many orders of magnitude being,
instead, the achievable level of the order of 10^-9.Comment: LaTex, 4 pages, no figures, no tables, 26 references. Proofs
corrections included. To appear in EPL (Europhysics Letters
VOMS, an Authorization System for Virtual Organizations
We briefly describe the authorization requirements, focusing on the framework of the DataGrid and DataTAG Projects and illustrate the architecture of a new service we have developed, the Virtual Organization Membership Service (VOMS), to manage authorization information in Virtual Organization scope
Charged kaon lifetime at KLOE
Preliminary result on the charged kaon lifetime, obtained by the KLOE
experiment operating at DANE, the Frascati -factory, is presentedComment: 3 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of 42nd Rencontres
de Moriond on Electroweak Interactions and Unified Theories, La Thuile, Aosta
Valley, Italy, 10-17 Mar 200
Measurement of hadronic cross section and preliminary results on the pion form factor using the radiative return at DAPHNE
In the fixed energy environment of the collider DANE, KLOE
can measure the cross section of the process hadrons as a
function of the hadronic system energy using the radiative return. At energies
below 1 GeV, is the dominating
hadronic process. We report here on the status of the analysis for the
e^{+}e^{-} \to \ppg channel, which allows to obtain a preliminary measurement
of the pion form factor using an integrated luminosity of .Comment: Invited talk at the Seventh International Workshop on Tau Lepton
Physics (TAU02-WE07), Santa Cruz, Ca, USA, Sept 2002, 9 pages, LaTeX, 9 eps
figure
A direct search for the CP-violating decay Ks->3p^0 with the KLOE detector at DAFNE
We have searched for the decay Ks->3p^0 with the KLOE experiment at DAFNE
using data from e^+ e^- collisions at a center of mass energy W= m(phi) for an
integrated luminosity L=450 pb^-1. The search has been performed with a pure Ks
beam obtained by tagging with Kl interactions in the calorimeter and detecting
six photons. We find an upper limit for the branching ratio of 1.2x10^-7 at 90%
C.L.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures. To be submitted to Physics Letter
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